parts of the Surselva and the Lower Engadine. It is also assured that Romansh will continue to be transmitted for several more generations, even though each succeeding generation will be more and more rooted in German as well as Romansh. As a result, if the overall linguistic situation does not change, speakers will slowly become fewer and fewer with each generation. He also concludes however, that there are still enough speakers to ensure that Romansh will survive in the long term at least in certain regions. He considers the Romansh-language school system to be the single most crucial factor in this. Phonology Romansh has up to 26 consonant phonemes. Two are only found in some varieties, and one is found only in loanwords borrowed from German. Notes: only in some dialects, notably Surmiran, and only word-finally as in paung 'bread'. often transcribed as the palatal stops and in broad transcriptions. only in some dialects, notably Putèr, and only word-finally as in amih, 'friend'. only occurs in German loanwords such as halunc 'crook'. also pronounced in some dialects of Sursilvan. The voiced obstruents are fully voiced in Romansh, in contrast to Swiss German with which Romansh is in extensive contact, and voiceless obstruents are non-aspirated. Voiced obstruents are devoiced word-finally, however, as in buob 'boy' > , chöd 'warm' > , saung 'blood' > , or clav 'key' > . The vowel inventory varies somewhat between dialects, as the front rounded vowels and are found only in Putèr and Vallader. They have historically been unrounded in the other varieties and are found only in recent loans from German there. They are not found in the pan-regional variety Rumantsch Grischun either. The now nearly extinct Sutsilvan dialects of the Heinzenberg have as in plànta 'plant, tree', but this is etymologically unrelated to the found in Putèr and Vallader. The exact realization of the phoneme varies from to depending on the dialect: / 'book'. It is regarded as either a marginal phoneme or not a separate phoneme from by some linguists. Word stress generally falls either on the last or the penult syllable of a word. Unstressed vowels are generally reduced to a schwa, whose exact pronunciation varies between or as in 'song'. Vowel length is predictable: Unstressed vowels are short. Stressed vowels in closed syllables (those with a coda) are: long before short elsewhere Stressed vowels in open syllables are: short before