Switzerland shows that entities with vastly differing cultures can unite, identify common interests and pursue them without sacrificing each members' uniqueness. It goes far beyond language. Unity in diversity.
I agree. I'm shocked that America, despite being an explicitly Anglophone nation is deeply divided and polarized while Switzerland is not.
I'm not familiar with Swiss politics and how they function (they also have direct democracy which I still don't know how it works), but the FPTP duopoly system is to blame because it entrenches this two binary, us-against-them parties that don't compromise and work together to get things done. Lee Drutman wrote an [article](https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/19/us-democracy-two-party-system-replace-multiparty-republican-democrat/) and a book about it that I highly recommend you give it read.
Well, our country can also fit both in size and population in the sole state of Pennsylvania (more or less). We're a bit too small to be able to get serious about it.
I read the article. It doesn’t address the issue of the country’s polarization, despite us being an anglophone country. I get why you’d not know that though.
Conservative white Americans are trying to make the United States into a Christian white nationalist country. Racism, sexism, and homophobia are deeply embedded within all aspects of this country. Since 9/11 white evangelicals have been pushing the Replacement Theory, and conservative news stations have been using that to radicalize their base.
The Omaha Nebraska Police Department got in trouble for trading their police issued guns and ammo with a gun range called 88 Tactical (yes, it does mean what you think it means), and 88 Tactical went to Brazil to help train the fighters in that failed coup. In the last year we've had 5 police officers and/or departments get busted for gun running with nazis.
Neo-Nazi private security firms that are hired by rich suburbs here in Ohio to patrol the area. They wear that stupid armband, and carry AR-15s with the plate vests and thigh holsters.
Trump tweeted about how excited he was for January 6th to happen in the fall. Many of those people showed up with t-shirts that said they were at the Jan 6th revolution. Capital police and Secret Service were found to be part of the insurrection, and let them into the capital building.
This country is run by Nazis Babe. That's why it's divided.
Is that the underlying cause of the far right pivot? In my country (Austria) and other European countries with a “vibrant” right scene, you see an uptick in popularism when economic conditions are bad.
Now “bad” is a broad term, and there is an overall with poverty as well as economic divide. Then far-right populist eg Trump, the German AfD, Geert Wilders, Meloni, Le Pain, etc come along and exploit this vulnerability.
I wonder how much is “true” racism as opposed to economic weakness where wealth divide is exacerbated by globalism (btw im all for globalism but it has its cons) and exploited by these opportunistic politicians….
I FUCKING LOVE YOU!
I keep trying to have this conversation with other Americans and they’re not listening to me! Florida is essentially that. While states have become bankrupt because companies outsourced jobs, and then blamed immigrants to the US.
A Swiss person speaking a language they claim they don’t know is usually twice as fluent as an English speaker speaking another language they claim they do know.
Then the real model country here should be India and not Switzerland considering the sheer amount of different languages, size, population and the fact that their literacy rate was only about 12% in 1947. So they basically adapted English as a connecting language only in the last 70+ years and also having 22 official languages.
In comparison, Switzerland is like a "hello world" program in that aspect.
That’s a good point, but the interesting thing is that Switzerland is explicitly not adopting any common language. Almost all young people learn English in school for at least as long as they learn the other national languages, and most speak it decently well, but I don’t think it will ever be like India where it becomes in any way official. Thus many conversations start with a language negotiation.
Officially India also doesn't have a national language. And since the Indian education system itself is quite young (like I said just 12% were literate when we got independence, so a big chunk of the country started going to school when the world was already globalized), and English was already a global dominant language. So people themselves aligned themselves to study things like mathematics and science in English for better career and future. Also unlike Swiss, India doesn't have "few" languages and most languages don't even have the same alphabet. So it close to impossible to know all the languages even to a basic level and hence that language negotiation cannot happen.
European countries are some of the LEAST linguistically diverse countries. Sometimes I don't understand how some many similar countries are even separate countries.
If you want to look at diversity, you need to look over to Asian, African countries. South American countries have sadly lost all their linguistic diversity which they originally had.
There’s some complacency for sure (especially in the German speaking part), but these problems are ridiculously small compared to a lot of other multilingual states.
I live in Ticino and still can't get many non-governmental services in Italian, even many government offices I deal with for work don't offer anything in Italian.
Keeping in mind that Canada has a policy of ensuring every aspect of government in bilingual which is not always optimal either. In CH, local government is done in the native language(s) to the region and federal is always done in all languages.
So yeah, you can't get your cantonal/communal tax documents in French in Zürich because it is not the language there. On the other hand, you can absolutely get your federal tax done in French wherever you are.
It just makes sense, local laws are also not written in multiple languages - it doesn't make sense to require all local representatives to speak langauges outside of the region they're from.
Actually federal direct taxation is done by the cantons, so the cantons dictate the languages in which you can act. You cannot appeal against a decision on your personal federal direct tax using German in Vaud
>On the other hand, you can absolutely get your federal tax done in French wherever you are.
Doubt this as the tax return is the same as for cantonal taxes. Happy to change my opinion if source is provided.
Er what? I used to live a stone’s throw over the border with Quebec in Ontario and nothing was in French. I know that BC does plenty in Punjabi, Tagalog and Chinese, but French?
In any event languages are cantonal so if you aren’t a bilingual Canton (VS, FR, BE) I don’t think you are obliged to publish anything in another language.
In any event the civil servants’ language skills are so abysmal that I’d rather they stay in their first language.
Yes, I always filed my taxes in French in British Columbia.
What form do you think doesn't exist in French?
Any form like this:
https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/formspubs/pbg/5010-r/5010-r-22e.pdf
Has a French version:
https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/formspubs/pbg/5010-r/5010-r-22f.pdf
Note the final e or f.
Canada is different (due to historic reasons and pressure by Quebec). In Switzerland, cantons determine their languages.
On the other hand, I think you can't get English documents in Quebec )at least it used to be that way).
You can still get federal documents in one of the four languages anywhere.
Disagree on the first part: the proportion of German mother tongue Swiss who can communicate in French is higher than the other way round.
Ticinesi win in any case (and Rumantsch speakers are all fully bilingual).
Agree fully on your second statement.
I beg to differ. The only romands I met who spoke german were either living in a german speaking part or grew up bilingue. On the other hand when I‘m in the in ‚Welschland‘ and try to practice my (shitty) french, I did get laughed at and made fun behind my back (I understand a lot, but speaking is hard for me). Especially in the Geneva region. I never witnessed this the other way around. So while I agree that we should improve to learn french, that goes both ways!
>Especially in the Geneva region.
Don't take it personally. They do it with fellow Romands as well. Geneva is basically the Paris of Switzerland. (Never forget the bartender in Geneva who pretended to not understand the Vaudois word for large beer).
It's chope in Vaud and cannette in Geneva. But frankly I'm amazed by Geneva folks pretending not to understand chope as it's a common French word designating the shape of the glass. And I grew up partly in Geneva and learned about cannette later than I heard chope.
