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Unfortunately, the article only superficially scratches the question how contemporary experts view the 19th-century debate.
My understanding is that the Ascolians were probably closer to historical reality, but that does not necessarily mean that there was ever a single ancestral proto-dialect that all dialects now lumped together under the "Rhaeto-Romance" umbrella label, and only them, descend from, but most likely an early medieval Western Romance (specifically Gallo-Romance, in a wider sense) dialect continuum throughout the Alpine region that was linked to Old French and Old Arpitan (as well as Old Occitan) but later fragmented; traces of many intermediate dialects in the region are preserved, for example in the Vinschgau. On account of its Zweikasusflexion especially, Old Venetian is apparently sometimes thought to be closer to Friulian than to Italo-Romance, but the modern Gallo-Italic dialects appear to be Italo-Romance in origin (compare Diachronics of plural inflection in the Gallo-Italic languages) and at best seem to have a (partial) Western Romance (Gallo-Romance) substratum (especially in the regions north of the Po, where there are traces of the palatalisation of ca and ga). Ladin and Friulian were probably more strongly influenced by Italo-Romance already early on (in the Middle Ages) compared to the more isolated Romansh, which therefore (and perhaps also because of continuing contact to northern Gallo-Romance for a longer time) preserves the Gallo-Romance character of the Alpine dialects better. In contrast, the Gallo-Romance traits of Gallo-Italic and Venetian are more superficial and typological and therefore the substratum hypothesis is more likely. The Battistians therefore had a point, but were ultimately wrong and misled by their pro-Italian nationalistic bias. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:58, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
