Languages of switzerland
The official languages in the territory of Switzerland are German, French, Italian and Romansh. Each of them is spoken mainly in a group of cantons in the Swiss territory. In each canton there is one of the four languages that is used by the administration and is considered the main language. (Bern, Freiburg and Valais are bilingual German-French, while the canton of Grisons is trilingual German-Romansh-Italian.) German and French are the main languages of the Swiss country, especially in the fields of economy, culture, the media and higher education.
Diglossia
In addition to these standardized varieties (German, French, Italian and Romansh), there are non-standard varieties associated with them: Alemannic (German-speaking area), Arpitano (French-speaking area), Lombard (Italophone area) and Romansh-speaking varieties (Romansh area). These varieties in some cases may differ markedly from the corresponding standard variety; Thus, German and Romansh are the ones with the greatest dialectal variation, and some regional varieties as used in Switzerland may be difficult to understand mutually with the standard varieties spoken outside of Switzerland. Two of the most widespread dialects are Zurich Swiss German and Bern Swiss German.
Swiss German
Standard German is generally not the mother tongue of the Swiss, who instead speak Swiss (non-standard) German, which differs markedly from Standard German. The varieties of German (standard and non-standard) together constitute the mother tongue of 72.5% of the Swiss, it is used daily by 64% of the country's inhabitants and up to 80% of the total population knows it. Helvetic population.
Swiss French
Most French speakers, on the other hand, speak Swiss French, which differs only minimally from the standard language in France. Up to 21% of Swiss citizens have French as their mother tongue and it is habitually used by 20.5% of the population. Up to 50% of the inhabitants of Switzerland have knowledge of the French language.
It should be noted, however, that although French close to the standard French of France is now used, historically in "French Switzerland" Arpitan (Franco-Provençal) was actually spoken, another Gallo-Romance language different from Standard French.
Italian from Switzerland
Swiss Italian is currently used in the Italian zone, although traditionally not standard Italian proper was spoken, but rather lumbaart (western Lombard), a Gallo-Italic Romance variety that differs markedly from standard Italian.
With the establishment of the creation of the Kingdom of Italy and its adoption of standard Italian as the official language, this variety began to be promoted in Switzerland as well, to the detriment of the regional form. Italian is spoken by 10% of the Swiss, mainly in the canton of Ticino, where it is the only official language, and in Grisons, where it is co-official along with German and Romansh.
Retro-Romance Varieties
Romansh is a standardized form; In fact, there are five linguistic varieties of these characteristics in Switzerland: Suprasylvanian, Subsylvanian, Supramiran, High Engadin (putér) and Low Engadin (vallader). The last two are close and can be clearly considered the same language, which could be considered closer to the Romance of Italy known as Ladin or Ladin.
Legal status
In Switzerland, students must study at least one foreign national language. Normally they start studying a foreign language as children, because in all the cantons it is very easy to be confronted with other national languages, especially in the workplace.
Switzerland has four national languages (art. 4 of the Constitution): German in the north and center of the country, French in the west, Italian in the south and a small minority speak Romansh in the canton of Grisons. Regarding the official languages, the Constitution says in its art. 70 that "the official languages of the Confederation are German, French and Italian. Roman Rehash is also an official language in the relations that the Confederation maintains with people of this language". In addition, each canton determines what its official language is, although always under the constitutional mandate to preserve harmony between the different linguistic communities and protect language minorities.
Linguistic situation at the beginning of the 21st century
There are basically four languages spoken in Switzerland (in order by number of mother tongue speakers): German, French, Italian and Romansh.
By the current Constitution, the first three (German, French and Italian) are "national and official languages" at the federal level (ie official throughout the Swiss territory). As for Romansh, spoken by approximately 20,000 people from the canton of Grisons (who also tend to speak German fluently and Italian to a lesser extent), since 1938 it has also been considered an official language and this is verified in the constitutional reform of 1999, in article 70. However, Romansh only has an official status in "[the Swiss Confederation's] relations with Romansh-speaking people". For this reason, any official document published in Switzerland must always be published and available, throughout Swiss territory, in the three "national languages" (German, French and Italian), while a Romansh version is made only if it is is sued. German and French exert their predominance over the other languages, since knowledge of both extends to 80% and 50%, respectively, of the Swiss population.
