Can An Italian Understand Romansh? Gosh! That was something!

[@GenericUsername1388]

It's a shame Romansh has so few native speakers. I hope we can revive this unique language

[@SaadAltuilaai]

Europe need fewer languages. If Latin dies so can Romansh.

[@GenericUsername1388]

@@SaadAltuilaai why do you think? In my opinion languages and cultures should be preserved.

[@JP-vj7fp]

@@SaadAltuilaaiI think someone named Saad should keep his mouth shut about what Europe needs.

[@goatfarmmb]

there is another almost died out language in Switzerland only spoken in the City of Bern called Matten Englisch

[@thomasruhm1677]

I am working on a local revival.

[@bastiwen]

From what I've heard, some Portuguese people who come to Switzerland in the canton of Grisons/Graubunden actually choose to learn Romansch instead of the Swiss-German spoken there because they find it easier.

[@finngaudenz6389]

True

[@kora4185]

Ha that’s my parents 😁 my mom only spoke Portuguese and my dad Spanish when having to move to Zuoz for awhile, so they chose to learn Romansh instead (and eventually Italian), never German or English as they think is too complicated

[@dioxygene]

Même en parlant Portugais et espagnol, avec Français comme langue maternelle, je pense que ce serait plus simple d'apprendre cette le Romanche plutôt que l'Allemand, m^em en ne comprenant rien du Romanche dans cette video, au moins il y a des bases communes

[@pyrenaea3019]

Fun fact: Swiss people voted for this language to become the national one. Unfortunately that referendum seemed only to have symbolic value.

[@FlagAnthem]

It is so fable very few would get an unfair advantage Well played

[@evernightcg9081]

In the respective regions, government related paperwork is all done in Rumantsch actually.

[@redskytitan]

It should be made mandatory to learn in all schools in Switzerland. That way it can be revived and actually used in government and other public settings.

[@Flugs0]

"a national one", not "the national one"

[@Flugs0]

@@redskytitan No, it certainly shouldn't

[@TheantireviewCh]

My wife is a native romansh speaker, while I am a native italian speaker. I guess having a background in swiss italian (and it's dialect) helped me a lot while learning this beautiful language. FYI there are five distinct "idioms" (similar to a dialect) in the romansh language. For instance my wife speaks vallader which is from the lower Engadin region, close to the austrian and italian borders. Great video! I enjoyed it a lot!

[@thomasruhm1677]

I too want a wife who speaks Vallader. Does she have a sister?

[@baumgrt]

As a German-speaking Swiss person, I’ve heard Rumantsch quite a few times, mostly on TV (there’s a news and a kid’s programme for maybe 30-45 minutes per day on the publicly funded German channel SRF1, which is officially not accessible from outside of Switzerland, though; there’s also the publicly funded Rumantsch radio channel RTR). To give a reference, I learned French, Latin, English and some Spanish. With this background, I have a fairly ok-ish understanding of what’s being talked about e.g. in the news programme, although there’s usually a lot of visual context clues that help along. Some insights I have in regards to the content discussed here: 1. The palatalisation in “chasa” doesn’t occur in all dialect groups (“idioms” is what they’re called by the native speakers). 2. There are occasional German loan words, like “aber” (“but”, as noted by another commentator) or “pur” (“farmer”, which is less obvious and stems from Swiss German dialect forms “pu(u)r/bu(u)r” of standard German “Bauer”), but not so many that I think knowledge of German would improve understanding in any relevant way. 3. “Bellezza” indeed means “beauty” in most cases, but can in some varieties be used as an elative form of “bel”. The form in the video seems to be rather obscure and confined to the Engadin/Engiadina area (source: dicziunari Rumantsch Grischun, online.drg.ch, linguistic content in German).

[@TyrionLannister83]

Same here. I'm swiss german and I only know a little french and no other romance languages. But I'm still able to understand 30-40% of the Rumantsch TV programs. Maybe it's because the pronunciation of some words is closer to german, because it's easier to unterstand the context if accompanied by pictures or because news speakers generally have a very clear pronunciation.