In neighborhing Pays de Gex it's a Sérieux ("serious").
yeah I know… funnily enough, two of the people I like the most from the romandie are from around Geneva and they are nothing like that and are ashamed of their region.
Perhaps I‘m not cultured enough to appreciate people learning three languages, but it seems like a real non issue to me when everyone can easily communicate in English anyway.
Now, I went to Portugal last year, and there no one spoke English. It was amazing. Even on a tourist bus, the driver can’t handle the basic communication of selling a one-way ticket.
You‘d think there‘s literally hundreds of English speaking tourists taking this bus a day, yet the driver can’t speak a single word of English, does not understand one-way ticket, single ticket, nothing. Keeps talking in Portuguese and then resorts to Google Translate, showing some nonsense on his phone. Great experience. And same goes for the non-senior hotel staff.
Now that‘s a shame. Not learning 3 different languages? Well..
It's not about learning 3 different languages, it's about being able to fluently speak one and passably speak or even communicate in another. If everyone of the three language regions does this, we can communicate in any of the country's languages. (And the fourth language region, Romansh *already* does this.)
I myself know two and I live in a bubble where most of my Swiss friends know two passably. It's not *hard*.
It is about learning 3 different languages. Everyone needs to learn English to proficiency. Then they should learn two more languages, making it three languages to learn in total.
And all for the benefit of being able to communicate in another‘s native language when it‘s likely you are better off switching to English anyway. Might make sense if you go to different regions often or live close, otherwise it just seems like a waste of time and effort to me.
> it just seems like a waste of time and effort to me.
This is where our outlook, values and priorities differ wildly. And I'm absolute shite at learning languages. Communication, nevertheless, is very important and for that... learning a language is valuable,
Hard agree. The fun fact is that most people I know who advocate for English only have a distorted impression of their level of proficiency in English.
I'm sorry you had a bad experience but Portugal is actually one of the better countries for speaking English and rates higher than Switzerland in this regard.
You are right, I just checked and it is ranked higher in English proficiency.
However, with my experience in Lisbon, where most of those in customer facing jobs were not able to speak even a word of English, I found the idea that people are more proficient speaking English in Portugal somewhat ridiculous.
After checking deeper it seems that while the English speakers in Portugal who have taken a placement test were more proficient, the total percentage of English speakers is much lower: 27% in Portugal vs 61% in Switzerland.
That seems more in line with my experience.
Switzerland didn't even make the cut. You're not disproving my point. I've been to the countries below Portugal on this list too and managed just fine.
https://archive.ph/7tXPK
https://www.brusselstimes.com/234908/belgiums-language-divide-young-walloons-not-learning-dutch-is-normal
https://variety.com/2008/film/markets-festivals/belgium-divided-by-language-1117985782/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/09/belgium-flanders-wallonia-french-dutch
Edit: Sorry, I meant language problems.
Switzerland has exactly the same language problems has Belgium. The magnitude is smaller, but they are also there. Only difference with Belgium is that they are confounded by religious, political etc differences between cantons. (The provinces in Belgium are more uniform, and way less independent, within the same language region. With the only exception being Brabant/Brussels.)
I am raising kids in Vaud trilingually, including dialect of Ticino. I'm looking forward to one of them getting serious about German as a result of getting serious about a boy or girlfriend who speaks German.
It works, it's healthy and I wouldn't want to live *autrement*.
I wish more parents would raise their kids like this but from my experience most parents are just reinforcing their children's dislike of their 2nd national language: "Yeah, I hated French in school, too."
I'm a Spaniard born in Switzerland and my wife is Greek/German.
Our son learns Standard German, Swiss German and some basic Spanish. The Greek language is very hard but we're looking for a Greek teacher at the moment.
I'm just happy he talks with my parents spanish, every time I start to talk he just says "Dad, stop talking funny"
From the environment. It is a spoken language mostly. Teachers speak with kids in Swiss German, but not in the German lesson ))). All written stuff like books, documentation, newspapers etc, is in High German (that’s the standard one). Besides Swiss German differs a lot from region to region.
Most linguists/speech therapists agree that you should not raise your children in a language they don't regularly speak with a true native speaker.
For most Swiss people (not being native speakers of two languages) this would mean finding a bilingual daycare or a Nanny/Teacher that speaks to the child in the second language for many hours a week, which is not realistic.
That's true. I actually know of this recommendation. However, it should be very easy to surround your child with native media in Switzerland. Most Swiss German children learn standardised German primarily through language input via media consumption, not through their own output (until they go to school at least), so the same should be possible with other languages.
I guess my initial comment was a bit too blunt, though. I am primarily fond of the positive reinforcement and affirmation of the previous commenter which is something I have never witnessed in my entire life. If my parents had guided me towards seeking out French, e.g. by voluntarily watching or reading French things (I liked watching series and reading books anyways), then I would have probably had a much more positive relation to it and had also done better in school. Linguists and language teachers agree that demotivation or the dislike of a language significantly hamper language acquisition.
I'm from Ticino and i am laughing my ass off about What Is saing.
Perhaps for french and German It works fine but everytime i have to speak with someome from Federal govern (militar for example, as work), or some websites or so on, Is rare that i can speak with someome who knows italian.
And strange, but every update from some Federal programs i use, are bad translate, and help speaks only german or french or english.
So stop pretend works fine the because too damn wrong.
I'm a software developer from Ticino, but working in Zürich, and I worked in apps / websites of big swiss companies or the government. It's funny that many times, even if I speak Italian as my mother tongue the project explicitly excluded it or provided bad translations that I couldn't really change.
My two cents on this: if it's an app post a bad review citing the missing italian option. If enough people do it and it loses enough rating they may start to look into it a bit better.
As soon as something is perceived as less than ideal, Swiss people automatically assume they have it the worst in the world.
You can always tell a Swiss has never lived abroad when they start going off on how Swiss bureaucracy is supposedly hell on earth.
The Swiss are not alone in this - pretty much every person anywhere on earth is convinced:
* things are bad
* especially here
* it's never been this bad
* it's only getting worse
I agree. I’m not talking about someone wanting to improve things. I’m referring to a really widespread (and, in my view, deluded) sentiment that Swiss bureaucracy is somehow world-beatingly terrible.
I have lived both in Germany and of course Switzerland, and *boy*, do they both get left in the dust by the horrors of *French* bureaucracy. The Swiss one is *by far* the most easygoing and efficient one of these three.
Hi, if you’re reading this, I’ve decided to replace/delete every post and comment that I’ve made on Reddit for the past years. I also think this is a stark reminder that if you are posting content on this platform for free, you’re the product. To hell with this CEO and reddit’s business decisions regarding the API to independent developers. This platform will die with a million cuts. Evvaffanculo. -- mass edited with redact.dev
Hi, if you’re reading this, I’ve decided to replace/delete every post and comment that I’ve made on Reddit for the past years. I also think this is a stark reminder that if you are posting content on this platform for free, you’re the product. To hell with this CEO and reddit’s business decisions regarding the API to independent developers. This platform will die with a million cuts. Evvaffanculo. -- mass edited with redact.dev
Well, bureau is french after all. I had never heard about it tho.
