Are people from the Romance speaking part of Switzerland considered Latin people?

Question

The Latin European or Romance European countries are Italy, France, Moldova, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City.

But what about the Romance-speaking parts of Switzerland? Switzerland has four national languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh.

Romansh is a Romance language spoken predominantly in the southeastern Swiss canton of Grisons, where it has official status alongside German and Italian. It is used as the medium of instruction in schools in Romansh-speaking areas. 

Answer 1

You can reasonably call anyone who speaks a Latin-derived language a "Latin person," but most people don't do this.

Answer 2

They are Swiss.

Answer 3

There is no such thing anywhere as a "Latin person". There are people in many parts of the world (including South America) who speak the so-called Romance languages (derived from Latin, the language of the Romans from about 2500 years ago onwards). In Switzerland three of the four official languages are Romance languages - French, Italian, and Romansh (German is the other official language).



Ethnicities across Europe are very mixed, and only a fool would try to claim that, for instance "The French have only 'French' background". In fact, if you looked at a map of Europe of 120 years ago, many of the countries in central and eastern Europe would be unrecognisable compared with the countries in that area on a modern map. Less than 30 years ago 17 countries in eastern Europe or just beyond its border were newly created or seriously redefined. Even the border of Europe itself moved 100 miles northwards in the Caucasus mountains at that time.



By the way - you omitted Andorra from your list of "Romance" countries of Europe. And note that linguistic "borders" seldom conform to the present national borders, thus any list of "Romance" countries hides the fact of pockets of people within those countries who speak other languages. You also omitted Belgium, which has a large minority (about one third of its population) which speaks a version of French.



Spain is not monoglot Spanish speaking - there is the Basque district which speaks a language of its own which is not known to have any related languages anywhere else on Earth.



Etc, etc!

Answer 4

When you use the word "considered,"you invite opinions. It depends on who is doing the considering.



Nationality, ethnicity, native language and citizenship have different definitions by different people. I ski in the Dolomites in Italy and people there might speak German (South Tirol) Italian or Ladin at home. They are all Italian citizens.



https://www.omniglot.com/writing/ladin.htm



The phrase, "Latin people" has a long history. Technically, I believe it applies only to "The Latins," --- people who spoke Latin in antiquity --- and their descendants, but by extension to everyone today who speaks a Romance language at home.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latins



Ladin is similar to Romansh. I believe they may be descended from ancient Italic languages and not Roman soldiers. Vulgar Latin was never a single language. Roman soldiers spoke various Italic languages. Even now, in Italy, not everyone speaks Italian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy



My own genealogy relates to this situation. I am descended from Pierre Robert, a French-speaking person who came to what is now the US from Switzerland.

From church records:



Pierre Robert, II,

Birth date, December 30, 1655

Birthplace:St. Imier, Neuchatel Canton, Switzerland

Death date:1715

Place of death French Santee, St. James Parish, South Carolina, Presently in the United States



South Carolina people are like Chinese: We eat rice and worship our ancestors.



The Robert family was originally from Wales, but came through Switzerland because of religious persecution. They became Swiss, but the most important thing to them was that they were Huguenots. Being Swiss, Welsh and anything else was secondary. This is similar to the Puritans, who came to Plymouth through Netherlands.



What people "consider" may be very important.



The Nazi "considered" people to be Jews based on the number of Jewish grandparents. The Israeli "Law of return," based on Jewish tradition, "considers" a person to be a Jew if his mother was a Jew. It was possible to be considered to be a Jew by the Nazi, but rejected by the Jews because one Jewish grandparent was male. I knew such a person. I am glad he survived. He had a good sense of humor.



Israel has just joined the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language because of Ladino,

Judeo Spanish is still spoken in parts of Europe but it is not to be confused with Ladin.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaeo-Spanish

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Academies_of_the_Spanish_Language



Ladino is a recognized minority language in Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Israel and Turkey.

Answer 5

No, they are considered to be Swiss people who speak either French or Italian.

Answer 6

Italian is also a romance language. The term Romance comes from the Vulgar Latin adverb romanice, "in Roman", derived from Romanicus: for instance, in the expression romanice loqui, "to speak in Roman" as opposed to "to speak in Latin". The proper term for romance speakers is hhe Italic peoples which are an Indo-European ethnolinguistic group identified by their use of Italic languages of which Latin is one.

Answer 7

No, they are not: but then, neither are most of the people of the other countries that you list.



It is wholly inaccurate to call the people of these countries "Latin people"; the only correct or meaningful descriptor is "Romance-language-speaking people" That is, people in these countries *speak a Romance language*, i.e. one derived from ancient Latin. It is purely a linguistic descriptor, and is quite unrelated to ethnicity; the language is the only thing that connects these countries. *Some* of the people of *some* of those countries are of "Latin" ethnicity, but many of them are not.



So no, Romansch-speakers are not "Latin people" - but neither are Romanians, Moldavians or the people of most of France.

Answer 8

No, because no one divides people into Latin, or Germanic.

Answer 9

No, they are considered Swiss.

Answer 10

A person's ethnicity is not determined by the language that person speaks. Switzerland lies at the center of Europe. Its people have been forged over centuries of Roman, Germanic, Gallic and other influences. The languistic divisions of Switzerland come from its complex geography, not so much its history. In the mountains and valleys that border German-speaking areas, German became the major language. In areas that bordered French-speaking or Italian-speaking areas, those languages came into common use. Romansch survived in the isolated mountains and valleys of the canton where it is spoken. It's not as though everyone who speaks English is Anglo-Saxon, nor is everyone who speaks German Teutonic or everyone who speaks French Gallic. People from Romance countries are GENERALLY of a different stock than those of Teutonic or Slavic countries, but Central Europe, most of Europe really, is an amalgam. The border between the Netherlands and France, France and Germany has not remained fixed.

Answer 11

No. Romance languages, group of related languages all derived from Vulgar Latin within historical times and forming a subgroup of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family.

Answer 12

No, luv, they're Swiss. In fact some people who speak Romansch, seem to think they are the only 'true' Swiss left in Switzerland.

Answer 13

Ok