Talk:Languages of Switzerland

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Map inaccuracies

I have noticed that on the map the area around Basel and indeed Basel itself are marked as French speaking Switzerland, but it is in fact German speaking Switzerland. I don't know how to change this. (217.253.69.132 (talk) 13:37, 22 April 2013 (UTC))[reply]

Demographics of Switzerland

Couldn't this page be worked easily enough into Demographics of Switzerland? --KQ

Official language

I do not think Swiss German is an official language in Switzerland. High German is the official German language here, and the term Swiss German is used to describe the different dialects spoken in Switzerland. --zeno 06:54 Jan 10, 2003 (UTC)

There is a separate Swiss Standard German. --dab (𒁳) 17:34, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Derogatory term?

Regarding the following text: <citation>It is considered a derogatory term in Switzerland</citation>

I do not agree. 'Welsch/Wälsch' is not a 'term' used by the german speaking part. It is the swiss german word for 'Romand'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Juice (talk • contribs) 10:45, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Situation of the official languages

Which of them (German, French, Italian, Romansh) is growing the most? --213.186.247.54 10:52, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In the short term, French, from 19.2% to 20.4% over the 1990s, to the disadvantage of Italian (7.6% to 6.5%). In the long term, the loser is German, from 72.1% to 63.7% from 1950 to 2000, to the advantage of non-national languages (0.7% to 9.0%). --dab (𒁳) 17:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is a very limited view of the changes and developments. Of Swiss nationals, over the long term (between 1910 and 2000) the proportion of German speakers has hardly changed (from 72.7 to 72.5%), French has decreased somewhat from 22.1 to 21.0% and Italian has increased from 3.9 to 4.3%. The biggest "loser" has been Romansh, from 1.0 to 0.5% (most of the language maps on Wikipedia have not adequately taken into account its demise). The proportion of immigrant languages among nationals has risen from 0.1 to 1.6% over this period. If you include residents who are non-nationals, all four languages have lost over the period, though French not as much as the others. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.106.101.64 (talk) 23:22, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Removing maps

After spending some time adjusting the article to place the maps in a better spot, I finally took a close-up view of them, only to discover that they define only the languages spoken in the Grisons. Therefore, I am removing the maps and hope that better ones for the entire country can be found. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 04:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Religion, etc.

How does everyone feel about removing all of the ethnic stuff from this article and returning it to its root of Linguistic geography? What does religion have to do with the way Swiss people talk? Questioningly, GeorgeLouis (talk) 00:16, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Directly, nothing, but it helps establish the languages in their cultural context. —An gr 21:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yenish

Shouldn't yenish be mentioned in this article also? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.213.111.190 (talk) 22:14, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's usually spelled Yeniche in English. It can be included if there's a reliable source for it. —An gr 06:03, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where are the immigrant languages?

Since the article is about geography, we need to know where the immigrant languages are situated. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 03:46, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Like the immigrants, they are doubtless situated throughout the country, more in the bigger cities and less in the countryside. But your question does raise a point: Languages of Switzerland redirects here, and most other articles like this are called "Languages of Foo". Should this article be moved to Languages of Switzerland? —An gr 05:40, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this article is more about languages than about geography, and it should be moved to Languages of Switzerland. (The headers in this article concern the languages, not the areas of the country.) Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 20:26, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

the reason for the former title was that this is the redirect target for Romandie/French-speaking part of Switzerland, Deutschschweiz/German-speaking part of Switzerland, but I can see the move makes sense too. --dab (𒁳) 18:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suisse romande

