A Language 30,000 Speak, and the Mountains That Keep It

The Dolomites draw millions of visitors a year, but among them live roughly 30,000 people who speak a language only they understand, France 24 reported this week. Ladin is described by the broadcaster as one of the oldest minority languages in Europe, and the villages that carry it are refusing to give it up.

The report frames the Ladin valleys as a case of survival under pressure: year after year the mountains become more popular with tourists, and the communities that live there must hold a language and a way of life against the traffic that passes through. France 24 does not put a figure on how many still speak Ladin at home, only the number of inhabitants in the area where it survives.

That is the shape of the problem across the Alpine and Apennine interior, where the language of a valley is often the last institution a shrinking community still runs for itself.