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Puter (also spelled Putèr; Romansh: puter [puˈteːr] ) is a variety of Romansh spoken in the Engadin valley in Graubünden, which is in the southeastern part of Switzerland. It is spoken in the central northwestern end of the valley between S-chanf and St. Moritz, as well as in the region of the Bernina Pass. Romansh was named by 5,497 people within the upper Engadine valley (30%) as a habitually spoken language in the census of 2000, which probably corresponds roughly to the total number of speakers. The term is probably originally a nickname derived from put 'porridge', meaning 'porridge-eaters'.

Classification

Puter and Vallader are sometimes referred to as one specific variety known as Ladin, as they have retained this word to mean Romansh. However, the term Ladin is primarily associated with the closely related language in Italy's Dolomite mountains also known as Ladin. Puter and Vallader are distinguished from the other Romansh dialects among other things by the retention of the rounded front vowels /y/ and /ø/ (written ü and ö), which have been derounded to /i/ and /e/ in the other dialects. Compare Putèr mür to Sursilvan mir ‘wall’ and Putèr chaschöl to Sursilvan caschiel 'cheese'.

Each village between S-chanf and St. Moritz has a slightly different accent, although the written form remains the same.

Literary development

Gian Travers wrote the first surviving work in Romansh, the Chianzun dalla guerra dagl Chiaste da Müs, in the Putèr dialect. This epic poem, written in 1527, describes the first Musso war, in which Travers himself had taken part.

There is an individual dictionary for this dialect, as well as texts dealing with its grammar.

Sample

The fable The Fox and the Crow by Jean de La Fontaine in Putèr Romansh, as well as a translation into English, the similar-looking but noticeably different-sounding dialect Vallader, and Rumantsch Grischun.

References

1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2022-05-24). "Romansh". Glottolog. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Archived from the original on 2022-10-07. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
2. "Puter idiom of Romansh". IANA language subtag registry. 29 June 2010. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
3. Gross (2004), p. 31.
4. Liver (1999), p. 43.
5. Liver 1999, p. 95.
6. "UdG Dicziunari Puter ⇔ Deutsch". www.udg.ch. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
7. "Grammatica Puter" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-01-13. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
8. Gross (2004), p. 29.

Bibliography

• Gross, Manfred (2004). Romanisch: Facts & Figures (PDF). Translated by Evans, Mike; Evans, Barbara. Chur: Lia Rumantscha. ISBN 3-03900-037-3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-11-04. Retrieved 2021-09-23.
• Liver, Ricarda (1999). Rätoromanisch: Eine Einführung in das Bündnerromanische [Romansch: An introduction to Graubünden Romansh] (in German). Tübingen: Gunter Narr. ISBN 3-8233-4973-2.

External links

• Romansh-English dictionary, with different Romansh dialects including Puter

• Romansh dialects