[@ekszentrik]

Yes I can confirm as. German Swiss purely via linguistic osmosis and speaking French, I understand maybe 20% of what is being said, maybe 30-40% in writing. But obviously "foreign" people understanding does not per se revitalize a language.

[@THomasHH]

I’m northern German and I didn’t understand almost nothing. I can’t see how these words are like High German. Maybe @metatron should try actual German. It doesn’t sound anything like Romansch. Interesting 🤔

[@patrickm3981]

@@THomasHH It sounds very similar to some southern German dialects. Probably it is even the other way around, that these southern German dialects sound like Romansch. In the past the region where Romansch was spoken was a lot bigger. It reached for example up to Vorarlberg (Austria). It went extinct there several centuries ago but the pronunciation of the dialects sound very similar to Romansch. Actually there are even a few Romansch words still used in the dialect. In addition I assume that in some parts of Switzerland there might be even more Romansch words remaining. The process where German replaced Romansch took centuries and is still ongoing. Therefore in some regions a lot less time has passed since it went extinct.

[@rafalkaminski6389]

Schon sounds also german 😅

[@MrRabiddogg]

I wonder how it would turn out if you did a react video to one of Ecolinguist's videos where like 3-4 people get together who speak similar languages try to communicate in order to see which of the participants you understand the best in their native language.

[@corinna007]

Bahador Alast has good videos too.

[@tcbbctagain572]

As a portuguese I highly suggest you to please listen to Azorean or Madeiran portuguese.... You'll love it

[@brunobengala2766]

😂😂 and you won’t understand one word. We ourselves struggle if we’re from the mainland.

[@ThatManFromGermany]

As a German speaker with no prior knowledge of Romansh I would guess, that the last guy comes from Switzerland just because of the pronunciation of his 'i', it's was pronounced very "pointy" in the word 'circa', as well as the trilled/flapped 'r', which is to my German ear very typical for Swiss-German. And I also concur, some of the words sounded like Italian with a very strong German accent. Fascinating stuff! Thanx for those videos, your fascination with this is almost palatable.

[@matthewford8857]

please don't take this negatively.....as a native english speaker i would like to impart a little information. I believe the last word you meant to type should be palpable instead of palatable. palatable means able to be eaten or digested. palpable means tangible or able to be felt. Although most of my fellow americans probably don't know the difference. Sorry if this was a douche move.

[@matthewford8857]

i want to add that they both make sense but the first way seems sarcastic.

[@allennewborn936]

@@matthewford8857 Don't take this negative either, but I'm sure there was no need to correct this person. It was quite understandable. Palatable means consumable too, so, it's not just eating, as words can be "consumed" as well.

[@ThatManFromGermany]

@@matthewford8857I guess the mobile autocorrect got me there.

[@gj1234567899999]

As someone who doesn’t speak any Romance languages but have a vague feeling of how each language “sounds” Romansh sound like Portuguese

[@jandeolive6007]

I have also the same feeling, but probably not so vague😊. The older speaker, in some instances sounds very close to Euro Portuguese, which is very interesting. Perhaps explainable by the Suevian or Celtic influences...🤫 kzbin.info/www/bejne/pGjJe3WLfZZ9eac

[@vitorjpereira2547]

Portuguese is my native language. Yes, I agree with you.

[@shrektheswampless6102]

can you do corsican next?

[@moniquemonicat]

Romansh was used in Cercino, village in Valtellina in Italian Alps, my dad (RIP) spoke it. It seems like a lost language today, as most all Italians who spoke it are now passed away. Makes sense because this area of Italy used to be Switzerland hundreds of years ago. Not sure which dialect or group my dad spoke, but "cat" "gatto" was spelled "gat" in Romansh and to hear it spoken it sounded like German to me more than Italian; and "ponte" was pronounced "punt" (pronounced: poont) but I don't know how it was spelled. Those are the only 2 Romansh words I remember learning from my dad, although all the Romansh words that do sound Italian had the vowels removed at the end of the words and it sounded like Italian mixed with German. Thank you for this video! All your videos are interesting.

