THE "ROMANCE LANGUAGE" BRIDGE BETWEEN ITALY & ROMANIA

The historical "bridge" between Romanians and Dalmatian Italians

There was a continuum of romance speaking populations in Europe at the end of the Western Roman Empire, from Portugal and Spain to France and Italy: this continuum reached the Balkans until the Danube river delta, from Italian Istria until the Romanian Dobrugia.


But actually there it is a "hole" of this continuum in the area that was former Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia), because of the Slav invasions that happened during the early Middle Ages. However for many centuries this hole between Italy and Romania was partially occupied by a kind of "bridge" of neolatin populations (usually called "Vlachs", a word from latin 'vallum', meaning 'people of the Roman vallum' near the barbarian borders of the Western Roman empire) during the late Middle Ages until the Renaissance centuries. These Vlachs lived in the mountains of the western Balkans, but were slowly "assimilated" by the Slavs and actually they have practically disappeared, leaving only some evidences of themselves in the names of the Balkan topography & history (like "Romanija", "Stari Vlah", etc..).

Map showing the remains of the "Bridge" (Romanija Planina & Stari Vlah) in the XIII century, between the neolatin territories of Ragusa Republic & Spalato of the Dalmatian Italians and those of the Valko (Vojvodina) & Kucso (Timok). Note that between "Romania Planina" and the dalmatian city-state "Spalato" there it is a mountain region called "Rama", a clear reference to Italian "Roma".

Indeed Ilona Czamańska wrote in "Vlachs and Slavs in the Middle Ages and Modern Era” (Res Historica, 41, (Lublin, 2016), 19) that: "The majority of Serbs from the Republika Srpska of modern Bosnia is of Vlach origin, as well as the majority of the population from Bosnia and Herzegovina in general." This fact is clearly related to the historical bridge -now disappeared- that existed until the Middle Ages between the romance speaking Romanians and the Italian populations in Dalmatia and Istria.

The following are excerpts -related to this "bridge"- from an essay written by Octavian Ciobanu (Professor of Iasu University) and titled "The Heritage of Western Balkan Vlachs":

A lot of Latin or Vlach place names still resist until today in Western Balkans. Jirecek wrote about the Vlach impressive presence in Montenegro, Herzegovina and Dalmatia in a period which lasted from the XIIIth to the XVIth centuries.The Serbian documents from the 12th to the 15th centuries revealed a large number of Vlach placenames and Vlach personal names which are still in use by the Slavs of the Western Balkans. The Romanian character of the language of these Vlachs is generally recognized.

According to Stelian Brezeanu, among the toponyms attesting the presence of the Romanic element in the region, there are two that have an importance: Palaioblacoi and Stari Vlah. Palaioblacoi is attested in Thessaly (later Μεγάλη Βλαχία/Megali Vlahia) and the second toponym, Stari Vlah, is attested in the Medieval Serbia and in Herzegovina: “It was a region inside of the Kingdom of the Nemanids that attached the Kopaonik Mountains to the Romanija Mountains, around the city of Sarajevo. That region had as centre the Drina and the Lim rivers valley.”

Next to Stari Vlah it is Romanija. This area has the mountain still called Romanja.Therefore, the region of Stari Vlah belonged to a more extended area, intensively romanised at the end of the antiquity.Ştefan Stareţu writes that “it is clear that Stari Raska comes from Stari Vlaska, with a rothacism, and Raska from Vlaska (this is exemplified by the double name of Banat, as Vlaska or Raska)”. He also advances a hypothesis: “The Serbs and Vlachs are probably a single ethnic substance, constructed in the Balkan Peninsula as a unity in the 8th-14th century.”

Furthermore, according to Ilona Czamańska the Vlach population was already established in the western Balkans during the migration of Slavs. But she pointed out that both ethnic groups occupying the same land were not in conflict. Slavs, as farmers, occupied lands in the valleys, which were suitable for them, while Vlachs exploited mountains. Slavs, next to agriculture, also engaged in breeding, but did not practice transhumance pastoralism, which was the domain of the Vlachs. For the Slavs the land and the right to its cultivation and ownership was most important, for the Vlachs the ownership of land did not matter as long as the mountains were common property. The element, which bound their community together, was not the land, but family relationships and the sense of belonging to the same "clan".

In the Middle Ages the Vlachs lived in most of the mountain areas in the western Balkans up to the Adriatic coast. In the Middle Ages, the territory between the rivers Lim and Drina in the west, and Raska and Studenica in the east, was called “Old Wallachia” (Stari Vlah), and the Orthodox Church province of the Rasca – “eparchy Old Wallachian”.

In the Serbia of the Nemanjić dinasty (1166-1371) and the states that have later arisen on its ruins, the Vlachs created a fairly closed community because of their special privileged status, in contrast to the rest of Slavic peasant population. Mixed marriages with representatives of other social classes, especially the peasant population, were very difficult here. Despite that, here the processes of Slavisation and assimilation proceeded very quickly. It was also facilitated because of the vanishing of the areas where the Vlach shepherds could wander, because of the distribution of the mountain areas to particular owners. Vlachs defended themselves against dependence for example by buying pastures, which resulted in their definitive transition to semi-sedentary and sedentary life.