I am surprised there is no article on Suisse romande or Romandie as a separate article (see French wikipedia [1])and the 3 other linguistic regions of Switzerland. The Suisse romande regions consists of a number of cantons which, together, have distinctive characteristics that separate the region from, for example, the ~~Suisse toto~~, Swiss Germans. Trompeta (talk) 18:42, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Why don't you start one? You can start with http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suisse_romande, and do a translation from there (although I think you will need some English-language sources).? Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:54, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There used to be such an article, but it was merged here. You can find it in the history of Romandy; this is the last version before it got merged almost 2 years ago. +An gr 20:19, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that explains why there was some information on religion at Languages of Switzerland when I first checked into this article, and which I deleted. It seems obvious that Suisse Romande or Romandie should be reinstated, with less stress on language and more on culture. What do others think? GeorgeLouis (talk) 00:32, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it is really necesserary to have specific articles on the different regions, most of the information can fit in this article or in Swiss German, Swiss French and so on. MadGeographer (talk) 18:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I respectfully must disagree. This article has been renamed Languages of Switzerland, and its focus should be on languages. An article on Suisse Romande or French-speaking Switzerland would describe everything that makes up the modern area, including its relation to France and other Francophone countries — cultural exchanges come to mind — maybe even the jokes which are made about Suisse Romande by other Swiss or by French people. Suisse Romande could have a short section on language, with a referral to Swiss French. Sincerely, votre ami, GeorgeLouis (talk) 03:06, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Forget what I said above, I was wrong. "Romandie" is clearly in widespread use, so I think it would make sense to have an article about it. Ideally the article should explain the etymology of the term and since when it is used to refer to the french-speaking part of Switzerland. mgeo talk 09:57, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed there is an article named "Suisse Romande" although "Romandie" still redirects here. So what do we do? do we redirect "Romandie" to "Suisse Romande" or do we merge the latter with this article? I'm not sure what the best option is. mgeo talk 17:17, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok I see that someone also restored the article "Romandy", so I redirected it and "Romandie" to "Suisse Romande" (which is not copied from this article unlike Romandy). Note: I intentionally left French-speaking Switzerland and other similar titles as redirects to this article since it gives a bit more context to the reader. Just let me know if you disagree or if you prefer another title. mgeo talk 12:59, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Status of languages

I miss some information on the status of the languages: I understand that all 3 languages can be spoken in the national parliament. Is education in French organised in the German speaking part and vice versa? And if no is it because there is no need for it or because it is not allowed? Can a German speaking person expect to do his official communication with the government(tax papers, building permits, other administration) in German in the French speaking part (and vice versa)? What is the language in local politics, is it fixed or are the politicians free to choose?Nicob1984 (talk) 11:27, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Serbo-Croatian?

This is a dead language! How can this be used today as it was an official language? Serbian language, Montenegrin language, Croatian language and the Bosnian language are different languages and as different should be treated in Wikipedia. This is an encyclopedia, not a bazaar! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.78.72.220 (talk) 17:31, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The term is NOT dead and is recognized by the vast majority of linguists to identify the mutually-intelligible languages of Serbian, Croatian, etc. Balkan nationalists object to this term for political reasons. However, in the linguistic books and papers in English, it is used and will no doubt continue to be used in the foreseeable future. HammerFilmFan (talk) 17:20, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well the answer is that it is not an official language in Switzerland (read the article again). It s here used to refer to the group of languages that are mutually intelligible. (I edited the article little to make it more clear)Nicob1984 (talk) 15:45, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong?

After looking at this [2], I have come to the conclusion that this page is full of errors. Lombard is not an Italian dialect. Alemannic is also sometimes considered a separate language. Other languages like Franco-Provençal, Sinti should also be mentioned. Bgagaga (talk) 15:58, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It bothered me alot too. I'm not very good at English, can someone help improve the article on those issues? Correjon (talk) 21:09, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Latin

Does Latin have any official status, no matter how tiny? Should it not at least be mentioned that the Latin phrases "Helvetia" and "Confederatio Helvetica" are used officially as a compromise between the four official languages? BigSteve (talk) 23:04, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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The sittenry of Sitten have a well-known town-song: Sit Down if you Love Sitten

Both the fans of the football club (known as the Sittenry) and other citizenry are known to sing: Sit down if you love Sitten as an unofficial town song. The aforesaid being wordplays on the town's original German name and English language words like citizenry and sitting. wordplays — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.183.116 (talk) 01:50, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nice, but what does this half to do with anything in this article or talk page? Is there a point here somewhere? Fenevad (talk) 17:44, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Swiss language

This concept redirects here, but is not mentioned in the article. Shouldn't we at least discuss it by saying it does not exist and why? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:47, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is no one Swiss language, Switzerland is built on multitude facets not monotonous uniformity, but Swiss German is not mutually intelligible with most varieties of German. Most Swiss German speakers will switch over to standard German when talking to a foreign German speaker, but if they don't the foreigner won't usually understand them. 11Fox11 (talk) 18:37, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Source cited for 2015 language count doesn't include the data cited

The link for the 2015 list of other languages (https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfsstatic/dam/assets/1861437/master) does not contain any of the information in the column that it is cited as source for. I presume there is another source for this, but as of now it gives only counts for monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual individuals, with no data on number of speakers of individual languages at all. I am commenting it out as a source and will add in a missing source tag. If someone knows where this data came from and can provide the actual link, I would love to have it.

Fenevad (talk) 16:55, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]