[@shrektheswampless6102]

sounds like a german trying to speak italian but failing miserably

[@someinteresting]

Germanic people trying to speak Latin and failing miserably is the history of the Romance languages in a nutshell. Seriously, they took all the wrong forms that the late Antiquity dictionaries warned about, e.g. “it is said semper, not siemper”.

[@igamingmp1526]

Isn't that basically what Spanish came from?

[@shrektheswampless6102]

@@someinteresting at least in Italian is sempre 😅

[@GenericUsername1388]

​@@igamingmp1526nah Spanish is more like Celtic people forced to speak Italian and failing miserably

[@jonathansoko1085]

Do any of y'all know how the Swiss people identify? Do they feel Latin or Germanic as a ppl?

[@monicabello3527]

Easy peasy for me🤣I used to listen to the news in Romansch. Greetings from Insubria (just next door to Raetia).

[@noamto]

The 'tch' pronounciation of C in the beginning of a word also developed in French, just in modern French the pronunciation became 'sh'. And with the 'ts' pronunciation of C before front vowels, that was also how it was pronounced during the middle ages in pretty much all Romance languages west of Italy

[@irene8564]

Swiss-german here. Metatron, ask your Furlan father, what he would understand. When I was a little girl, we went on a schooltrip in that region. I heard a handyman say to another handyman: Ciapa! It means like "catch it" (maybe he threw something to the other man), like 'tieni' in italian. I was so surprised, because my father is also Furlan. They say "ciapa" exact the same. By the way, to say "buongiorno", in some areas they say "Bundi", and in other, they say "Biendi". There are slightly differences in raetoromantsch (sursilvan, surmeirisch and others).

[@tic-tacdrin-drinn1505]

"ciapa" is the same in Milanese, Lombard: it means 'prendi' it's not so far from Italian "acchiappa" (verb acchiappare, that is also similar to "catch"

[@irene8564]

@@tic-tacdrin-drinn1505 Oh, thank you! Interesting! I didn't know that italian word! 👍🏼 My first language is german.

[@Yoshi-vq3og]

So, the "slight differences" may not be that small once you visit Engiadina xD Surmiran and Sursilvan are... kind of close? But you can't forget Vallader and Puter! those are probly the hardest for Sursilvan Speakers. (and there's Sutsilvan, that one would probably be the closest to Sursilvan)

[@fasullamail]

Hi, as a native Furlan speaker I can't say I've understood much more than him... Very difficult. In comparison Ladin feels easier, thou not easy at all to me, too.

[@FrancescoRossi-q4s]

PS. The name of the canton of Graubünden - Grisons in Romansh is Chantun Grischun and in Italian Canton Grigioni. The name derives from the mediaeval Grey Leagues.

[@rickgold4854]

The language sounds more Italian to me than French.

[@RomaCatholica]

Talian is a dialect of Venetian, but it's considered a language by law. Could you do Talian (Brazilian venetian)?

[@viictor1309]

Up!

[@12ze34]

Sonds like a mix of French, German and Italian. Interesting!

[@paulgutman-o2c]

I would like to see you do a video comparing Italian with Corsican. Unfortunately, many younger Corsicans don't speak the language natively and pronounce it with a very strong Metropolitan French accent, but older speakers who actually speak it as their mother tongue pronounce it correctly and I think it's a beautiful language. In fact, one of my favorite singers (Petru Guelfucci) is a Corsican speaker and he has a beautiful voice. Non parlo molto italiano ma lo capisco bene.

[@ayyyyylmao]

Hey glad to see you came around to this one. You're totally right at 05:53 not all dialects have the german sounding r sound, there's some that pronounce it just like you would in italian (that goes for the rumantsch and for the german speakers)

[@juanpiedrahita-garcia5138]

Please try gallego!

