Rhaetian

The Romansh of Graubünden, the Ladins of the Dolomites and the Friulians are often grouped together by linguists as speakers of related languages. Romansh was once spoken far north into Glarus and St. Gallen, but German spread through the Rhine valley, and Chur turned German after a fire in 1465.

Gian Travers wrote the first surviving Romansh work in 1527. The Ladins lived under the Tyrolean counts and the bishops of Brixen. Friuli was ruled by the Patriarch of Aquileia until Venice annexed it in 1420.