Languages of Switzerland - A Polyglot Paradise?
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
- In this video I talk about the languages of Switzerland. Switzerland is known for being a multilingual country where different linguistic communities coexist peacefully. But is it the polyglot paradise that non-Swiss people think it is?
Are you learning a language? One great resource to check out is Innovative Language podcast programs: langfocus.com/....
Support Langfocus on Patreon: / langfocus
/ langfocus
/ langfocus
www.langfocus.com
Comic strip excerpt: www.itchyfeetco...
Music:
Hep Cats by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommon...)
Source: incompetech.com...
Artist: incompetech.com/
"Newsroom" by Riot.
As a Swiss, I honestly never saw/heard a better explanation of the language situation in Switzerland than that. People spread false information about that so often. Like we speak normal German, and its overcomplicated and noone gets Romansh and what not... Appreciate it!
Is German is good there means ?
Han mal nöch ade Grenze zu Dütschland gschaffet und au mit Dütsche zemme. Die hend denk Schwizerdütsch wär nöd eusi richtig Sprach sondern nume eh vereifachteri Form vo eusem richtige "Schwizerisch" das eus die Dütsche chönd verstah. :D
@@user-zg5ey5xo9i I bin Düütschrr un I händs vrrstonde. Blus a iehietlich Rachtsschriebig händs do noch nöd.
@@user-zg5ey5xo9i chunt halt scho druffah, wo si ufgwachse sind. ich känne vieli wo würkli müeh gha händ di erste jahr.
@@DJBigMD Mir Deutsche südlich vom Weisswurschtäquator hens eifacher.
As a Swiss person I'm truly impressed by how perfectly you described our situation :)
Good job!
Worrum Schwizz bis hüüt ha kinie Rachtsschriebig, wo phonetisch isch?
Dä teil mitem röstigraba isch aber dr besti teil xD
@@HesseJamez Wöll meh sich nie hett chöne einige^^
@@HesseJamez Denn würe mer eus no weniger verstah. xD
am doing a research about languages and I wanna tackle the issue of Swiss linguistic diversity. is really German the most spoken language there? do you really use english as a lingua franca instead of french or german ?
I haven't been to Switzerland , but the flag is a big plus
Good one!
10/10 Bravo
Pass away
The Swiss were actually planning to use that for their slogan for the Euro 2008, which was co-hosted by Austria and Switzerland. The Austrians weren't amused.
It's also a huge red flag!
So in summary: Swiss French does numbers better than French French
Absolutely...know whats best? Growing up in the Swiss German part I was forced to learn French French and was even punished for using Swiss French numbers and words. I had learned from my parents who had worked in the Swiss French part for a couple of years before moving to the Swiss German part. They migranted back when Switzerland was importing laborers in the '70s.
In french blegium as well and also in quebec
I'm agree with you, using septante and nonante instead of soissante dix and quatre-vingt dix it's better. French of France remained with the ancient kind of numeration based on twenty. I propose to use huitante instead quatre-vingt dix, but will be accepted in the next future? Greetings from Italy.
What's wrong with saying "four-twenty" instead of "eighty"? It's totally reasonable. lol
FEDERICO BUSI In Switzerland french speakers actually do use huitante!
I once had a meal in the railway station buffet in Brig (Valais/Wallis) about 30 years ago. I ordered the meal in German, it was delivered in French, and the bill was added up in Italian!
this could be. some people from valais also speak very well Italian bc they live right at the border to Italy (some) a
No com a Spain, que els castellans s'enfaden quan escolten el català!
@@vicentbosch ¡Estoy enfadado!
jajaja i quan ets mallorquins diven que el catalá es lo mateix, nosltros vos entenm peró vosaltres a nosaltres no ;)
@@vicentbosch la diferencia principal es que en cualquier parte de España , la lengua franca es el castellano y en Suiza no hay una lengua franca, cada uno habla como puede y todo tiene que ser traducido a los 3 idiomas, no es la misma situacion
Very, very well researched, hats off. A Swiss guy.