[@transporter8501]

In the Romanian language we have the same pronunciation differences. In the southern part of Muntenia, where the capital Bucharest is located, they say "cinci' (5) in the eastern part in the area of ​​Moldova (one part is the Republic of Moldova and the other is in Romania) they say șinși (shinshi ).Although despite some small differences in pronunciation, the Romanian from the east is perfectly understood with the one from the west and so on.

[@bramantyoprahoro7284]

Romanian looked like Latin in Slavic cloth while Rumantsch looked like Germanized Latin.

[@sandrascheir4536]

Native swiss german speaker here with an italian mom. I speak both languages. ca. (cirka) is also pronounced in German with a ts and a strong k. it is clearly German.

[@VitorEmanuelOliver]

Brazilian people say "Bellezza" too, but not to compliment. We use this word to greet each other lol

[@hirsch4155]

I’ve heard Brazilian women say Linda to each other upon greeting but maybe I heard wrong ?

[@VitorEmanuelOliver]

@@hirsch4155 maybe they were saying "oi Linda". The kinda thing some women say to each other to sound friendly but seems quite insincere

[@VitorEmanuelOliver]

@@hirsch4155 and that assumes they already knew each other. No way they would have said that to someone they just met

[@hirsch4155]

@@VitorEmanuelOliver Yeah I think it was that, what they said, I knew that word Linda what it means so I thought it was odd as a greeting(from my perspective as a northerner) but I guess like you say it’s kind of a friendly icebreaker among women .

[@elvenatheart982]

You sound like a very kind person😊😊

[@MarcioNSantos]

You have the series of Portuguese and Spanish variations. So, I have a suggestion: Galician ("galego" in Galician). This language is a good mix of Portuguese and Spanish. Actually in the past it was much more Portuguese like, nowadays it's getting much more influenced by Spanish, since it's spoken in Galicia, Spain.

[@MarcioNSantos]

People here in Brazil usually say that Galician is easier to understand for a Brazilian than European Portuguese.

[@diogorodrigues747]

The language is not a mix, it's much closer to Portuguese than to Spanish. I sincerely doubt that Galicians and Brazilians would have a better time understanding each other compared to Portuguese and Brazilians. First there are many Portuguese accents and some are better understood for Brazilians than others (like the Northern accents, and specially the accents from the Minho region, of European Portuguese). Second, it's not a reciprocal thing as Galicians actually have an hard time understanding coloquial Brazilian Portuguese.

[@MarcioNSantos]

@@diogorodrigues747 Sorry, I used a too simple way to communicate my thoughts. I know that Galician is not a mix between Portuguese and Spanish. I know it's a language by itself, originated from Galician-Portuguese. So, of course it's much more similar to Portuguese. I was writing about Brazilians understanding Galicians, not the opposite. And course that if you use a lot of slangs and colloquial expressions would be much harder to understand any similar languages.

[@canneberegerouge1]

Please don't forget to try Quebec French that would be fun to see.

[@TheZapan99]

Seeing Metatron trying to understand a François Pérusse sketch would be epic.

[@DionysianLovecraftian]

Romansh seems to have a lot of German influences.

[@Santeria78]

But no German words

[@fab006]

@@Santeria78 Some German words, although they tend to be borrowed from the local dialect rather than Standard German, such as “pur” for “Bauer (farmer)” in the video. But the main influence does seem to be in pronunciation, intonation, stress etc.

[@theChaosKe]

As a german speaker from germany with no knowledge of italian, to me it sounded like a heavy swiss german accent speaker trying to speak italian.

[@Twisted_Logic]

I always thought of Romansh as a sort of cousin to English, or maybe a mirrored twin. What with English being a Germanic language with strong Romance influences on its vocabulary and Romansh being a Romance language with strong Germanic influences on its vocabulary.