The Knez and provincial governors (often Vlach ones) became major landowners, entering the group of nobles and even the aristocracy of Serbia. Among the Slavic Balkan rulers many had Vlach roots – most probably the families Balšić, Hrvatinić – Kosača, and perhaps also Mrnjavcević. Already the earliest records of the names of the Vlachs as well as the names of localities preserved in the sources of the 13th century show a hybrid combination of Vlach and Slav element. Even then, many Vlach names were Slavic, often with Romanian endings (i.e. Dragul, Radul and Bogdan and afterwards even Milutin, Vukašin and Momcil).

Starting from the 14th century the term “Vlach” began to lose its ethnical meaning in favour of a societal meaning in the areas of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In these areas the Vlachs were strongly mixed with the Slavic population and the name “Vlach” was frequently used interchangeably with the term “Slav”.

In the "bridge", Slavisation (in fact Serbisation) of the Vlachs was also encouraged by the period of the Ottoman rule. As Orthodox, Vlachs belonged to the same millet as Serbs, and after the reconstruction of the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć they were subordinated to civil authority of the Serbian patriarch. Thus, Vlachs were integrated with Serbs very quickly, especially that the religious affiliation was the main identifier. The persons who belonged to the Serbian Orthodox Church were called by the name of Serbs, not only in the lands which were traditionally Serbian, also in Bosnia. This process was intensified by the fact that many Vlachs abandoned their activities, especially since enclosed social classes did not exist in the Ottoman state.

Actually -according to Marian Wenzel- the majority of the population from Bosnia and Herzegovina in general is of Vlach origin.

Map showing the location (with small points) of the 'Stecci', medieval funerary monuments, in an area that is very similar to the one of the "historical bridge". Note that the easternmost 'Stecci' are located in Serbia's "Stari Vlah" and the westernmost are near the Republic of Venice's Zara area (linking -as a kind of "bridge" through Serbia and Bosnia/Herzegovina- western Romania and Italy's Dalmatia)

Indeed the medieval Vlachs (called often Aromanians) of Herzegovina are considered authors of the famous funerary monuments with petroglyphs (usually called "Stecci") from Herzegovina and surrounding countries. The theory of the Vlach origin of these 'Stecci' was proposed by Bogumil Hrabak (1956) and Marian Wenzel and more recently was supported by the archeological and anthropological researches of skeleton remains from the graves under these 'Stećci'. For Wenzel the Vlachs did not continue to create other 'Stecci' since their conversion -in the sixteenth century- to moslem religion because of Turks domination.

The theory is much older and was first proposed by Arthur Evans in his work "Antiquarian Researches in Illyricum" (1883): while doing research with Felix von Luschan on 'Stecci' graves around Konavle, he found that a large number of skulls were not of Slavic origin but similar to older romanised Illyrian population, as well as noting that Ragusa memorials recorded those parts inhabited by the Vlachs until the 15th century. In other words: these 'Stecci' made by neolatins confirm the existence of this "bridge" betweeen Dalmatia and "Stari Vlah"

Last but not least, we have to remember that in the area of southern Croatia and internal Dalmatia these Vlachs -who were present in the early Middle Ages- were called 'Maurovlachs', or 'Morlachs'(Morlacchi) by the Italians, and they relatively quickly succumbed to Slavisation and Catholic faith. They differentiated themselves from the rest of society through their social status, which took on a special meaning in these lands. In the 17th and 18th centuries the term 'Morlachs' determined both Slavisised Vlachs from the area of Dalmatia, as well as Croatian peasants who were mixed with Dalmatian Italians (and who actually speak a croatian dialect -called "Chacavian"- that has more than 50% of words loaned from latin & romance languages).

Map showing the actual 'neolatin gap' between Italy and Romania, that from Istria & Dalmatia reached western Romania's Timok region trough Herzegovina, Romanija and Stari Vlah.

In a few final words: The neolatin "bridge" (between Italy and Romania) existed from the barbarian invasions until the first Renaissance centuries, remaining in a few isolated mountain areas until the XVIII century: it seems to have disappeared with the end of the "Repubblica di Venezia" and the beginning of the 'nationalism' in the Balkans. But if we include in the "bridge" also the Dalmatian Italians of coastal Dalmatia, we must remember that the last speaker of this autochtonous Dalmatian language (Tuone Udaina) died in 1898 in Veglia (actual Krk) and so the "bridge" remains survived in some way until the XIX century's end.

However -according to Italian historians like Della Volpe- a legacy of this "bridge" can be seen in the existence of the Republic of Bosnia & Herzegovina, populated mainly by descendants of the romanised populations who created the worldwide famous "Stecci" (read for further information on the Stecci:

 https://www.scribd.com/doc/34362364/Marian-Wencel-UKRASNI-MOTIVI-NA-STE%C4%86CIMA ).

The above image shows the names in red of Vlasi tribes in 1200 Herzegovina (Vlasi Gorni, Vlasi Donji, Vlasi Vahovici, etc..)

