Early activity of German traders stamped its imprint on the linguistic map by a wedge of Teutonic speech thrust towards the Trentino, between Italian on the west and Ladin on the east. This linguistic protuberance occupies the valley of the Etsch south of its confluence with the Eisack. The divide between the two languages has its westernmost reach near Trafoi,[56] known also as Travis. The junction of Swiss and Austrian political boundaries at this point corresponds to the contact between the German of the Tyrol and the Romanic idioms of Engadine. Thence, the linguistic line of separation skirts the base of the Ortler massif and subsequently coincides with the watershed of the Etsch and Noce rivers. Ladin settlements begin north of the Fleims valley[57] and spread beyond the Gradena basin (Grödenthal) to Pontebba (Pontafel) and Malborghet where the meeting of Europe’s three most important linguistic stocks, the Romanic, Germanic and Slavic, occurs. The language spoken by the Italians of the Trentino consists of Lombard and Venetian dialects. Ladin dialects are spoken in some of the small valleys east of the Adige. In the valley of Monastero, near the Swiss frontier, the inhabitants speak a dialect of Ladin or Romansh which is akin to Friulian. This patois was in greater use during the Middle Ages. The Ladins, both in Austria and Italy, are Italians in every respect save that of language, although here also the two peoples are closely related. Ladin language is a slightly altered form of Latin containing words of non-Romanic stock which differ according to the locality overrun by the Romans. The same definition applies to the Romansh language of Switzerland. Romansh and Ladin are therefore basically Latin languages which did not develop to the stage of Italian or French and which differ from each other in the number of pre-Roman words they contain. Friulian belongs to the same category of Romance languages and differs from Ladin merely in having a larger proportion of Italian words. Like Ladin it is not a literary language and is therefore being superseded by Italian. Romansh dialects of Switzerland will probably survive longer since in the canton of Grisons they are recognized as official together with German and Italian, and in Engadine Romansh is still a literary dialect.