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Mi ysgrifennodd Jan van Steenbergen:
Two factors to consider: *there* "Rhaeto-Romance" as it is *here* does not exist- it's wholly replaced by Jelbazech.No RR? Aaaaargh!!! Does it really have to be that way? I like RR so much! Couldn't it be that under the Helvetian violence all Rumantsch speakers emigrated to Liechtenstein?
:oD Well, no unfortunately. Also, I doubt Ladin is the same *there* as *here*, see below.
Anyway, perhaps Rumantsch has been replaced by Jelbazech, but I suppose Ladin and Friulian must be still there...Also, J. is definately Eastern Romance in character, being essentially derived from the dialects spoken in Raetia, Germania Superior, Alpes Poeninae and (to a certain extent) Noricum.In that case, it might be an idea to classify both Jelbazech and Lessinu (the two seem to have a lot in common, notably the German soundchange) into a common subcategory of II. Central (or North) Romance.
Again, I would say no <Dan turns into a complete spoilsport>. *Linguistically*, from what I can tell, they simply don't fit together- Lessinu is simply a lot more archaic than Jelbazech. It should be remembered that the so-called "Germanic" features of Jelbazech are fairly superficial- they're more like areal features (a fairly neat paralell is the existance of [@] and [1] in Romanian and Bulgarian) rather than fundamental defining features[1]. According to the IB Wiki, the ancestors of Lessinu-speakers fled the Empire during the reign of Domitian, essentially cutting them off from the common Romance sound-changes after the first century CE. While J is certainly fairly archaic, due to being spoken in a peripheral area of the Empire[2], it's no more so than Romanian, and participated in near four centuries of common Romance sound changes which Lessinu missed out on. The two may be superficially similar, but that's about as far as it goes.
As for Ladin, hmm. Really, *here* Ladin is mutualy intelligible with Rhaeto-Romance, and can be considered dialects of one another. *There*, I think that Ladin would in fact be a dialect (or a language closely related to) Jelbazech. It's worth noting that Jelbazech did not undergo the intervocalic lenition of voiceless stops (as Western Romance languages did), and that the "Middle High German Consonant Shift (MHGCS)" is a later areal borrowing, which is not universally applied across the country's dialect continuum, being strongest in the north (especially around the Lake Constance area). Standard Jelbazech is based on the dialect of Wï¿œren, in the north, and so the MHGCS is fairly widespread. In the dialects of the south and east, however, the MHGCS is nearly wholly absent, with generally only t > ts being affected. So, a language similar to Ladin may be spoken *there*, but it would be far more Eastern Romance in character.
[1] For comparison, here's part of the Strasbourg Oath in Old Jelbazech (circa 1000 CE) and Modern Jelbazech.
"Per amorem de deus e cristiano poplem e nostre selbatson cumonala, de eccestem jurnem inante, quomo deus me sapeir e poter dat, sei ai selbar ecest meu fratre Carlos in ajutem e totas causas.
Pfe amuren del Gotz e len nustren selbï¿œzunen cumunï¿œl e cristjanen pfoflen, de jechest jurnen enantz, comu il Gotz me dei sï¿œfeir e pfozer, sei selbarei jechest mun fratre Karl in ajuzen e zuze cuse."
Take away the Middle High German consonant shift and you have a fairly bog standard romance language.
[2] A large number of Helvetia's inhabitants at the time of the fall of the Empire were in fact refugees fleeing Raetia, Noricum and so on from the Huns (and other assorted barbarians). The language they brought with them, which spread to the natives, was distinctly Eastern Romance in character, the main "archaic" feature being a slightly different vowel-system.
-- Ry'n ni yma o hyd, Er gwaetha pawb a phopeth.