VLACHS/MORLACHS in Bosnia/Herzegovina and Dalmatia

The term “Vlach” originates from the old Germanic words Walh/Walah/Welsch, meaning "people of the Wall" (the Roman Limes) and is related to the words “Italian,” “French,” or generally “Roman.” Similarly, in medieval Croatian documents in Latin language, the term is translated as Latinus, i.e., “Latin.” As for the question of the origin of the Vlachs, we know for sure that the Vlachs were descendants of an indigenous Romanised pre-Slavic Balkan population living in the highlands of the central Balkans, such as Illyrians, Thracians, and Dacians, who had mixed with Roman colonists from the Italian peninsula.

Unlike the population of Roman towns and villages in the Balkans that disappeared after the migration of the Slavs, the nomadic/semi-nomadic Vlachs survived the Slavic massacres as an individual entity. In the course of time, however, under the influence of a Slavic environment the outnumbered Vlachs started to Slavicise and at first, became bilingual after the IX-X century. By contrast, some of the Slavic population in some areas adopted the transhumant life-style of the Vlachs and mixed with the Vlachs in some areas, like in Rascia/Arsia (originating the first state of the Serbs).

Cristian Luca also wrote that from the 15th century, the Vlachs in Dalmatia were also called "Morlaks", and from about the first decades of the 18th century, they became also named "Aromanians" or "Macedoromanians", belonging, from an ethno-linguistic point of view, to the Eastern Romanity, being speakers of a Romanian dialect. As mentioned above, the Vlachs settled in Dalmatia and then in Bosnia, mainly from the beginning 14th century, and came from the mountainous areas of the central Balkan Peninsula. They were scattered – in small, closed communities, united in a strong solidarity which arose from dealing exclusively in long term transhumant sheep breeding – in different parts of the South-Danubian area. Their presence was frequently attested to in sources from the 12th-18th centuries in Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia and mainland Greece (even in several Greek islands).

Although traditionally devoted to transhumant sheep breeding, there is also early documentary evidence mentions their presence in the Balkan Peninsula, and their excellent enterprising ingenuity in engaging in the caravan trade. By the first decades of the 17th century, they had established themselves as one of the most important groups of trading middlemen between the Italian Peninsula and Eastern Europe.

The migration of several groups of Vlachs/Morlachs from inside the Balkan Peninsula towards the coast of Venetian Dalmatia (Venetian Dalmatia on English Wikipedia

) was also determined by the phenomenon of transhumance, which was the main occupation of this Romanic population. In it, sheep were bred in open areas, in the pastures of the high mountain ranges of the Balkan region. Transhumant sheep breeding imposed seasonal rhythmic cycles on the movement of flocks. Thus, as a result of their search for areas with a milder climate to settle down for the winter, the Vlach shepherds begin arrived on the coasts of central Dalmatia in the 14th century, where their presence was frequently reported in contemporary sources. In this coastal region they found pastures all along the winter, so that many decided to settle in the hinterland of urban centers under Venetian domination. In the subsequent centuries, some of them divided their existence between the Dinaric Alps, where they were kept their herds from spring until autumn, and these Dalmatian regions.

A situation of this kind can be found in the 16th century in the hinterlands of the towns of Traù (Trogir in Serbo-Croatian) and Sebenico (Šibenik in Serbo-Croatian), which had been part of Venice’s "Stato da Mar" since the second decade of the 15th century. Sebenico, is located in central Dalmatia, at the point where the Krka river flows into the Adriatic Sea. It is situated at about 30 km west of Traù. However both ports were economically eclipsed in importance by another Venetian port, Spalato (Split), the main transit center which coordinated the trade on the Balkan land routes between the Serenissima and Eastern Europe. Sebenico, through its strategic position and the military functions of its port, had an important role in defending the Venetian possessions in Dalmatia. Therefore Serenissima’s government decided to build a fortification named St.Michael, on the heights that dominated the city. In its turn, Traù was mainly protected by its natural location, the urban settlement being built on two islands lying in front of the central Dalmatian coast.

In 1774, when abbot Alberto Fortis made his famous journey in Dalmatia, the Vlachs/Morlaks from the settlements on the Krka river, including those in the hinterland of the town of Sebenico, were not yet slavicized, although the Venetian author inaccurately assigned them this origin.

Prior to Fortis, Giovanni Lucio, quoted by Jacob Spon and George Wheler, mentioned the Romanic origin of the Morlaks of Dalmatia and their ethnic and linguistic affinity with the Wallachians from the Romanian Principalities.

Venetian sources from the second half of the 16th century recorded the earlier stages of the Vlachs/Morlaks penetration and establishment into the hinterland of the town of Traù. In 1562 the inhabitants of the town of Trau (the old Tragurium) which belonged to Serenissima’s "Stato da Mar" mentioned the seasonal presence of the Vlachs/Morlaks in the area, where they had started arriving in 1525 to find winter shelter for their herds: in less than a decade, by 1531, the Vlachs/Morlaks had steadfastly settled down in the territory of the town of Traù, near the border with the Ottoman province of Bosnia.