[@oleksijm]

Germanic vocabulary influence on Romansh is nowhere near as strong as Romance vocabulary influence on English. The (Swiss) German influence, as far as I can tell, has affected the pronunciation, prosody, and certain grammar characteristics much more.

[@RobinHood-tw4se]

Please try Proto-Italic next and maybe Proto-Celtic, as they are said to be related.

[@MarceloRodrigues1]

Metatron, about the ts in circa: if you study medieval iberian romance languages you'll find out that this ts was the middle stage of mutation between the hard C of latim and the actual s or th sound of C in both portuguese and Spanish. For that same reason the ç was created during the time the Visigoths were ruling the peninsula - it helped differentiate Ca /ka/ from ça /tsa/. So in Portuguese for instance the word "Praça" (plazza in italian) would be prounounced at that time /pratsa/ and eventually it would evolve to the /prasa/ pronunciation of today. Like weise "Certo" was not pronounce as /serto/ as today but /tserto/. So, not to say that there is no connection to German in the case of Romansh but it could very well just be that it retained a older pronunciation that was once more wide spread.

[@cantthinkofabettername7016]

10:41 - this may actually be an influence from German, since they say "zirka". This is quite common for Swiss Rumantsch speakers, since virtually all of them do also speak German / Swiss German. You can see this in 4:07, where he says "aber" for "but".

[@thomasruhm1677]

You may know, but for the others I add that in Latin words they use about the same pronunciation that German has.

[@ObvsCam93]

Very interesting that Romansh seems to have gone through the same palatalisation process as French, "chaza" and "chez". In general, I could hear the Gallo Romance flavour as it reminded me of Lombard, Occitan etc but the development of the Latinate vocabulary made it very unusual. Could anybody explain why it was "una chaza bellezzas", is that a case ending?

[@tartufo4870]

Languages that nobody heard of 😲 ,good job dude,amazing 👏👍💯%

[@fabianpatrizio2865]

A Roman centurion got lost in a German forest abound 150 AD. ...and stayed :)

[@nusvivin6905]

Romansh is in fact older than italian. The roman legions mixed our mother tongue "raetii" (celtic). Now we have "Rätoromanisch" (5 idioms and we dont understand eachother but anyway we are in love)

[@KommentarSpaltenKrieger]

Yeah this language sounds like its completely surrounded by Swiss German. It is even reflected in the orthography. The pronounciation of the "c" in "circa" might also be attributed to this fact. Very interesting.

[@ImaginatorJoren]

Wow a language I’ve actually never heard of!

[@stellador]

My previous comments have disappeared, so I'll try yet again: Thank you for this video! I could understand as much as you, i.e. not much. I'm sure that if you had a go at Dolomite Ladin, you'd understand 60-70 percent. Some use the uvular R there, some the trilled R. I'd be thrilled to see a video about that. Anyway, please, keep up the good work!

[@philippbrogli779]

I've heard that some Portuguese immigrants learn Romansh as they have to learn at least one national language if they want to live here and this one is the easiest for them.

[@St.Smitty]

This series is my favorite thing!! 😭👍🏻

[@paul1780]

Surprised Metatron hasn't collaborated with Linguriosa (there personality and energy would be fun to see bounce off each other), and or Liga Romanica and vice versa. Even though they have an Italian speaker it'd be fun to see World's collide. Like when you're favorite movie pundits like Chris Stuckman and John Flickinster (?) appear in each other's videos, or Armchair Historian and Emperor Tiger Star, Monsieur Z and Alternative History Hub. I'd like to see Metatron collab with other linguists and history enthusiast.

[@KarlKarsnark]

A similar "c" --> "ch-"/"tsch-" shift can be found in German words like "Tschüss", as well. I could even hear the "German"-ness in his accent and cadence, as well. It makes sense that all of the "Alpine" languages would have some similar characteristics though.

