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The Languages of Switzerland
Switzerland is a multilingual country with four national languages: German,
French, Italian, and Romansh. Each language is most dominant in particular
areas of the country. As of 2012, German speakers comprised 64.9% of the
Swiss population (approximately 4.3 million people), making it the most widely
spoken language. Out of the 26 cantons (counties), German is the only official
language in 17 of them and a co-official language in 4 more. However, the
particular dialect of German that Swiss German speakers speak varies by
canton, meaning that there is no such thing as "Swiss German." Instead, there is
"Baselduetsch" (the Basel Swiss German dialect), "Zueriduetsch" (the Zurich
Swiss German dialect), etc. For the most part, different Swiss German dialects
are mutually intelligible but that is often not true with "High German" (German
spoken in Germany).
French speakers comprise 22.6% of the Swiss population (approximately
1.5 million people). It is the sole official language in 4 cantons and co-official
language in 2 others. Unlike German, standard Swiss French and the French
spoken in France are very much the same language with fewer differences.
8.3% of the Swiss population (approximately 0.5 million people) speaks
Italian. These Italian speakers are clustered in the southeastern areas of the
country that border Italy. Like Swiss French, Swiss Italian is quite close
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linguistically to the Italian spoken in Italy with only a few regional variants. It is
worth noting that the percentage of Italian speakers in Switzerland has been
decreasing since the 1970s, during which the percentage hit its high of 11%.
However, there have also been fewer Italian immigrants which probably
contributes to these numbers.
Finally, the least widely spoken language in Swizerland is Romansh, with
approximately 33,000 speakers comprising 0.5% of the Swiss population. It is
only an official language in one canton, Graubunden, which is actually trilingual.
But, each municipality of the canton is able to specify its own official languages.
Only a few of them contain significant numbers of Romansh speakers.
The history of why Switzerland has not one but four national languages
goes back to the time of the Romans, since they used to entirely occupy modern-
day Switzerland. In the fifth century, when the Roman Empire began to collapse,
two Germanic tribes moved to Switzerland. The Burgundians were placed in the
West as auxiliaries of the Roman army and the Alamanni moved into the North
and the East. The Burgundians had to adopt Latin, which evolved into French,
while the Alamanni kept their Germanic language, which evolved into Swiss
German. A few small areas in modern day Graubunden managed to escape
Germanic influences and kept their Latin language, which eventually became
Romansh. Finally, Swiss Italian is derived from the Latin of the Roman occupiers.
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Sources
History. (2010). Retrieved from http://swiss-government-politics.all-about-
switzerland.info/swiss-history-traditions.html
History of Switzerland. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ac78
Bundesamt fr Statistik der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft:
Wohnbevlkerung nach Hauptsprachen. Retrieved from website:
http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/themen/01/05/blank/key/sprac
hen.Document.21751.xls
Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft, Bundesamt fuer Statistik. (n.d.).
Landessprachen in den Gemeinden, 2000. Retrieved from website:
http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/regionen/thematische_karten/
maps/bevoelkerung/sprachen_religionen.NewWindow.parsys.0002.3.Previ
ew.html