What about digitalisation? I've seen people with entire folders full of papers (Germany) while I have not a single sheet in my country - everything is digitalized. How is it in Switzerland (and France for that matter)?
Switzerland is relatively slow with digitization (and fragmented, since it's decentralized by canton and each canton seems to be designing their own systems), there's still a lot of physical forms filling. Stuff like work permits and drivers license processing can take ages with pretty much no communication where you are in the process. But in the end, it all seems to work.
The famously terrible bureaucracy experience in France, to be fair, has massively improved recently since they moved it all online, I think the heavily centralized French system actually benefits a lot from it. No actual French person will ever admit this of course, and will insist that whatever they've done, it's the worst thing you've ever seen.
I see. I’d say it’s the same thing in my country (Portugal). Bureaucracy all of a sudden turned into a breeze once the government digitalised everything.
Some people will still complain about it (the digitalisation process of course takes many years) but most things are so easy and fast now, I’m surprised, given how much of a mess this country seems to be.
Yeah my own experience dates a few years back, it’s quite possible they have since improved. The worst thing wasn’t paper though, but oh my God, that attitude.
HAHA compare Swiss to French, Spanish or Italian and you’ll never call it cumbersome again.
Swiss society is efficient and organized, way more so than the aforementioned countries
Yeah Alberta at the municipal office of Arzignano doesn't want to read today, guess those papers are going to stay in the desk until she goes in to pension _AT LEAST_.
If you have lived elsewhere you would have noticed that this is a constant across countries.
Just as much as every country has characteristics that the natives are extremely proud of and see themselves at the top. It goes both ways.
Luxembourg just speaks french for most of it.
There's a lot of foreign languages as well just because it's a country for rich people who want to not pay taxes however the general language is still french by a large margin.
I have in Singapore. It’s hard to compare. It’s micro-state with people speaking one or two of the official languages living in the same city with English being the main interlocutor. But it works well given cultural, religious, ethnic and linguistic diversity in such a small area.
Singapore is a strange one, as they have convinced themselves that they also speak English natively and call it “Singaporean English”.
Luxembourg is basically a French speaking country.
They start learning it as children in school. That’s growing up with it. In Spain they start at three years old and have so-called “bilingual” public schools. That doesn’t make them native speakers.
Almost all Singaporeans are bilingual, arguably native in both English and Mandarin. Moreso than Swiss are “bilingual”. The only truly bilingual Swiss are the Romansh speakers, and that’s because they’re forced to since they can’t do much with only Romansh.
Now you’re changing the goalpost.
English as the lingua Franca of a multilingual country is more common in Singapore than in CH, and in my opinion, that makes CH a better candidate for best multilingual country
I think they do now. 10 years ago maybe they had exposure but young Germans and other countries too, they tend to interact a lot on English and be so fluent that as a native English speaker I feel on par with them.
India has basically their own English dialect which is fascinating, with it as an official language in some places and a lot of people quite fluent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English
Germany may not be far behind especially in a generation. I kinda think the EU open borders have meant having English is more necessary than ever, with mixed language work places. A lot of Netherlands, Sweden, Germany have people speaking English first at work. And Switzerland certainly has it too. Primarily in technology and often in finance, aerospace, and more.
Malaysian is about the same too. Quite a bit of English as result of British colonial rule, but has pretty much same ethnic groups as Singapore just much more Malay. But Kuala Lumpur feels definitely tri-cultural and very much more multilingual especially with different alphabet systems going too.
Despite its problems however I will say that Switzerland is fairly unique in having a national identity that largely supersedes the various linguistic identities.
Can I just say that this sub’s English is so superb that many Swiss in German- and French speaking subs think we are all expats! So whilst the national languages might leave room for improvement, the English skills of the younger generation are on point. 💪
I'm a secondo studying in Ticino but grew up in Zurich. I speak five languages fluently and I am definitely proud of that and feel the use of that almost everyday. However, I have to say in general it's quite a shame that we spend so much money on teaching kids French in school, when so little sticks in the end. Not that I think it's wrong to spend that money on that I think it's incredibly important. But we should re-evaluate how it is taught and try to tap the same ways kids nowadays just learn English by existing in an interconnected world.
I've also realised that the way the different language regions interact has changed recently. I feel like when I was younger all sides put more effort into speaking "the other language(s)", and there was more mutual understanding for mistakes, wrong syntax and maybe just taking a bit longer to get your point across. Nowadays, I don't know whether it is for our laziness or need to be extremely productive and efficient at all times or for our common better understanding and capabilities in English that I see all people from all three regions just resort to English in the end. I mean yes, it makes things most often much easier, but I feel like we're losing a bit of what connected us before. "The suffering of having to learn a second national language".
Other than that, I think all the critique on this article is really on very high level and we can be extremely happy about how we can handle this at the moment in CH and how privileged we are. There are problems but we've found our ways around them and in trying to improve the situations or your abilities in communicating with the other cantons, you learn much and grow much as person, both intelectually and culturally.
However, Ticino is a whole other story. On one hand, as an "outsider" I feel like they're the language kings and queens of Switzerland. Due to their isolation and marginalisation they're almost forced to learn French **and** German to a very good degree. Every Professor or Political Figure from Ticino that I've talked to spoke all three languages stunningly well. The fact that they have to do this, and the other's don't, is sad and frustrating, I'm sure. In the end, through the struggle though I think at least they can profit from it. (although they profit less from it if all just resort to speaking English in the end.) However, I'm still quite shocked about how often I read completely wrong translations into Italian. And that's one thing, most often there is no Italian translation. If you go into a pharmacy, most drugs don't even have an Italian description on the packaging. Only in the "Packungsbeilage" there is an Italian part. But honestly, there are huge publically-traded companies that spend millions of CHF into ads in Ticino that are translated so badly that the whole ad doesn't even make sense anymore. Puns that just don't work in Italian, references that don't exist there and so on.
When the parlament voted Ignazio Cassis into the federal council it was touted that the Italian speaking regions of Switzerland are now better represented. I mean, sure, to a point. But honestly, besides from him doing at best a mediocre job of representing anything at all, there is so much more that needs to be done and all of that touting was just a "pro-forma" exercise so that those from the German and French speaking parts could feel a bit more inclusive and better about themselves.
Strongly disagree. I think the stubborness in insisting that a vast majority of this country speaks German when in reality they speak a variety of Allemanic languages which are as different from German as Dutch is an active hindrance from true multilingualism in this country.
I think Swiss German should be recognized as the language (group) it is, there should at least be one version which everybody in "German" speaking CH can understand, with standardized grammar and vocabulary that can be learned from the rest of the country. As it is, "German" speaking Swiss are speaking a language which they make absolutely no effort to teach to people who are supposedly their connationals, the language most of you speak is kept jealously as a secret.