[@giorgiodifrancesco4590]

"Chasa/chaso" can be found in some italian versions of occitan, in Piedmont, too. I think the "German"-ess is a quite recent superstrate, which dates back to a maximum of five centuries.

[@FrancescoLuigiRossi]

The German-ness is because they are bilingual.

[@fwc2047]

Try also with the Italian Ladin(s) maybe...but be warned that it will be fairly hard too!

[@BB-ih6nc]

Also in some subdialects of Romanian the ci/ce is pronounced as tci/tce sometimes giving the impression of a ts sound, especially when doing baby talk like one would with a dog for example. You may hear someone say „măi tse fats” to a dog or cat or maybe even a baby😆

[@gierinarpagaus4160]

Some random fun facts about my native language, Romontsch sursilvan: - Some of our actual words like nuorsa (sheep), crap (stone), tegia (hut), camon (box in a stable) and muschna (stone pile) are old, pre-Roman words. - The name of a local type of tree is "Schiember". This tree grows (only) in higher alpine regions. Therefore, many languages, including Latin, don' t have a name for it. So not only our name for this tree but also the scientific name "Pinus cembra" are based on a pre-Roman word. - Where I grow up, we pronounce the "r" like the Italians: fra or frar (brother) sounds like the italian fra or fraro. Only a few kilometers away, people speak the exact same dialect as I do. But they pronounce the "r" like the French. Their "r" in frar sound like those in frère. - The "german" words Föhn, Gletscher and Lawine are actually romansh words. Föhn (hot, dry wind or hairdryer): The latin "favonius" became the romansh "fuogn" and was eventually adopted as Föhn. Same story with Gletscher (glacier) and Lawine (avalanche): Latin origin, then romansh word "glatscher" / "lavina", then adopted. Btw. In our region we write "cerca" and pronounce it like "zerca", not like "zirca". Source and more for german - speakers: www.vocabularisursilvan.ch/index.php

[@Yoshi-vq3og]

"Dasch" I think is also preroman, meaning something like "fir branch".

[@stefanodadamo6809]

It's frustrating to us Lombards, despite understanding our native language, finding Romansh still quite hard and foreign. I think the reasons are political. Our dialect grew into an Italian cultural sphere, the Romansh varieties had to contend with an emphatically German-speaking environment from the late Middle Ages onwards.

[@nicolocrippa8514]

The fundamental reason behind the different development of Lombard and Romansh is geographical. Lombard developed within the Po basin while Romansh within the Rhine basin with mountains inbetween. What you said about the cultural sphers is also true, but even that aspect is mainly a consequence of geography.

[@Monkeymeep]

I find it so interesting that the countries next to italy speak latin languages that are very difficult for italians to understand and yet spanish is a country over is easier for italians to understand.

[@maxniederer181]

The sad part is that i couldnt find books that teach the language. Otherwuse i would be able to learn it, because I speak Cjarniel as well as swiss german. I have always wanted to learn it...

[@Isaiah_Rude0925]

Hahahaha my American brain interpreted the "not bellezas" as "not beautiful"

[@alestev24]

Please do Corse and Ladin as well. 👍

[@mrclean29]

It sounds like a mix of French, German and Trentino or Lombard dialects.

[@elisabettamacghille4623]

I think the Longobards almost spoke like this after the first hundred years they were here ..

[@stgirat]

Native Rumantsch speaker here. Problem is, that this Idiom spoken in the App at the beginning and by Daniel, is the one which is furthest away from Italian. It's called Sursilvan and is spoken in the northern part of Grisons. The older man sitting on the bench is speaking Ladin, an Idiom spoken in the Engadin valley in the south of Grisons, very near to the Italian border. Thus it's more similar to Italian.

[@CRii1998]

The man on the bench is actually not speaking Ladin, it's Vallader. Ladin is mostly spoken in northern Italy :)

[@Yoshi-vq3og]

​@@CRii1998Weirdly, the romanshs of the Engiadina (so, Vallader, Puter and Jauer) are sometimes also referred to as Ladin. And the ladin from northern Italy is sometimes also reffered to as "Ladin da las Dolomitas".

