File talk:Ethnic identity in and around Austria.1.png

I find it rather doubtful that the population of Oberengadin, Poschiavo and Bergell should have an "ethnic identity" of "Tessiner". Most of these areas are traditionally Rumantsch, but today probably predominantly Alemannic. Only the Bergell has traditionally an Italian dialect, and even that doesn't make them "Tessiner" (which is not an ethnicity, but the designation of cantonal citizenship).

In fact, it is almost futile to try and decide whether the Bergell dialect is "Italian" or "Rumantsch". It is squat in the middle of a dialect continuum. It is traditionally counted as "Italian" for political reasons. I don't know if the people of Bergell have any ethnic identity at all (as opposed to a national one, and a communal Talschaft identity), but if they do it is probably Lombard, because the valley forms a geographical unity with the Italian Sondrio province (observe, if you will, the distinctly non-convex shape of Sondrio in this image. The google maps terrain feature illustrates that morphologically, the Bergell and Puschlav are part of Sondrio, connected to the rest of Switzerland only via high passes, Maloja and Bernina. Neither is connected to the Tessin in any way at all.)

In short, it would be nice to see a reference for the "ethnic identity: Tessiner" thing. Or else we could just do without it. --Dbachmann (talk) 14:48, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

The whole map is nonsense. If you want to do it right, you have to put in the Bavarians in Germany, too; you'll find more Tessins claiming themselves as Italians than Bavarians claiming themselves as Germans.