The newcomers founded several rural settlements and began to grow grain on the neighbouring arable lands. Finally, in 1550 no less than 11 settlements inhabited by the Vlachs/Morlaks were recorded. They were located in Veneto-Ottoman border territory, in the area lying between Traù and Sebenico: Labin,Opor, Trilogue (Trolokve), Radosich (Radošić), Podine, Vrsno, Liubitoviţa(Ljubitovica), Lepeniţa (Lepenica), Prapatnica, Suchidol (Suhi Dolac) and Sitno.

The Vlach/Morlak settlements from the hinterland of Traù were already a demographic, economic and administrative certainty in 1626, when another morlak settlement was done: in the area of the port-town of Sebenico a gradual penetration of the Vlach/Morlak shepherds, merchants and carters, was also recorded. The latter were also active at Zara (Zadar) and Traù, but without having settled down in the Trau hinterland, where the establishments mentioned earlier had been founded by the shepherds and their families.

Indeed during the first years of the second half of the 16th century, the Vlachs/Morlaks were exploiting, together with the Venetian subjects of Sebenico, several mills built on the Krka river, near Scardona (Skradin). The Vlachs/Morlaks penetrated only temporarily into the territory of the town of Sebenico, without attempting to establish durable settlements in the area under the jurisdiction of the Serenissima and recognized as such by the Sultan Süleyman I Kanûn.

The Bunjevci, a group of Vlachs who presumably originated from western Herzegovina, migrated to venetian Dalmatia in the early 1400s, and from there to Lika and Bačka (actual northern Serbia) in the 16th and 17th century. They were catholic "Vlasi", who escaped from the Ottoman invasions and slowly were fully assimilated by the Croats.

The Bunjevci's roots were in middle-ages Bosnia-Erzegovina, a country with a majority of inhabitants speaking a neolatin language before the year 1000 AD (see map above). They moved away from Venetian Dalmatia to the north as can be seen in the following map:

M A P S  S H O W I N G   I N  D E T A I L  T H E S E   R O M A N C E   D I S A P P E A R A N C E S

The following are some maps about the romance language disappearance in: Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Dalmatia

1) In Serbia: 2 maps showing the Romanian/Vlach - Aromanian presence in 1931 Serbia and in 2012 Serbia. Note the reduction in the Timok area bordering Rumania.

Stari Vlah in actual Serbia is a word meaning literally "Old Vlach". It derives from the Latin/Vlach-speaking populations that survived the Avar-Slav invasions of the VII century, taking refuge in the high valleys and mountains of the central Dinaric Alps. Those inhabitants are usually called Morlachs (or "Morava Vlachs").

Around the year 1000 they started a process of slavicization of their language, under the domination of Serbian kings. When the Ottomans started to appear in the region, the last neo-latin groups moved away or were fully assimilated (like in Bosnian Romanija): by the XVIII century they had ethnically disappeared, remaining only the name "Stari vlah" and the name of some villages and mountains. See the following map of Stari Vlah:

2) In Bosnia Herzegovina: The Morlacchi or Wallachians of Bosnia and Herzegovina were romance speaking shepherds who lived in these Dinaric mountains (also known as the Western Balkans), constantly looking for better pastures for their flocks of sheep. They were a mixture of Romanized indigenous peoples and Roman settlers, who moved every year with the practice of seasonal transhumance in Macedonia and in the southern Balkans.

Around the year 1000 these Vlachs (usually called by the Slavs with the name "Vlasi") were the majority of the population in the most mountainous area of ​​the center of the Dinaric Alps (an area that today corresponds to the Sarajevo region, where the mountains are still called "Romanija" . Currently in northwestern Bosnia there are also the "Vlasic" mountains near the Roman Banja Luka (a neo-Latin name probably originated from "sanlucas baths"), while in Herzegovina until the fourteenth century there were numerous communities of "Vlasi" (such as Bobani, Gorni, Boljuni, Banjani, Bunjevci). See the following map showing the "Romanija":and the "Vlasic mountains", actually without romance population:

3) In Dalmatia: the  Dalmatian city-states were formerly Roman municipalities in Dalmatia where the local Romance population survived the Barbarian invasions after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 400s AD. Eight cities (with their surroundings) were created by the indigenous Illyro-Roman inhabitants of the region, who maintained political links with the Eastern Roman Empire, which in return defended these cities, enabling their commercial trade with Byzantium and the Italian peninsula.

The original names of these city-states were Arba, Cattarum, Crespa, Jadera, Ragusium, Spalatum, Tragurium, and Vecla (actual Arbe, Cattaro, Cherso, Zara, Ragusa, Spalato, Trau and Veglia). The language and the laws were initially Latin, but after a few centuries, they developed their own vulgar Latin language, Dalmatian, which survived into the 19th century. Actually only in Cherso, Lussino and Zara there are a few hundreds of romance speaking autochthonous inhabitants. Between them and the Romanians in the Timok area of Serbia bordering Romania there are no more romance speaking inhabitants: they have been "wiped out" (assimilated and/or exterminated) in the centuries between the fall of the Roman empire and today!