The linguistic boundary between French and German is called Röstigraben (Rösti Trench) and presents the singularity of crossing several towns such as Biel-Bienne, the canton of Friborg or Sierre-Siders, so that on many occasions a few meters (a river, a street) are the visible border between the two linguistic communities.
The Swiss school system is cantonal. In each canton, and within each canton in each municipality, education is provided in their own language, while learning one of the other "national languages" is compulsory, with the exception of the canton of Ticino (Ticino ), where the teaching programs establish, in addition to Italian, the compulsory teaching of either French or German. Almost all school programs in the country also provide for the teaching (as a foreign language) of English.
Every Swiss citizen has the right to address the federal institutions in one of the official languages and to receive a reply in that language. However, such multilingualism is no longer valid at the cantonal or communal level. In that case, each canton and each commune decides independently on language issues at the local level.
In the year 2000, German was spoken as the habitual language by 63.7% of the Swiss (in 17 cantons). A proportional decline in Goethe's language is noted: around 1900 it was spoken by approximately 75% of the population, in 1960 by approximately 65%, French by 20.4% (in 7 cantons) — proportionally French has had an increase of 2% since 1920 — Italian is the language of 6.5% of the Swiss (the only official language in the canton of Ticino and one of the three official languages together with German and Romansh, in the canton of Grisons). For its part, Romansh (actually there is still no unified Romansh) is spoken by only 1% of the Swiss. Romansh speakers have been bilingual since the 19th century, speaking mostly some German dialect or, if not, Italian. 9% of the population speak "non-national" languages. These percentages include, in effect, people without Swiss citizenship (still in 2007 very difficult to obtain even if you have a long period of residence in the country) who live in Switzerland (20.5% of the population in 2005). Between "foreign" most frequent in Switzerland are English and Spanish. If only Swiss citizens are taken into account, the 2000 census gives noticeable percentage differences: German speakers (normative or any of its dialects), 72.5%; French-speaking, 21.0%; Italian speakers, 4.3%; Romansh speakers 0.6%; other languages, 1.6%.
German-speaking Swiss communicate with each other in Swiss German (actually there is a dialect multitude with two main dialect groups: Alamanic, spoken mainly in the western sector, and "Swavian", spoken in the northeast sector), although its normative variety is maintained as official German. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the French-speaking Swiss have greatly homogenized their language, which has prevailed over Arpitan or Franco-Provençal. Until the middle of the XX century, the Italian of Ticino and Grisons was a variant of Lombard; Nowadays, normative Italian is taught. As for Romansh, as noted, almost all of the Swiss who speak it usually also speak another language (generally German and, to a lesser extent, Italian). Furthermore: despite the meager number of current Romansh speakers, there are at least four Romansh dialects and it has not yet been possible to establish a normative version that is spoken by the entire Romansh community.
The cantons of Ticino and Jura define themselves linguistically as one Italian and the other French, despite the fact that there are German-speaking communities. There are also three bilingual cantons: Freiburg, Bern and Valés (Valais in French, Wallis in German), as well as the trilingual canton of Grisons.
Officially there are regions that are called bilingual: the communities of Biel-Bienne, Friborg, Murten-Morat and Sierre-Siders. In Grisons, for its part, the communities often define themselves as Romansh (Romansh), although German is the dominant language of communication. In these cases, Roman Rehash is the administrative and school language, while in daily life the language used is Swiss German.
The group of cantons and territories in which the German language predominates is called German Switzerland. The French-speaking part is called Romandie, or, less frequently, Roman Switzerland. For its part, the Italian-speaking area is called Italian Switzerland or Southern Switzerland.
Spoken German is predominantly the Swiss dialect, known as Swiss German (Schweizerdeutsch), divided into several subdialects that form two sets: the West Alemanic dialects and the Swabian > east (see Brünig-Napf-Reuss Line), but High German (Hochdeutsch or Schriftdeutsch) is used in the media, i.e. Norm German. As for French, it has spread in the Contemporary Age on the substratum of Arpitano or Franco-Provençal dialects. Many Swiss speak more than one language (half the population being bilingual in German and French). 20.6% of the Swiss population is made up of foreign residents and temporary workers, many of them from Italy, Turkey or the former Yugoslavia.
Other languages with recognition
The Yeniche language (in French: yeniche, in German: Jenisch) is a variant of the German language, which has official recognition in the Swiss Confederation, spoken by the Yeniche people. This town is made up of nomads who travel mainly through parts of France, Austria, Germany and Switzerland.