Ladin is a Romance language spoken by roughly 30,000 people in the Dolomite Mountains of Northern Italy. Ladin descended from Latin mixed with the pre-Roman Rhaetian language and has survived for centuries due to the region's geographic isolation. Its sharpest decline came in the 20th century, when Fascist Italianization policies under Mussolini banned the language from public life, forcibly replaced Ladin place names with Italian ones, and deliberately split the Ladin valleys across three separate provinces to suppress resistance. After World War II, increased regional autonomy allowed Ladin to recover somewhat. Ladin gained official recognition, was introduced into parts of school curricula, and is supported by cultural institutions.