Switzerland's Four National Languages

Interpreting Statistics Correctly

Due to massive immigration (20% of the resident Swiss population are non-naturalized foreigners, 50% do have at least one parent that has not been born in the country!), there are many individuals who will not say they speak one of the four official languages of Switzerland when asked for their mother tongue.

Nevertheless, in everyday public life (economy, schools, administration, recreation) only one (or two) of the traditional four official, "native Swiss" languages will be used, depending on the region. Why this?

Regional Languages in Switzerland

There are clearly defined regions for all four official languages (German in northern, central and eastern Switzerland, French in western Switzerland, Italian in southern Switzerland and Rumantsch in southeastern Switzerland, see map above).

The regions do, however, overlap just a little: German is being used in parallel to Rumantsch in all Rumantsch areas and in parallel to French in the bilingual cities of Biel/Bienne, Fribourg/Freiburg, Murten/Morat and in some smaller towns and villages along the language border in western Switzerland.

Switzerland is not and has never been an ethnically homogeneous nation. The first tribes settling in the region today known as Switzerland having left written historic records were the celtic Helvetians (some 2500 - 2000 years ago), speaking a celtic language and the Rhetians who where not Romans but have adopted the Roman language (Latin) before they left any written traces. While the Rhetians, living in the alpine valleys of southeastern Switzerland, were able to preserve their language (Rumantsch) and culture to our days, the original celtic population has left almost no traces in Switzerland except from a few geographical names.

In 58 B.C. the Helvetians attempted to leave Switzerland and to settle somewhere in southern France, but they were stopped and defeated by the Roman commander Julius Cesar. So they had to return to Switzerland under Roman administration. From the times of Cesar, a Gallo-Roman culture flourished in western Europe (Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, England and western and northern Switzerland). Generally speaking, River Rhine separated the sphere of the Romans and Celts from those of Germanic tribes.

But during the migration of nations around A.D. 400, several Germanic tribes, among them the Francs (hence: France) and the Burgundians (hence: Burgundy, a region in southeastern France) crossed the Rhine border. The Francs settled in northern France (around Paris), the Burgundians in western Switzerland and Burgundy (their capital being Geneva). These tribes negotiated agreements with the Romans and installed themselves as heirs to the Roman administration. So they also adopted the Latin language and culture.

Another Germanic tribe, the Lombardians (hence: Lombardia = northern Italy around Milan) settled in Italy and in the valleys of southern Switzerland geographically easily accessible from there. In the course of the centuries since, Latin dialects spoken in France / western Switzerland, Italy / southern Switzerland and Spain have developed into French, Italian and Spanish.

Groups belonging to yet another Germanic tribe, the Alamannen, infiltrated northern Switzerland while a part of the tribe remained in southwestern Germany (today known as Baden-Würtemberg with capital Stuttgart). Contrary to the above mentioned tribes they were neither really interested in Roman towns nor in Roman culture, settled in small villages and stuck to their Germanic language. Within two centuries they had established a clear majority of the population in northern Switzerland, however, while many Celts and Romans retreated and the public use of the Latin language disappeared in northern Switzerland (except, of course, for the use of Latin in church rituals and on documents, as generally everywhere in medieval Europe).

So the ethnic origin of the native Swiss population (that is, the population present before migration in the 20th century) is in any case some kind of melting pot:
 · Celtic - Roman - Burgundian in western Switzerland
 · Roman - Lombardian in southern Switzerland
 · Alamannic - Celtic - Roman in northern Switzerland