CONCLUSION

This bridge that united Romania to Italy has disappeared. The last tentative to try a "reunification" was during WW2, but has failed with the further "slavification" of Istria and some Dalmatian islands (with the Zara area) on the Adriatic coast. Here there are some maps related to this tentative:

Map of the Italian "Governorate of Dalmatia", where the orange dots indicate its borders, and the blue and green dots show the limits of the Italian occupation zone in Yugoslavia between 1941 and 1943. Note that the green dots of Italian occupation included also the southern Slovenia until Italian Istria/Venezia Giulia and reached western Serbia. Only in the Governorate of Dalmatia there were romance speaking populations.

The Italian Governorate of Dalmatia was created in 1941 and had an area of 5,242 km² (2,024 sq mi). It lasted only nearly two years and half. This Governorate of Dalmatia contained 395,000 inhabitants, of which 270,000 (69.2%) Croats, 85,000 (23.0%) Serbs and 40,000 (7.8%) Dalmatian Italians. The Italians were concentrated in Zara and Spalato.

On the Romanian side of this "bridge" was proposed the union to Romania of the Timok area of Serbia. but the German opposition blocked the proposal and so Romania in 1941 was enlarged only with former URSS territories (as can be seen in the following second map).  Here it is the Timok area with 1941 ethnic percentages of Romanians (blue color) and Serbs (green):

Map of the ethnic area of Romanians in 1910 (red color), showing also the Timok area in Serbia.

THE GERMAN/AUSTRIAN ASSIMILATION OF THE RHAETO-ROMANCE LANGUAGES

In the Alps region there it is an area (formerly very huge) populated by neolatin populations that survives assimilation only in three small territories: in Switzerland (Canton Grisons) and in Italy (Trentino-AltoAdige & Friuli). In these areas are spoken respectively: Romansh, Ladin and Friulan, the languages actually of more than 800000 inhabitants in Switzerland and Italy.

 

Map of the Roman "Italia Annonaria" (northern Italy) around 476 AD, showing that it included Raetia I & II until the Danube river, with the fully Romanized populations that were living in what is actual southern Germany, eastern Switzerland and western Austria.

These languages (sometimes called "dialects") are living relics, echoes of the Roman Empire that have survived for two millennia tucked away in the mountain strongholds of Switzerland and Italy (but disappeared in southern Germany and recently in Austria). They are a testament to the power of geography to both preserve and isolate culture, and their story is a compelling drama of identity, history, and the fight for survival.

When the Romans conquered the Alpine region known as Raetia, the local Celtic and Rhaetic peoples gradually adopted the language of their conquerors: Vulgar Latin. For centuries, this Alpine Latin evolved in relative isolation, separated by formidable mountain barriers from the developing Romance languages in what would become France and Italy. This isolation allowed a unique set of linguistic features to develop and solidify. 

The result is a group of languages that don’t fit neatly into the Italo-Romance (Italian) or Gallo-Romance (French) families. Instead, they form a kind of linguistic bridge between them, sharing features of both while retaining their own distinct character.The very idea of them being a unified “family” was a subject of fierce academic debate known as the Questione Ladina (“Ladin Question”). 

It was the pioneering Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli who, in 1873, first convincingly argued that Romansh, Ladin, and Friulian were not simply dialects of Italian but remnants of a once-widespread "Latin Continuum" that stretched across the Alps. He and other linguists calculated that approximately:

• 1)Romansh is 66% Romance & 33% German
• 2)Ladin is 75% Romance & 25% German
• 3)Friulan is 85%Romance,9%German,6%Slav

HISTORY

Since the 3rd century, the Latinization of the Cisalpine, Alpine, and Transalpine lands in the vast triangle between Lake Constance, the Danube, and Istria was an established reality, while in the Dolomite & Alto Adige mountain area it was only completed towards the end of the Roman Western Empire with the decisive contribution of Christian preaching.

In the provinces of the Roman Empire south of the Danube called "Noricum" and "Rhaetia", the Latinized inhabitants did not completely disappear when the barbarian invasions devastated the region. Many were exterminated and others took refuge in Italy, but some survived in the Alps mountains.

Those who lived in Rhaetia gave rise to the Ladin and Rhaeto-Romance languages ​​of Switzerland and northern Italy, but those of Noricum survived only a few centuries until the time of Charlemagne (but in southern Austria survived cities like Aguntum -actual Dolsach near Lienz- possibly until the late ninth century).

That is to say, the Ladin/Rhaeto-Romance language exists today, but the Romance language of Noricum (which roughly coincides with present-day Austria) has disappeared. The explanation seems to be that Noricum and, in general, present-day central and eastern Austria were more exposed than Switzerland to the devastating invasions of the Huns of Attila and later of the Avars.

The following are brief essays about the two areas were Germanization has been more assimilative & successful: eastern Switzerland and Italian Alto Adige:

Switzerland (Romansh)

During the Middle Ages, there were now-extinct Rhaeto-Romance populations in northern Switzerland and in Austria/Bavaria, in areas called: Walchental, Wakhen, Walchengag, Wakhensef, and Winkhen. For example Saltzburg (Austria) was called with the Roman name "Iuvavum" until 740 AD, showing that it was populated by a few remaining neoromanized  citizens until the mid-eight century.