Well researched, indeed. Just a minor correction: the newly founded canton if Jura was split off from Bern mostly along the confessional border between French speaking Catholics and German or French speaking protestants.
grandma was swiss
So which languages do you speak?
Is English your 2nd language or 3rd?
@@muhammadisaac07 Or 4th? Or 5th?
As a romansh person I want to say that the state does use the language. For example: the voting stuff is written in all four languages.
The different languages are the coolest thing of Switzerland and I think using other national languages is better than English. Of course English is useful and important but inside Switzerland I think it is better to emphazise the local languages.
I am Italian and live near the border of Switzerland. When I hear Swiss people talking Italian they have my same accent, but they use some different words sometimes than can look strange if you have never heard them before. For example we use "ordinare" to say "to order" (something at restaurant or online) while they say "comandare" which here means "to rule, to give commands to someone". Or if your son comes home from school and tells you "Ho preso una bella nota" is a bad thing in Italy because it means "I got a disciplinary reprimand" while in Switzerland it is a good thing because it means "I got a good grade".
@igor lopes , “Bella nota” (beautiful grade) means good grade in Italian. In Switzerland, it is still used in its primary meaning. But in Italy, although it really means a good grade or positive notice, in the general slang, the sarcastic extended meaning of the phrase seems to have taken over. “Bella nota” is not the official word for reprimand. It would be “avviso” or something similar.
@igor lopes yes. ‘Nota’ in Switzerland (specifically in Ticino) is used to say ‘ho preso una bella nota’ which means ‘I got a good grade’.
In Italy it is used to say ‘ho preso una nota’ which means ‘I got a reprimand’ and has a negative meaning.
@@johnsarkissian5519Similar to the French language : commander un café et avoir une bonne note.
@@afrocyberdelia, My objection to English as the lingua franca has nothing to do with the language itself. English was not my first language but it’s the language I’ve spoken most of my life and, at this point in my life, I consider it to be my thinking language. I love the English language. But I don’t like the idea of the Swiss adopting it as their lingua franca because by doing so they are making themselves even more vulnerable to American, and to a lesser extent, to British “soft power”. I did not suggest German, French or Italian, because picking any one of them would put the native speaker of that language in a more advantageous position than those who speak it as a second language. Since Romansch is spoken by so few people but it’s still a Swiss language, I think it would have a unifying force for the Swiss people while not giving any single ethnicity any superiority or unfair advantage in respect to the others.
I often think about the Middle Ages when the lingua franca was Latin, scientists and scholars of every European nation wrote in Latin although no one spoke it as their native tongue. That fact put all medieval scholars on a level ground. Whereas today where the scientific, political and scholarly language is English, it gives English native speakers an unfair advantage. Most non native speakers of English cannot fairly compete wit the English speakers. Many a scholarly paper or scientific proposal has failed a peer review process for reasons such as “poor English, not clear enough, not English enough, incoherent, etc.”! It can easily turn the native speakers’ superior knowledge of their mother tongue into a weapon in their hand to dismiss a competitor who is not a native speaker.
Picking French, Italian or German as Switzerland’s lingua franca will automatically push the speakers of the other two national languages into sort of a “second class” citizenry.
@@johnsarkissian5519 can't the papers just be translated to English? romansh may unify switzerland but it's a lot less useful than English, English wud help them connect not just with other swiss people but also with people from other countries
hi... i prefer the numbers 70 80 90 in swiss french. more logical!
Agree.
Tellement vrai!! Verissimo :)
+Stefano Barbosa D'accord!
Quoi? You don't like 4-twenty-19 for 99?
non!!
In France french
99=4*20+10+9
=four twenties ten nine.
=Quatre-vingt-dix-neuf
I prefer 🇨🇭 numbers
🇫🇷: I prefer the mathematics
Abraham Lincoln: "four score and seven years ago"
;-)
Le nombres du français suisse et Belgique ce sont plus bon parce que sont simples
@@afrocyberdelia *I’d rather SPEAK English and Spanish.