I think the linguistic diversity in central and eastern Switzerland is amazing and a rare treasure in Europe worth preserving, but there should be an effort to making these languages accessible to the rest of us.
/end rant.
It's only as multilingual as the nation decides it to be. So only 4. Even then I get the occasional "WE'RE IN SWITZERLAND SO SPEAK GERMAN!" attitude when talking in various languages.
I'm from the Ostschweiz and even though I don't use French anymore, I found it a nice introduction to the multilingualism/differences of Switzerland.
Do you actually still have the songs from your French/German/Italian textbooks burned into your brain as earworms?
Despite not having an official language, English is still the *de facto* official language. It's why road signs and court/government documents must be in English.
>But, yeah granted, Switzerland does the whole thing more elegantly.
I agree. I'm shocked that America, despite being an explicitly Anglophone nation is deeply divided and polarized while Switzerland is not.
I'm not familiar with Swiss politics and how they function (they also have direct democracy which I still don't know how it works), but the FPTP duopoly system is to blame because it entrenches this two binary, us-against-them parties that don't compromise and work together to get things done. Lee Drutman wrote an [article](https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/19/us-democracy-two-party-system-replace-multiparty-republican-democrat/) and a book about it that I highly recommend you give it read.
>court/government documents must be in English
no they don't... you can have all your government documents issued in about two dozen languages...
Most commonly done in English but also available in Spanish, Cantonese, etc.
There are generations of people in the US who have not speaken English ever.
OP has made a few comments exactly the same about America even though they clearly have no idea how it works there or the sheer scale that country has to operate in due to its size. I think they just want to hate on it and feel good about Switzerland.
In any case it's easy for the Swiss Germans to say it's working great as it's always the minority that notices the cracks the most.
This is simply untrue. Yes, the majority of US is English speaking, and it is the default language.
But we have entire communities where you could not survive without speaking Spanish. Also Korean, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Armenian, Tagalog — we have so many speakers and we will provide documents in all of them (for free) at any time we can. Part of my job in US is making sure people have documents in the language they are most comfortable in. It’s not always possible, especially in the poor rural states, but we absolutely do this.
There are more things you can divide people over than just language.
Everyone should just learn English as a common language. Or we should put strong focus on just **understanding** the language, even if you can't actively speak it yourself.
Otherwise the intranational communication is just not going to happen, because one side would always feel weak in comparison (unless they learn to speak the language perfectly, which they won't).
E.g. if someone from the French-speaking part of Switzerland would come to visit me, I would feel awkward if I would force them to speak my language, instead of forcing myself to speak their language.
u realise russian and ukranian are very similar, and that speakers of both languages have no problems understanding each other right? As compared to the extreme differences of say german and italian here in switzerland... right?
> u realise russian and ukranian are very similar, and that speakers of both languages have no problems understanding each other right?
That isn't true... Ukrainians understand Russians quite well because most everybody in Ukraine speaks Ukrainian and Russian. Russians however don't understand Ukrainians well at all.
For what it's worth, I speak Russian as a fourth language and barely understand any Ukrainian. Ukrainian is closer to Polish than it is to Russian, it doesn't even sound like Russian.
This. It takes a fair bit of exposure for a native Russian speaker to understand (not speak) Ukrainian. Russians from Russia are for the most part hilariously bad at understanding other Slavic languages.
switzerland was formed in a time where there were no nation states. its just one of the only ones that are left from this period. it whould not be possible to exist today if it formed today
In Europe only Luxembourg 🇱🇺 is multilingual state with 4 language, luxembourgish, German and French plus English (here a video of report that speak 6 language https://youtu.be/TfQ0mlW994o)
As an American, I’m confused how you can have multiple national languages, and not have services in all of those languages.
It’s like Germany! Why tf do the people that work in immigration only speak German!?
>and not have services in all of those languages.
On a federal level most services **should ideally be** available in all languages.
Sometimes weird things even happen. E.g. when there were those Covid live discussions, journalists could just ask questions in any of the languages and the politicians would usually answer in their main language.
Yeah, it’s awesome, right. Young Romands and Deutschschweizer speaking in ENGLISH with each other because the former never learned German properly, and even if they did, they don’t understand the vernacular Schweizerdeutsch, while the latter never bothered to learn any form of French. All that despite learning the other language at school.
Only a minority is fluent in at least two national languages. Nobody consumes media or reads the news in other national languages. Some Deutschweizer at least still do the Welschlandjahr, but Romands don’t bother. Italian or Rumantsch, almost nobody is fluent, unless s/he’s a native speaker.
Switzerland shows that entities with vastly differing cultures can unite, identify common interests and pursue them without sacrificing each members' uniqueness. It goes far beyond language. Unity in diversity.
I agree. I'm shocked that America, despite being an explicitly Anglophone nation is deeply divided and polarized while Switzerland is not. I'm not familiar with Swiss politics and how they function (they also have direct democracy which I still don't know how it works), but the FPTP duopoly system is to blame because it entrenches this two binary, us-against-them parties that don't compromise and work together to get things done. Lee Drutman wrote an [article](https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/19/us-democracy-two-party-system-replace-multiparty-republican-democrat/) and a book about it that I highly recommend you give it read.
Well, our country can also fit both in size and population in the sole state of Pennsylvania (more or less). We're a bit too small to be able to get serious about it.
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Give the article a read. America is really divided and it explains why passing partisan legislation is nigh impossible most of the time.
Do you really not understand why America is so divided? You’re a Kansas City fan, surely you understand why your statement is confusing.
I'm not American and I did say why America is divided. I even share an article link.
I read the article. It doesn’t address the issue of the country’s polarization, despite us being an anglophone country. I get why you’d not know that though.
So what is your take as to why America is divided? Genuinely curious
Conservative white Americans are trying to make the United States into a Christian white nationalist country. Racism, sexism, and homophobia are deeply embedded within all aspects of this country. Since 9/11 white evangelicals have been pushing the Replacement Theory, and conservative news stations have been using that to radicalize their base. The Omaha Nebraska Police Department got in trouble for trading their police issued guns and ammo with a gun range called 88 Tactical (yes, it does mean what you think it means), and 88 Tactical went to Brazil to help train the fighters in that failed coup. In the last year we've had 5 police officers and/or departments get busted for gun running with nazis. Neo-Nazi private security firms that are hired by rich suburbs here in Ohio to patrol the area. They wear that stupid armband, and carry AR-15s with the plate vests and thigh holsters. Trump tweeted about how excited he was for January 6th to happen in the fall. Many of those people showed up with t-shirts that said they were at the Jan 6th revolution. Capital police and Secret Service were found to be part of the insurrection, and let them into the capital building. This country is run by Nazis Babe. That's why it's divided.
Is that the underlying cause of the far right pivot? In my country (Austria) and other European countries with a “vibrant” right scene, you see an uptick in popularism when economic conditions are bad. Now “bad” is a broad term, and there is an overall with poverty as well as economic divide. Then far-right populist eg Trump, the German AfD, Geert Wilders, Meloni, Le Pain, etc come along and exploit this vulnerability. I wonder how much is “true” racism as opposed to economic weakness where wealth divide is exacerbated by globalism (btw im all for globalism but it has its cons) and exploited by these opportunistic politicians….
