culture • languages, population

Languages Switzerland has 4 official languages on his small territory of 41'293 km2. . The country has a resident population of 7.1 million inhabitants, about 20 % of them are foreigners. The alemannic dialects are still spoken in German Switzerland today. In the west of the country the Low Latin of the Burgundians has evolved into French. In southern Switzerland a Lombardic Italian dialect is spoken, and in the Grisons Rhaeto-Romansh. Numerous dialects are thus spoken in Switzerland (over 100'000 words have been recorded in Swiss-German alone), but the official languages for written texts and negotiations are German, French and Italian and in some cases Romansh. In Parliament speakers are free to use their native tongue. Every Swiss can learn the languages of his countrymen in school, and he usually understands them even when he cannot speak them fluently. The fourth national language, Romansh, is endangered. It lacks a cultural centre. German-speaking Switzerland has its centres in Zurich, Basel and Bern, French-speaking Switzerland in Lausanne and Geneva, southern Switzerland in Lugano.

culture

© gregory egli, julien manenti, thomas salletmeier s3a sekundarschule spreitenbach, switzerland