[@KarlKarsnark]

Try Cuban Spanish. Lots of native speakers in Cuba and Florida, so should be easy to find lots of content.

[@dianeaurelius2828]

I am travelling to Switzerland and will be in the Swiss Canton of Grisons where Romansh is spoken. Any tips on how to quickly become polite? I have 2 months before leaving, so lots of time :)

[@josephnguyen4548]

Galician, Lingurian, Piedmontese

[@jensschroder8214]

As a German, I couldn't understand anything. Every now and then you might guess a word.

[@The_name105]

Soft C saying "ts" was actually the universal sound for it in Vulgar Latin but it later developed into "ch" in Italy and "s" pretty much everywhere else.

[@02337755]

LOL "DId he say Chun for Five?!"

[@greenfilly]

i've been waiting for this one.

[@xolang]

İ heard it several time indeed, and yeah, İ understood practically nothing even though İ know several Romance language including Romanian.

[@mnk9073]

Fun fact, the largely unintelligible and strange Rhaetians already puzzled the Romans in the days of the Republic; some argued they were feral Etruscans secluded to an insular life in the harsh mountains, others argued the Etruscans were civilised Rhaetians who flourished in the gentle plains. Most likely they are a jumble of celtic idioms, etruscan remnants and vulgar latin.

[@Cin1Vie2Svi1Ma11]

There are 5 type of Rumantsch. The easier one for us I believe is the closest spoken in the region to Italy. I suggest you to watch RTR. Cliches there is an interviewer who speaks a Rumantsch extremely closer to Italian. Very understandable

[@Duri-kg8qs]

Romansh is very similar to Catalan and some variants of medieval French. It seems to be more closely related to Western Vulgar Latin, from which French, Catalan and Spanish developed, than to Italian. Vallader is more similar to Italian than the other idioms due to its geographical proximity. The guttural R is, by the way, a "linguistic error" of some individuals

[@jakegarvin7634]

Kumpli-Mainz, isn't that on the Rhine? 😆

[@Mangojozie]

It would be interesting to try Corsican.

[@prowler986]

In Slovenian we do pronounce c as "ts" as well.

[@KibyNykraft]

Night / notte / not seems to be similar in many languages. German "nacht" and norwegian "natt".

[@coyotelong4349]

Reminds me of how Dutch sounds to English speakers… Sounds reminiscent of English and feels like we should be able to understand it, but nope

[@johnberry3824]

I think you're missing the spelling rules in Czech (and some other Slavic languages that use the Latin alphabet): the letter 'c" is used for the sound 'ts."

[@luke211286]

Thank you for covering Romansh. Seems like you would run out of Latin-based languages soon enough. 😂 Then you could shift to English variants (and creoles) and probably Japanese

[@LudwigVaanArthans]

There are a lot of regional dialects/languages that most people don't know even exist, so there is plenty of room if he wants to do an exhaustive playlist

[@voices_vary]

I see a good deal of German and Latin influence in Romanch.

[@Giandujaz]

"Circa" is pronounced in the same way as in German as well!

[@tayebizem3749]

Čerka literally means daughter/girl in Serbo-coratian Mind blowing 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@SinarNila]

Interesting the term "not", english uses, and friulian, romansh and istriot uses too , a romanic raice word. Its fascinanting and intriguin' too...

[@holygooff]

Sounds like the previous pope talking.

[@KibyNykraft]

Is the istro-dalmatian somehow close to the rumantsch?

[@dougalsii]

Circa in German is also pronounced tsirca

[@stillsayt6192]

Greath job, good english.

[@lugo_9969]

We can expect most Romansh speakers to understand Italian ? Like all the Dutch have excellent English

[@nicolocrippa8514]

Romansh people are exposed at least to some Italian through school, media or just personal interactions because they all live in the Canton Grisons that have Italian speaking areas too.