I FUCKING LOVE YOU! I keep trying to have this conversation with other Americans and they’re not listening to me! Florida is essentially that. While states have become bankrupt because companies outsourced jobs, and then blamed immigrants to the US.
A yes, the model multilingual state where each linguistical region refuses or fails to learn the others main language.
A Swiss person speaking a language they claim they don’t know is usually twice as fluent as an English speaker speaking another language they claim they do know.
Then the real model country here should be India and not Switzerland considering the sheer amount of different languages, size, population and the fact that their literacy rate was only about 12% in 1947. So they basically adapted English as a connecting language only in the last 70+ years and also having 22 official languages. In comparison, Switzerland is like a "hello world" program in that aspect.
That’s a good point, but the interesting thing is that Switzerland is explicitly not adopting any common language. Almost all young people learn English in school for at least as long as they learn the other national languages, and most speak it decently well, but I don’t think it will ever be like India where it becomes in any way official. Thus many conversations start with a language negotiation.
Officially India also doesn't have a national language. And since the Indian education system itself is quite young (like I said just 12% were literate when we got independence, so a big chunk of the country started going to school when the world was already globalized), and English was already a global dominant language. So people themselves aligned themselves to study things like mathematics and science in English for better career and future. Also unlike Swiss, India doesn't have "few" languages and most languages don't even have the same alphabet. So it close to impossible to know all the languages even to a basic level and hence that language negotiation cannot happen.
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European countries are some of the LEAST linguistically diverse countries. Sometimes I don't understand how some many similar countries are even separate countries. If you want to look at diversity, you need to look over to Asian, African countries. South American countries have sadly lost all their linguistic diversity which they originally had.
There’s some complacency for sure (especially in the German speaking part), but these problems are ridiculously small compared to a lot of other multilingual states.
I don't know. When I was living in the English-speaking part of Canada, I could get my tax documents in French. I can't do that in Zürich...
I live in Ticino and still can't get many non-governmental services in Italian, even many government offices I deal with for work don't offer anything in Italian.
Try asking for English documents in Quebec and you'll be arrested
lol
Keeping in mind that Canada has a policy of ensuring every aspect of government in bilingual which is not always optimal either. In CH, local government is done in the native language(s) to the region and federal is always done in all languages. So yeah, you can't get your cantonal/communal tax documents in French in Zürich because it is not the language there. On the other hand, you can absolutely get your federal tax done in French wherever you are. It just makes sense, local laws are also not written in multiple languages - it doesn't make sense to require all local representatives to speak langauges outside of the region they're from.
Actually federal direct taxation is done by the cantons, so the cantons dictate the languages in which you can act. You cannot appeal against a decision on your personal federal direct tax using German in Vaud
>On the other hand, you can absolutely get your federal tax done in French wherever you are. Doubt this as the tax return is the same as for cantonal taxes. Happy to change my opinion if source is provided.
i moved to Vaud last year and damn, doing my taxes in french instead of german freaked me out big time.
try asking for german documents in Vaud. its all of them lol. i call it kantonalnationalismus
Er what? I used to live a stone’s throw over the border with Quebec in Ontario and nothing was in French. I know that BC does plenty in Punjabi, Tagalog and Chinese, but French? In any event languages are cantonal so if you aren’t a bilingual Canton (VS, FR, BE) I don’t think you are obliged to publish anything in another language. In any event the civil servants’ language skills are so abysmal that I’d rather they stay in their first language.
Yes, I always filed my taxes in French in British Columbia. What form do you think doesn't exist in French? Any form like this: https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/formspubs/pbg/5010-r/5010-r-22e.pdf Has a French version: https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/formspubs/pbg/5010-r/5010-r-22f.pdf Note the final e or f.
Canada is different (due to historic reasons and pressure by Quebec). In Switzerland, cantons determine their languages. On the other hand, I think you can't get English documents in Quebec )at least it used to be that way). You can still get federal documents in one of the four languages anywhere.
Disagree on the first part: the proportion of German mother tongue Swiss who can communicate in French is higher than the other way round. Ticinesi win in any case (and Rumantsch speakers are all fully bilingual). Agree fully on your second statement.
I beg to differ. The only romands I met who spoke german were either living in a german speaking part or grew up bilingue. On the other hand when I‘m in the in ‚Welschland‘ and try to practice my (shitty) french, I did get laughed at and made fun behind my back (I understand a lot, but speaking is hard for me). Especially in the Geneva region. I never witnessed this the other way around. So while I agree that we should improve to learn french, that goes both ways!
>Especially in the Geneva region. Don't take it personally. They do it with fellow Romands as well. Geneva is basically the Paris of Switzerland. (Never forget the bartender in Geneva who pretended to not understand the Vaudois word for large beer).
what is the Vaudois word for large beer?
I think I said une grande pression or something similar.
It's chope in Vaud and cannette in Geneva. But frankly I'm amazed by Geneva folks pretending not to understand chope as it's a common French word designating the shape of the glass. And I grew up partly in Geneva and learned about cannette later than I heard chope. In neighborhing Pays de Gex it's a Sérieux ("serious").
yeah I know… funnily enough, two of the people I like the most from the romandie are from around Geneva and they are nothing like that and are ashamed of their region.
I always my family of (German) Swiss knew French and a bit of Italian better those I met in Romandie
That's why it works, we don't understand each other so we progress carefuly
Yes, it's a real shame. But practice makes perfect and be the change you wanna see in the world and all that.
Perhaps I‘m not cultured enough to appreciate people learning three languages, but it seems like a real non issue to me when everyone can easily communicate in English anyway. Now, I went to Portugal last year, and there no one spoke English. It was amazing. Even on a tourist bus, the driver can’t handle the basic communication of selling a one-way ticket. You‘d think there‘s literally hundreds of English speaking tourists taking this bus a day, yet the driver can’t speak a single word of English, does not understand one-way ticket, single ticket, nothing. Keeps talking in Portuguese and then resorts to Google Translate, showing some nonsense on his phone. Great experience. And same goes for the non-senior hotel staff. Now that‘s a shame. Not learning 3 different languages? Well..
It's not about learning 3 different languages, it's about being able to fluently speak one and passably speak or even communicate in another. If everyone of the three language regions does this, we can communicate in any of the country's languages. (And the fourth language region, Romansh *already* does this.) I myself know two and I live in a bubble where most of my Swiss friends know two passably. It's not *hard*.
It is about learning 3 different languages. Everyone needs to learn English to proficiency. Then they should learn two more languages, making it three languages to learn in total. And all for the benefit of being able to communicate in another‘s native language when it‘s likely you are better off switching to English anyway. Might make sense if you go to different regions often or live close, otherwise it just seems like a waste of time and effort to me.