Map showing the decrease of areas populated by people of Romansh language from 700 to 2000 AD

Romansh in the early Middle Ages was spoken over a much wider Swiss area, stretching north into the present-day swiss  cantons of Glarus and St. Gallen, to the Walensee in the northwest, and Rüthi and the Alpine Rhine Valley in the northeast.

Additionally in the east, most of modern-day Austria's Vorarlberg were Romansh-speaking, as were parts of Tirol. 

The northern areas, called Lower Raetia, became German-speaking by the 12th century; and by the 15th century, the Rhine Valley of St. Gallen and the areas around the Walensee were entirely German-speaking. This language shift was a long, drawn-out process, with larger, central towns adopting German first, while the more peripheral areas around them remained Romansh-speaking longer. 

The shift to German language was caused in particular by the influence of the local German-speaking élites (with the help of the local church priests) and secondarily by German-speaking immigrants from the north, with the lower and rural classes retaining Romansh longer. If interested read https://web.archive.org/web/20131104161427/http://www.liarumantscha.ch/data/media/pdf/facts_figures/facts_figures_english.pdf.

Furthermore, until the time of Napoleon, Rhaeto-Romance was spoken in some areas of the Austrian Vorarlberg, while in the Val Venosta of the Italian "Alto Adige" (called also "South Tirol") there were Ladin/Rhaeto-Romance communities until the end of the 19th century.

Currently in the Canton Grisons in southeastern Switzerland, exists the Romansh -with its own literature and many dialects- that is considered the fourth official language of Switzerland (with German, French and Italian) and is the primary language of 60000 inhabitants. It is fragmented into five main dialects (Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran, Puter, and Vallader). In the 1980s, a standardized written form, Rumantsch Grischun, was created to unify the language for official use, a move that remains controversial among speakers of the individual dialects. 

Map of actual (2020) Raetho-Romance languages

Alto Adige (Ladin)

Around the year 1000, the ethnic composition of Alto Adige was predominantly Romance/Ladin, with a slowly increasing but still scarce Germanic presence (mainly Bavarians) in the more inland areas.

The main ethnic groups present were:

Ladin-Romance populations: They were the predominant group, descendants of the Rhaeto-Roman populations that had inhabited the region since Roman times. Their language, Ladin, was widely spoken before the significant subsequent Germanization. They were a "continuum"  romance population, linking the Romansh with the Friulans (from actual Switzerland to actual Friuli-Venezia Giulia) and their main cities were Bolzano, Merano and Bressanone. The Alto Adige area south of Chiusa Pass and Bolzano was fully romance speaking and famous for the wine production with significant commerce with the Po/Adige valley since Roman times (it was later included in the Napoleon 's kingdom of Italy).

Germanic populations (Bavarians): The Germanic presence, particularly of the Bavarian tribes, dated back to the migrations of the 6th century, but until the 11th century it was a minority mainly concentrated in the northern valleys and along the borders. It was with the Ottonian dynasty (after the year 1000) that a more significant impetus began towards the "in-depth" Germanization of the upper Adige basin, a process that was initially slow and gradual. The epidemic of the “Black Death” which struck hard the whole of Europe in the middle of the fourteenth century (beginning in 1348) led to the collapse of the romance population, which was filled in part by an influx of German settlers from regions in which the disease had a lesser impact. After 1363 all the area of Alto Adige (that in German language was called "Tirol" -name taken from the ladin village that Dante called "Tiralli", north of Merano) went to the Habsburg and the process of Germanization became very strong. These Habsburgs, intensified the process of Germanization through their feudal lords and their ecclesiastics, who, being owners of enormous estates, transplanted German settlers. In addition, Habsburg rule facilitated the immigration of merchants from Germany to urban centers south of the Brenner Pass.

Maria Theresa, the Habsburg empress who damaged the existence of the romance Ladins in AltoAdige and is loved by the Austrians.

Entire valleys of Alto Adige which were still Ladin, and the major part of the Val Venosta, which had spoken a neo-Latin language until the beginning of the eighteenth century, were Germanized by force during the Maria Theresia reign (that lasted from 1740 to 1780). First, the Habsburg  authorities imposed a series of repressive measures, which required the exclusive use of German in a number of fields: in public meetings, in church sermons, in confession and in general pastoral activity, etc. Second, discriminatory measures were promoted against those who spoke Ladin in their own home and family life, limiting their rights, such as the possibility of exercising certain professions or even of contracting marriages. Third, many customs characteristic of the Ladins were banned, again in order to make them lose their identity. Fourth, the Empress Maria Theresa in person issued a secret decree, which required the Germanization of Ladin surnames in South Tyrol, using the clergy to carry out this work, who were loyal to the empire and imposed the German language. Even today there are many Ladin surnames Germanized through the addition of an –er ending (as happened to Elemunt, which became Elemunter, or Melaun, which became Melauner), or by a translation into German (for example, changing Costalungia to Kastlunger, Granruac to Großrubatscher, etc.).

