Crowds of tourists packed onto mountain ridges, hikers bottlenecked along trails, and endless lines formed outside alpine huts. This past summer, social media was flooded with videos revealing the less glamorous side of the Dolomites, a mountain range in northern Italy.
Long a beloved destination among Italians, the Dolomites have grown into a major draw for international visitors in recent years. The range now welcomes several million tourists annually, a number further bolstered by the upcoming 2026 Winter Olympics.
While the tourism boom brings economic benefits, it also stirs deep concern among valley residents. “This tourism creeping into every corner of Val Badia frightens us somewhat, because it threatens to push young people like us away for financial reasons,” says Marco, a 29-year-old graphic designer.
Marco and his brother Samuel, a 32-year-old pharmacist, both grew up in the Badia Valley, a small town of fewer than 4,000 residents. The brothers have watched property prices soar and longtime residents leave their homeland. “We need to preserve our community, otherwise it will become a box that’s beautiful, but empty.”
‘Why Do You Speak That Language? Speak Italian, No?’
The community Samuel refers to is the Ladin community: roughly 30,000 people spread across five valleys in the Italian regions of Trentino Alto-Adige and Veneto. Most residents are fluent in both German and Italian, but they also speak Ladin — one of the last surviving alpine languages and among the oldest in all of Europe.
At school, at home, and at work, Ladin naturally takes priority. “If you’re among Ladins, you speak Ladin. If there’s an Italian in the group, you try to switch to Italian or German. You can manage about five minutes in Italian, then you go right back to Ladin. As for the Italian… too bad, they have to learn it!” laughs Fabian, a cheesemaker and childhood friend of Samuel’s.
In these valleys, Ladin is the dominant language and is largely incomprehensible to tourists, even Italian ones. “Some restaurants and hotels have menus written in Ladin. So there are visitors who wonder what it is — people who have been coming here for years who sometimes don’t even realize Ladin exists. And then there are those who get annoyed and say, ‘Why do you speak that language? Speak Italian, no?'” Samuel recounts.
Rap to Keep This 2,000-Year-Old Language Alive
Ladin holds such a prominent place in the daily life of South Tyroleans thanks to the autonomous status granted to the region in 1972. In addition to guaranteeing Italian-German bilingualism in South Tyrol, the decree placed special emphasis on Ladin education. “Ladin is used in nursery schools and taught in primary schools within Ladin-speaking areas,” the text states. Across the Ladin valleys, a system of trilingual schools operates, where classes are conducted in Italian and German while Ladin serves as the everyday language.
“Everyone who was born with this language cares about it and tries to keep it alive.” Samuel is a passionate defender of his mother tongue. Together with a group of friends, he founded a rap group called Cooperaziun Planta several years ago. “Doing rap in Italian would have simply been a fun project. But since we are Ladins, doing it in Ladin is something a bit special.”
Even though finding rhymes in Ladin is more challenging than in Italian, Samuel and his group consider it a point of honor to perform exclusively in Ladin. According to the young rapper, it is a way of contributing to the language’s survival. “The best weapon for keeping a language alive is to enjoy it.”