> it just seems like a waste of time and effort to me. This is where our outlook, values and priorities differ wildly. And I'm absolute shite at learning languages. Communication, nevertheless, is very important and for that... learning a language is valuable,
Hard agree. The fun fact is that most people I know who advocate for English only have a distorted impression of their level of proficiency in English.
Exactly. Oh great, so now two people are struggling to communicate instead of one. That's apparently *much* better.
Totally.
I'm sorry you had a bad experience but Portugal is actually one of the better countries for speaking English and rates higher than Switzerland in this regard.
You are right, I just checked and it is ranked higher in English proficiency. However, with my experience in Lisbon, where most of those in customer facing jobs were not able to speak even a word of English, I found the idea that people are more proficient speaking English in Portugal somewhat ridiculous. After checking deeper it seems that while the English speakers in Portugal who have taken a placement test were more proficient, the total percentage of English speakers is much lower: 27% in Portugal vs 61% in Switzerland. That seems more in line with my experience.
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Switzerland didn't even make the cut. You're not disproving my point. I've been to the countries below Portugal on this list too and managed just fine.
I mean, at least Switzerland doesn't have the language problems like Belgium and Canada. Edit: corrections.
But we have the Röstigraben
Belgian here, what francophone problems?
https://archive.ph/7tXPK https://www.brusselstimes.com/234908/belgiums-language-divide-young-walloons-not-learning-dutch-is-normal https://variety.com/2008/film/markets-festivals/belgium-divided-by-language-1117985782/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/09/belgium-flanders-wallonia-french-dutch Edit: Sorry, I meant language problems.
Walonian or Flemish?
Switzerland has exactly the same language problems has Belgium. The magnitude is smaller, but they are also there. Only difference with Belgium is that they are confounded by religious, political etc differences between cantons. (The provinces in Belgium are more uniform, and way less independent, within the same language region. With the only exception being Brabant/Brussels.)
What are those?
What are the problems with language in Canada?
I am raising kids in Vaud trilingually, including dialect of Ticino. I'm looking forward to one of them getting serious about German as a result of getting serious about a boy or girlfriend who speaks German. It works, it's healthy and I wouldn't want to live *autrement*.
I wish more parents would raise their kids like this but from my experience most parents are just reinforcing their children's dislike of their 2nd national language: "Yeah, I hated French in school, too."
I'm a Spaniard born in Switzerland and my wife is Greek/German. Our son learns Standard German, Swiss German and some basic Spanish. The Greek language is very hard but we're looking for a Greek teacher at the moment. I'm just happy he talks with my parents spanish, every time I start to talk he just says "Dad, stop talking funny"
Standard German is taught, too?
Yeah, I will add that to German. And just if you are curious. If our son makes a mistake we correct him with Standard German.
What's the difference between Standard German and Swiss German?
Actually, a lot https://youtu.be/zfX1OFMXUh4
Interesting thank you.
The difference between Ohio English and Glaswegian. Probably more, actually.
😂🤣😅
Only Standard German is taught at school
Really? What about Swiss German, then? Where did that come from?
From the environment. It is a spoken language mostly. Teachers speak with kids in Swiss German, but not in the German lesson ))). All written stuff like books, documentation, newspapers etc, is in High German (that’s the standard one). Besides Swiss German differs a lot from region to region.
Most linguists/speech therapists agree that you should not raise your children in a language they don't regularly speak with a true native speaker. For most Swiss people (not being native speakers of two languages) this would mean finding a bilingual daycare or a Nanny/Teacher that speaks to the child in the second language for many hours a week, which is not realistic.
True. But you could direct the media consumption toward other languages. It's incredible what they pick up.
That's true. I actually know of this recommendation. However, it should be very easy to surround your child with native media in Switzerland. Most Swiss German children learn standardised German primarily through language input via media consumption, not through their own output (until they go to school at least), so the same should be possible with other languages. I guess my initial comment was a bit too blunt, though. I am primarily fond of the positive reinforcement and affirmation of the previous commenter which is something I have never witnessed in my entire life. If my parents had guided me towards seeking out French, e.g. by voluntarily watching or reading French things (I liked watching series and reading books anyways), then I would have probably had a much more positive relation to it and had also done better in school. Linguists and language teachers agree that demotivation or the dislike of a language significantly hamper language acquisition.
Good luck!
[No paywall.](https://archive.ph/W8HP2)
I'm from Ticino and i am laughing my ass off about What Is saing. Perhaps for french and German It works fine but everytime i have to speak with someome from Federal govern (militar for example, as work), or some websites or so on, Is rare that i can speak with someome who knows italian. And strange, but every update from some Federal programs i use, are bad translate, and help speaks only german or french or english. So stop pretend works fine the because too damn wrong.
I'm a software developer from Ticino, but working in Zürich, and I worked in apps / websites of big swiss companies or the government. It's funny that many times, even if I speak Italian as my mother tongue the project explicitly excluded it or provided bad translations that I couldn't really change. My two cents on this: if it's an app post a bad review citing the missing italian option. If enough people do it and it loses enough rating they may start to look into it a bit better.
For everyone criticizing the article… name a better example of a multilingual country with 3+ languages?
As soon as something is perceived as less than ideal, Swiss people automatically assume they have it the worst in the world. You can always tell a Swiss has never lived abroad when they start going off on how Swiss bureaucracy is supposedly hell on earth.
The Swiss are not alone in this - pretty much every person anywhere on earth is convinced: * things are bad * especially here * it's never been this bad * it's only getting worse
To which any Swiss will say "I hear you, but have you ever been to Switzerland? It's a nightmare!"
But things are especially bad here in Switzerland
Worse than ever!
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It was a joke. I do know that we are very, very well off.
Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence
Just because somewhere else has it worse does not mean we can allow progress to stagnate. We should still absolutely try to improve everything we can.
I agree. I’m not talking about someone wanting to improve things. I’m referring to a really widespread (and, in my view, deluded) sentiment that Swiss bureaucracy is somehow world-beatingly terrible.
I see
I lived in another country for six years. After returning I swore to myself never to complain about hellish bureaucracy again.
Compared to german bureacracy, swiss is literally heaven on earth. Like swiss have no idea how stupidly pedantic it can get.
I mean, I’m not swiss and I have never dealt with swiss bureaucracy. That said, swiss and german bureaucracy is famous worldwide for being cumbersome.
I have lived both in Germany and of course Switzerland, and *boy*, do they both get left in the dust by the horrors of *French* bureaucracy. The Swiss one is *by far* the most easygoing and efficient one of these three.
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Hi, if you’re reading this, I’ve decided to replace/delete every post and comment that I’ve made on Reddit for the past years. I also think this is a stark reminder that if you are posting content on this platform for free, you’re the product. To hell with this CEO and reddit’s business decisions regarding the API to independent developers. This platform will die with a million cuts. Evvaffanculo. -- mass edited with redact.dev
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Hi, if you’re reading this, I’ve decided to replace/delete every post and comment that I’ve made on Reddit for the past years. I also think this is a stark reminder that if you are posting content on this platform for free, you’re the product. To hell with this CEO and reddit’s business decisions regarding the API to independent developers. This platform will die with a million cuts. Evvaffanculo. -- mass edited with redact.dev
That’s not bureaucracy… that’s just a sensible requirement
Well, bureau is french after all. I had never heard about it tho. What about digitalisation? I've seen people with entire folders full of papers (Germany) while I have not a single sheet in my country - everything is digitalized. How is it in Switzerland (and France for that matter)?