Most of Val Venosta was thus Germanized under the government of the sovereigns Maria Theresa and -later- Joseph II, who are regarded by Austrian nationalists as the more open and tolerant sovereigns of the house of Austria. The Ladins who managed to resist such Germanizing pressure were gradually assimilated during the nineteenth century, so that very few Romansh groups remained in Val Venosta at the beginning of the nineteenth century. An enthusiastic supporter of the Germanization of the Ladins and the Romansh before the Theresian era was the abbot of Marienberg Abbey (Abbey of Monte Maria) in upper Val Venosta, Mathias Lang.

Similar Germanizing behaviours were common to the activity of the government of Maria Theresa, who was responsible for initiatives similar to those described above, or even worse, in different parts of the empire, such as in Bohemia, Croatia, Hungary and Romania. The Empress also issued an edict in which she authorized the abduction of children born to Gypsy (and to poor Ladin) families, in order to enlarge the German sphere and render it Austrian in culture: the cases of authorized abductions were many thousands.

The Ladin is actually spoken in the Alto Adige

 valleys of northern Italy, in the Dolomites and

 north of Trento (and also in the province of Udine,

 near the Tagliamento River, in northeast Italy). It is

 estimated that around 50,000 people speak this

 Rhaeto-Romance as a first or second language

 (excluding the Friulian speakers of northern Italy,

 who are more than half a million).

Furthermore. it is important to note that the scholar Piccottini asserts that an extinct "Austrian Romance language" (spoken for some centuries -after the Roman empire fall- in central & southern Austria, like in Aguntum) belongs to the Rhaeto-Romance group (or at least was a proto-Rhaeto-Romance language), based on its geographical proximity to the current Romansh/Ladin/Friulian areas in the Swiss-Italian Alps. He even believes that it assimilated some words from the pre-Roman Raetic language, especially in Austrian Tirol.

Indeed, in the Tirolean region of western Austria, between Innsbruck and Vaduz (the name of the capital of Liechtenstein comes from the Neo-Latin word "avadutz," meaning aqueduct in Romansh), Rhaeto-Romance was also spoken until the time of the French Revolution.

The Alto Adige line of haplogroup "R1b-U152"

Map of R1b-U152 in western Europe (it coincides approximately with West Roman Empire)

In all the Tirolean & Austrian propaganda against the Italian Alto Adige there it is always a reference to the fact that this territory is considered to have been ALWAYS a German speaking area, that the Italian fascism (of Tolomei et al) wanted to Italianize after WW1. But the Austrian Tiroleans always forget in their writings that only in the last four/five centuries before 1918 the romance language have become a minority language in what is now called Alto Adige.

The area around Bolzano has always been the most populated in Alto Adige with a huge romance speaking community; and in Napoleon times it was united to his Kingdom of Italy because ethnically romance speaking. Furthermore the valley "Venosta" west of Merano until the second half of the Settecento (XVIII century) was populated mostly by Ladins.

These facts -together with the existence of Ladins in Val Gardena and surroundings even now- clearly explains why Tolomei and other Italian academics & historians considered that the German-speaking Tiroleans were not an autochthonous population in the Alto Adige region.

The Italian irredentist Tolomei looked as a reference for the "re-italianization" of Alto adige to the process of assimilation done in France after WW1 with the former mostly German speaking Alsace-Lorraine regions. He was well esteemed by the French authorities: in 1935 Tolomei -promoted to "Senator of the Kingdom of Italy"- received the "Légion d'honneur" from the "République française". The award motivation was: "In giving you this high distinction, the Government of the French Republic has taken care to recognize the outstanding services that you have rendered to the Latinity before, during and after the war (...) with your action in the Alto Adige defense outpost of the Latin block against Germanism".

Tolomei correctly pinpointed that the Germanization was huge north of Merano and Bolzano, but in the val Venosta area it has only happened since the century before the French Revolution and in the Bolzano area only since the XIX century. So he indicated that there was an approximate line related to the presence of less or more than 20% of blonde hair in the population, that clearly divided in two the Alto Adige: north of the line there were people mostly German speaking since the Middle Ages, while south of the line the presence of romance population was evident in the darker hair of most people.

Curiously in recent years the genetic studies have confirmed this line, with the genetic signature of the haplogroup "R1b-U152". Indeed the ancient Romans, from the original founders of Rome to the patricians of the Roman Republic, should have been essentially R1b-U152 people. See the above map for further understanding, showing the orange line (related to 33% of the population) of the haplogroup "R1b-U152" that is similar to the one of the 20% blonde hairs in the population (north of the line the habitants are more blonde and Germanized, while south are less -because more than the 33% of the total population has this kind of haplogroup- like in northern Italy).

Finally we must remember in detail -also graphically- the biggest process of (often forced) German assimilation that happened in the alpine northern region of Italian Alto Adige. Here it is a good "precise" map of the ethnicity in the Alto Adige in 1900, showing in red the areas of Romance language and in blue those German speaking:

It is noteworthy to pinpoint that it is possible to see in the map that there were areas of Alto Adige with a majority of Italians/Ladins (in red), that now have disappeared, like around Salorno, Merano and near Switzerland (for example, in Val Venosta -near the Switzerland border- until the 1820s was spoken the "Romansh language"). The following is an interesting essay about this forced assimilation:

(read:also  Archivio Alto Adige; Italiani a Merano e dintorni nell'Ottocento)

The Forced Germanization of the Italian Val Venosta

One of the last Ladin areas to pass to the German language was the Upper Val Venosta (Vinschgau). It was not a voluntary transition from Ladin to a new language, but a forced assimilation which is not often cited or discussed in Tyrolean historiography; indeed, it is often ignored. In the past, Tyrolean historiography was mainly focused on attempting to demonstrate the long history of German culture in South Tyrol from the conquest of the Bavarii onward. Even today, this attitude does not seem to have changed much among German authors.