[@fasullamail]

Wow, so hard!

[@granist]

Hello there my good sir, I just so happen to have had a great idea yesterday. I was thinking why not try to take a native speaker of these languages and see how well they can understand Italian. It wouldn't matter the region by the way. I'd suggest anyone from the romance branch of the family so Spanish, Portuguese European and Brazilian, English, Norwegian, Swedish, French.

[@emmanuelwood8702]

What about doing the German dialetti from Alto Adige.

[@paolorossi9180]

IL romancio e' una bella lingua

[@erichamilton3373]

It's seems Romansh pronunciation is very German-like: maybe shared geography, shared population roots or historical bilingualism of speakers. It's akin to the situation of British Celtic languages which sound like English or vice versa.

[@erichamilton3373]

The "zirka" sounded very German...where they also say "zizero" in their Latin.

[@damianamado220]

Alegra!

[@charlesmartel5495]

Weirdly enough the neighboring Swiss German doesn’t have a uvular r-sound either. The only Swiss German dialect I know that possesses it, is Baseldytsch.

[@baumgrt]

Basel isn’t the only one: In Zurich, they have a uvular R sound as well, and if I’m not mistaken also Thurgau and St. Gallen (in word positions where it’s actually pronounced, as it’s dropped at the syllable end and just remains in form of a rhoticised/r-coloured vowel). In Fribourg (Senslerdeutsch) both varieties occur, i.e. uvular and trilled. And there may be even more places I’m not aware of.

[@RomaCatholica]

Could you do Talian?

[@IIARROWS]

It's much close to Lumbard, expected really.

[@SaadAltuilaai]

Do Italian dialects like Emiliano and Milanese, please.

[@minarick1]

I think people from Romania underestand more from romatsch.For me ,its sound like romanian with some new words in it...

[@MrDukeOmega]

The last man, Was literally a pronunciation of German, with different words.

[@Rick-dt9mv]

07:43 Interesante....en castellano tenemos la palabra CASA y CHOZA (una casa de gente humilde, generalmente del campo). Saludos Meta!

[@WKogut]

In every slavic language that uses latin alphabet "c" is "ts"

[@martinsenoner8186]

Zirka is German, the last gay spoke about the varieties of romansh

[@carlopoli9067]

No, he cannot, 'cause nobody can. This video is interesting🙏, above all because being Italian, I would have liked to hear this language spoken by the Swiss people of the "canton of Valais", but I have not found anyone willing to do it, unfortunately only a wall, a real wall of incomprehension: as we know, walls separate people much more than unspoken words: I'm not referring to the "Romance" language, that's doesn't matter at this point, but to the mentality of the population living in this particular Swiss land. I know I have a fair amount of emotional intelligence, I am more sensitive than I would like, and I realized I made a mistake in seeking communication with this populace. Only later did I understand that they simply don't want to communicate, and when they are forced to, despite all the assertiveness I have tried to put in, I have not been able to facilitate not only verbal communication, but not even paraverbal and non-verbal communication. Moreover, they speak a type of German, a dialect contaminated by French and Romansh, but not by Italian which the Swiss-germans themselves have difficulty understanding. This Swiss ethnic group in the south, according to Helvetic people from "canton Ticino", are very closed in character and by tradition, perhaps because they were born and lived for so many centuries in the solitude of valleys surrounded by very high Alpine hills that are difficult to overcome on foot. Traveling the world, from Australia to Indonesia, 39 U.S., Afghanistan, it will seem strange but I have always met human beings obviously different in culture and traditions (and language), but never so blocked in communication, lacking this need that I believed was not only natural, but really necessary for the human being to live on planet Earth. Btw I really hope I'm wrong, and I'd really like to understand receiving a disapproving comment from a Swiss from the "canton of Valais". Maybe?

[@WF2U]

Please do Ladino (not Ladin)!

[@BigNews2021]

Oh, that wold be interesting. I love the way it sounds.