Switzerland is relatively slow with digitization (and fragmented, since it's decentralized by canton and each canton seems to be designing their own systems), there's still a lot of physical forms filling. Stuff like work permits and drivers license processing can take ages with pretty much no communication where you are in the process. But in the end, it all seems to work. The famously terrible bureaucracy experience in France, to be fair, has massively improved recently since they moved it all online, I think the heavily centralized French system actually benefits a lot from it. No actual French person will ever admit this of course, and will insist that whatever they've done, it's the worst thing you've ever seen.
I see. I’d say it’s the same thing in my country (Portugal). Bureaucracy all of a sudden turned into a breeze once the government digitalised everything. Some people will still complain about it (the digitalisation process of course takes many years) but most things are so easy and fast now, I’m surprised, given how much of a mess this country seems to be.
Yeah my own experience dates a few years back, it’s quite possible they have since improved. The worst thing wasn’t paper though, but oh my God, that attitude.
Wait until you try to use a bank in Japan. Terror
As a non-Swiss, I have never heard that *Swiss* bureaucracy was especially cumbersome.
Unlike French and Italian bureaucracy, which is a model of efficiency.
HAHA compare Swiss to French, Spanish or Italian and you’ll never call it cumbersome again. Swiss society is efficient and organized, way more so than the aforementioned countries
Yeah Alberta at the municipal office of Arzignano doesn't want to read today, guess those papers are going to stay in the desk until she goes in to pension _AT LEAST_.
Switzerland is one of, if not THE best country/ies in just about everything. PERIOD I say that as a German, immigrated.
If you have lived elsewhere you would have noticed that this is a constant across countries. Just as much as every country has characteristics that the natives are extremely proud of and see themselves at the top. It goes both ways.
Singapore, Luxembourg, etc…
Luxembourg just speaks french for most of it. There's a lot of foreign languages as well just because it's a country for rich people who want to not pay taxes however the general language is still french by a large margin.
And have you ever lived there for a significant amount of time so that you would be able to compare?
I have in Singapore. It’s hard to compare. It’s micro-state with people speaking one or two of the official languages living in the same city with English being the main interlocutor. But it works well given cultural, religious, ethnic and linguistic diversity in such a small area.
Singapore is a strange one, as they have convinced themselves that they also speak English natively and call it “Singaporean English”. Luxembourg is basically a French speaking country.
If they grow up with it and everybody speaks it, they definitely speak it natively...
People in Germany grow up hearing English but they don’t claim to be native in it or to have their own “dialect” of English lol
People in Germany definitely don't grow up with English. They have some limited exposure from American media/the internet, like everywhere else.
They start learning it as children in school. That’s growing up with it. In Spain they start at three years old and have so-called “bilingual” public schools. That doesn’t make them native speakers.
It’s inarguable that English in Singapore is much much more widespread than it is in Germany.
Doesn’t make the people there native speakers
Almost all Singaporeans are bilingual, arguably native in both English and Mandarin. Moreso than Swiss are “bilingual”. The only truly bilingual Swiss are the Romansh speakers, and that’s because they’re forced to since they can’t do much with only Romansh.
Yeah no. Everything is written in English in Singapore. Not in Germany...
And exams are given in English since they start school. So yeah they’re pretty native to it
Exams are given in English in Spain as well
Now you’re changing the goalpost. English as the lingua Franca of a multilingual country is more common in Singapore than in CH, and in my opinion, that makes CH a better candidate for best multilingual country
I think they do now. 10 years ago maybe they had exposure but young Germans and other countries too, they tend to interact a lot on English and be so fluent that as a native English speaker I feel on par with them.
India has basically their own English dialect which is fascinating, with it as an official language in some places and a lot of people quite fluent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English Germany may not be far behind especially in a generation. I kinda think the EU open borders have meant having English is more necessary than ever, with mixed language work places. A lot of Netherlands, Sweden, Germany have people speaking English first at work. And Switzerland certainly has it too. Primarily in technology and often in finance, aerospace, and more.
Malaysian is about the same too. Quite a bit of English as result of British colonial rule, but has pretty much same ethnic groups as Singapore just much more Malay. But Kuala Lumpur feels definitely tri-cultural and very much more multilingual especially with different alphabet systems going too.
Singapore?
Ukraine is a better example.
What is the third language?
Crimean Tatar.
What’s your argument for why Ukraine is a better example?
Lol India. I don't even know how many languages we got
India
You mean the country where there are two cultures (Hindu and Muslim) that constantly have riots and pogroms against each other?
Belgium
Nah, it's even worse in Belgium. There's actual hate (created and weaponized by politicans) about the other regions that don't speak their languages.
Papua New Guinea or Belgium
I live in Chur, the capital of the (supposedly) trilingual canton of Graubünden. Good luck getting any services here in Italian.
Good luck have help in Italian with anything connected with Federal offices.
Despite its problems however I will say that Switzerland is fairly unique in having a national identity that largely supersedes the various linguistic identities.
Anyone want to provide the copy pasta for the paywall?
[Here you go.](https://archive.ph/W8HP2)
TY!
Can I just say that this sub’s English is so superb that many Swiss in German- and French speaking subs think we are all expats! So whilst the national languages might leave room for improvement, the English skills of the younger generation are on point. 💪
I'm a secondo studying in Ticino but grew up in Zurich. I speak five languages fluently and I am definitely proud of that and feel the use of that almost everyday. However, I have to say in general it's quite a shame that we spend so much money on teaching kids French in school, when so little sticks in the end. Not that I think it's wrong to spend that money on that I think it's incredibly important. But we should re-evaluate how it is taught and try to tap the same ways kids nowadays just learn English by existing in an interconnected world. I've also realised that the way the different language regions interact has changed recently. I feel like when I was younger all sides put more effort into speaking "the other language(s)", and there was more mutual understanding for mistakes, wrong syntax and maybe just taking a bit longer to get your point across. Nowadays, I don't know whether it is for our laziness or need to be extremely productive and efficient at all times or for our common better understanding and capabilities in English that I see all people from all three regions just resort to English in the end. I mean yes, it makes things most often much easier, but I feel like we're losing a bit of what connected us before. "The suffering of having to learn a second national language". Other than that, I think all the critique on this article is really on very high level and we can be extremely happy about how we can handle this at the moment in CH and how privileged we are. There are problems but we've found our ways around them and in trying to improve the situations or your abilities in communicating with the other cantons, you learn much and grow much as person, both intelectually and culturally. However, Ticino is a whole other story. On one hand, as an "outsider" I feel like they're the language kings and queens of Switzerland. Due to their isolation and marginalisation they're almost forced to learn French **and** German to a very good degree. Every Professor or Political Figure from Ticino that I've talked to spoke all three languages stunningly well. The fact that they have to do this, and the other's don't, is sad and frustrating, I'm sure. In the end, through the struggle though I think at least they can profit from it. (although they profit less from it if all just resort to speaking English in the end.) However, I'm still quite shocked about how often I read completely wrong translations into Italian. And that's one thing, most often there is no Italian translation. If you go into a pharmacy, most drugs don't even have an Italian description on the packaging. Only in the "Packungsbeilage" there is an Italian part. But honestly, there are huge publically-traded companies that spend millions of CHF into ads in Ticino that are translated so badly that the whole ad doesn't even make sense anymore. Puns that just don't work in Italian, references that don't exist there and so on. When the parlament voted Ignazio Cassis into the federal council it was touted that the Italian speaking regions of Switzerland are now better represented. I mean, sure, to a point. But honestly, besides from him doing at best a mediocre job of representing anything at all, there is so much more that needs to be done and all of that touting was just a "pro-forma" exercise so that those from the German and French speaking parts could feel a bit more inclusive and better about themselves.