However, in the 14th and 15th centuries Romansh was the only language used in the court of Glorenza (Glurns). This is an irrefutable sign that the population was exclusively Romansh and monolingual. Up to that time there were many cultural, social and economic contacts with the neighboring people of Müstair and the Engadine, who spoke the same language, which has left an impact on the local culture (architecture, toponymy). The Val Venosta, moreover, belonged to the diocese of Chur.

Around 1600, Romansh in the Val Venosta was in a position very similar to that of Ladin in the Val Gardena today, in other words quite strong. Until about 1620 the Abbey of Monte Maria (Marienberg) called upon the Capuchins of Müstair to preach to the people in Romansh. This demonstrates that the population of the Val Venosta was hardly bilingual at that time.

In 1898 a German historian wrote:

“The Val di Mazia (near Malles Venosta) was still Romansh in the 1600's, and even a century later Romansh was still very common in the Val Venosta. It has already been mentioned that Tubre in the Val Monastero passed to the German language only about 70 years ago, while in nearby Müstair (in Switzerland) Ladin is still spoken today, and even in Stelvio at the beginning of the 19th century there were still people who spoke Ladin.” [1]

“Tubre was cleansed of the Romansh language only after 1750”, says an old history book. [2] The use of the term ‘cleansed’ (German: geräumt) demonstrates quite well the attitude of the Germans at that time. Indeed, the Romansh language was wiped out as a result of a prohibition against using the language. The German language was required for meetings, while the Ladin language was prohibited. Likewise the employment of Romansh maids and servants was prohibited, Romansh customs were prohibited, and even marriages with Romansh people were prohibited. The main promoter of these prohibitions was the abbot of Marienberg Abbey, Mathias Lang, infamous for his fanaticism.

The motive or excuse for this Germanization was the Reformation: it was feared that Protestant ideas could penetrate Catholic Tyrol through the Romansh language (“barbaric Romansh”, as it was also called), since the inhabitants of the neighboring Grisons are partly Protestant. It is of little importance that the prohibition of the language was said to be motivated by these fears. The truth is that when the leader does not understand the language of his subjects, the use of this language is criminalized.

Thus the Upper Val Venosta was Germanized. Despite the methods adopted — methods which anticipated those later used for the assimilation of minorities in the 20th century — the extinction of the Ladin language did not have such a rapid success. According to glottologists, Romansh-speakers still lived in the Upper Val Venosta in the 1820's. Today there are still many testimonies of Ladin heritage in the region: it can be observed in the local dialect, as well as in many toponyms.

MAPS SHOWING THE ASSIMILATION

The Romansh area during Charlemagne rule in the IX century.

Rhaeto-Romance languages now & 1200 years ago

Two maps of Swiss Canton Grisons showing: 

1) in the first (above) for 1860, in yellow the linguistic area of the German language, while in violet the Romansh area. 

2) in the second (bottom) for 2010, the increased German language (yellow color) in former areas of Romansh

Conclusion 

The Rhaeto-Romance linguistic group occupied an area which in the medieval past included (using current geographical terminology) the Grisons, Alto Adige, Friuli, the eastern Alps, southern Bavaria and western Austria. Today, however, it includes only the small Romansh-speaking community in the Grisons, the even smaller community of Ladins on the Italian side of the Alps, and the Friulians. Note that the gradual disappearance of Raetians occurred due to extermination and forced assimilations performed by Germanics. In fact, all of current Austria, the eastern Alps, and a good part of the central Swiss Alps were linguistically Rhaeto-Romance before the arrival of these invaders; except for the small Romansh community in Switzerland, the Raetians beyond the Alps became extinct. Even the Italian Alto Adige was latinophone, while today the Ladins survive only in a very small area (Badia, Gardena, Fassa, Livinallongo, Ampezzano) and are reduced to a few tens of thousands of people. 

The only area in which the Rhaeto-Romance peoples have not experienced significant reductions (with the exception of what happened recently in the Italian Venezia Giulia/Istria during WW2) is, not coincidentally, that of Friuli, which, although bordering with the Germanic and Slavic world, remained (thanks mainly to the Republic of Venice until Napoleon times) mostly unscathed by the phenomena of Germanization and Slavicization which swept through the majority of this Alpine area. It is significant that today among the approximately 810,000 Rhaeto-Romance people in existence, 700,000 live in Friuli, while the Ladins and the Romansh are respectively about 50,000 and 60,000 units.

This true genocide, cultural but also in part physical in the phase of the barbarian invasions of the Middle Ages, saw the areas of Rhaeto-Romance population gradually eroded (like a tide hitting the Alps).