Switzerland has four official languges: German (first language of 63.9% of the poplace), French (19.5%), Italian (6.6%), and Romansch (~0.5%). 10% of Swiss residents speak another first language by preference (mostly Serbo-Croat). Romansch is one of a group of Latin-based languages that are sufficiently different from any other to earn their own title: the Rhaeto-Romanic group. Each Rhaeto-Romanic dialect is basically unique to the particular alpine valley where it developed.

There are 3-5 Romansch dialects in Switzerland, and 2-4 in Italy. The Rhaeto-Romanic languages have lesser status in Italy, where Ladin is said to be spoken by about 20,000 people in the Tyrol area, and Friulian by 500,000 people in the Friuli region.

Romansch is centred in south-east Switzerland in the Graubünden (Grisons) canton. About half of the speakers have Romansch as their first language. Efforts were made in the early 1980s to standardise spellings and grammar between the Swiss Rhaeto-Romanic languages into what's called Rumantsch Grischun, but this isn't accepted comfortably by all Romansch speakers.