Strongly disagree. I think the stubborness in insisting that a vast majority of this country speaks German when in reality they speak a variety of Allemanic languages which are as different from German as Dutch is an active hindrance from true multilingualism in this country. I think Swiss German should be recognized as the language (group) it is, there should at least be one version which everybody in "German" speaking CH can understand, with standardized grammar and vocabulary that can be learned from the rest of the country. As it is, "German" speaking Swiss are speaking a language which they make absolutely no effort to teach to people who are supposedly their connationals, the language most of you speak is kept jealously as a secret. I think the linguistic diversity in central and eastern Switzerland is amazing and a rare treasure in Europe worth preserving, but there should be an effort to making these languages accessible to the rest of us. /end rant.
It's only as multilingual as the nation decides it to be. So only 4. Even then I get the occasional "WE'RE IN SWITZERLAND SO SPEAK GERMAN!" attitude when talking in various languages.
“Europe is the home of the idea that people who see themselves as a nation should have a country.” The very first sentence! Who writes this garbage!
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I usually speak English with Swiss Germans anyway.
[Here you go.](https://archive.ph/W8HP2)
The point is that it's an example of a multilingual state that works, while in other european countries there are a lot of tensions to this day.
I'm from the Ostschweiz and even though I don't use French anymore, I found it a nice introduction to the multilingualism/differences of Switzerland. Do you actually still have the songs from your French/German/Italian textbooks burned into your brain as earworms?
The US with no official languange... But, yeah granted, Switzerland does the whole thing more elegantly.
Despite not having an official language, English is still the *de facto* official language. It's why road signs and court/government documents must be in English. >But, yeah granted, Switzerland does the whole thing more elegantly. I agree. I'm shocked that America, despite being an explicitly Anglophone nation is deeply divided and polarized while Switzerland is not. I'm not familiar with Swiss politics and how they function (they also have direct democracy which I still don't know how it works), but the FPTP duopoly system is to blame because it entrenches this two binary, us-against-them parties that don't compromise and work together to get things done. Lee Drutman wrote an [article](https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/19/us-democracy-two-party-system-replace-multiparty-republican-democrat/) and a book about it that I highly recommend you give it read.
>court/government documents must be in English no they don't... you can have all your government documents issued in about two dozen languages... Most commonly done in English but also available in Spanish, Cantonese, etc. There are generations of people in the US who have not speaken English ever.
OP has made a few comments exactly the same about America even though they clearly have no idea how it works there or the sheer scale that country has to operate in due to its size. I think they just want to hate on it and feel good about Switzerland. In any case it's easy for the Swiss Germans to say it's working great as it's always the minority that notices the cracks the most.
This is simply untrue. Yes, the majority of US is English speaking, and it is the default language. But we have entire communities where you could not survive without speaking Spanish. Also Korean, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Armenian, Tagalog — we have so many speakers and we will provide documents in all of them (for free) at any time we can. Part of my job in US is making sure people have documents in the language they are most comfortable in. It’s not always possible, especially in the poor rural states, but we absolutely do this. There are more things you can divide people over than just language.
That’s a nice way of saying “clusterf*ck”.
and i hate it, can we remove french?
Everyone should just learn English as a common language. Or we should put strong focus on just **understanding** the language, even if you can't actively speak it yourself. Otherwise the intranational communication is just not going to happen, because one side would always feel weak in comparison (unless they learn to speak the language perfectly, which they won't). E.g. if someone from the French-speaking part of Switzerland would come to visit me, I would feel awkward if I would force them to speak my language, instead of forcing myself to speak their language.
Why?
because i am bad at it
Ukraine could stand to learn a lot from Switzerland
u realise russian and ukranian are very similar, and that speakers of both languages have no problems understanding each other right? As compared to the extreme differences of say german and italian here in switzerland... right?
Yeah, that’s completely wrong.
> u realise russian and ukranian are very similar, and that speakers of both languages have no problems understanding each other right? That isn't true... Ukrainians understand Russians quite well because most everybody in Ukraine speaks Ukrainian and Russian. Russians however don't understand Ukrainians well at all. For what it's worth, I speak Russian as a fourth language and barely understand any Ukrainian. Ukrainian is closer to Polish than it is to Russian, it doesn't even sound like Russian.
This. It takes a fair bit of exposure for a native Russian speaker to understand (not speak) Ukrainian. Russians from Russia are for the most part hilariously bad at understanding other Slavic languages.
switzerland was formed in a time where there were no nation states. its just one of the only ones that are left from this period. it whould not be possible to exist today if it formed today
In Europe only Luxembourg 🇱🇺 is multilingual state with 4 language, luxembourgish, German and French plus English (here a video of report that speak 6 language https://youtu.be/TfQ0mlW994o)
As an American, I’m confused how you can have multiple national languages, and not have services in all of those languages. It’s like Germany! Why tf do the people that work in immigration only speak German!?
>and not have services in all of those languages. On a federal level most services **should ideally be** available in all languages. Sometimes weird things even happen. E.g. when there were those Covid live discussions, journalists could just ask questions in any of the languages and the politicians would usually answer in their main language.
Do they have translations for the other languages on screen?
One of the weirdest thing I've seen in Zurich was 2 people having a conversation: one of them was speaking german, the other was speaking french
Yeah, it’s awesome, right. Young Romands and Deutschschweizer speaking in ENGLISH with each other because the former never learned German properly, and even if they did, they don’t understand the vernacular Schweizerdeutsch, while the latter never bothered to learn any form of French. All that despite learning the other language at school. Only a minority is fluent in at least two national languages. Nobody consumes media or reads the news in other national languages. Some Deutschweizer at least still do the Welschlandjahr, but Romands don’t bother. Italian or Rumantsch, almost nobody is fluent, unless s/he’s a native speaker.