@@brettlarch8050 Nothing wrong with what he said.. it was on point
I wish Romansh could be the lingua franca since it's being threatened with extinction! And it's the only language completely unique to Switzerland and it incorporates words from all three of the other national languages. It also sounds both bizarre and beautiful!
+zenzenyokunai That sound like a very good idea to me. I have no idea how it sounds, though.
I think Esperanto would be an ever better option.
If you're still interested in what the romansh language sounds like, there's an example section with text and audio on the wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language#Sample_text
Great idea!
zenzenyokunal You should be aware that Swiss German warriors subjugated many Welsch (Romance speaking) populations for extracting tribute. The German Swiss would never give in to something like that.
And, as I read, this linguistic diversity is the reason why many times Switzerland refers to itself as CH or Confoederatio Helvetia--a Latin term for the region of Switzerland--to avoid calling the country in any of the national languages which would preference that group or language over the others.
Confoederatio Helvetica
CHuCHiCHäsCHtli is the real reason 😅
Hi
I'm one of these 40'000 people who speak Rumantsch (not Rumansh). But did you know that Rumantsch is divided in 5 "idiomsp( they have similarities but have diffrences in the writting system and vocabulary). Rumantsch is divided in -> Vallader, Puter, Sursilvan,Sutsilvan and Surmiran. Sometimes we can't understand each other, but if a person who speaks Vallader is in contact with a person who speaks Sursilvan and they talk for 3 weeks together they'll understand nearly everything. But most of the time we are like:"What are you talking, that's not my language". And than we start to speak german.
( They even made an artificial language combining all the 5 idioms and even local dialect. It's called Rumantsch Grischun)
Sry for the bad English;)
+ModernLPgeneration that is really interesting. I never knew that about Rumantsch. I have heard of this language but very very little. Thanks for your information
ps your English is good
Laschadura It’s spelled like “Romansh”, because that’s how it’s spelled in English. Although, I like the spelling of the word in Romansh more. It’s so cool. I would like to learn that language.
That's so complicated, how do people live in all this linguistic confusion.
When my niece started school in Switzerland she went to a German speaking school that also taught in English. Her parents spoke German well (they lived in Germany for a while before getting married) and my niece picked it up fairly quickly.
The first time I saw her back in the US I asked her how school was going. She said “well in class sometimes we speak English and I understand that. Sometimes in class we speak German and I understand that. But in the lunch line everyone speaks and I cannot understand them.”
I agree Swiss German is hard for non Swiss to understand.
My niece is now fluent in Swiss German and goes to a primarily German speaking high school.
Great 👍
Maybe they made Romantsch their national language because swiss people are proud of their culture and want to preserve it.....
+Vagabund92 exactly, that was the reason. in any case the language was made official only a few years ago, nothing to do with WWII "Following a referendum on March 10, 1996, Romansh was recognized as a partial official language of Switzerland alongside German, French, and Italian in article 70 of thefederal constitution."
Personally, one of the things I love about Switzerland is the multi-lingualism. As an American, I find English so boring (yes I know I'm using it now). But I also speak Spanish and French, and I want to learn as many languages as I can - I'm enrolling in German classes at my local university. I hope Switzerland keeps their multi-lingual identity and doesn't entirely anglicize their beautiful country.
Lol
I disagree. I think making English the lingua franca in Switzerland is a good thing.
@@pedropontes2230nooo
Gotta love Switzerland. I went on holiday in Zermatt this summer and people would literally speak a full conversation in German and then say goodbye in Italian.
Bobby B It’s confusing when you learn it, and I can say that as Dutchmen
nobody outside the local area would understand the dialect of Zermatt though. It's just too weird. :D
@Jakob Heinzelmann trottoir(gehsteig) and velo(fahrrad) also borrowed from the french
If you want to hear different languages spoken at the same time, just take the train in a big city like Zurich... You will hear almost all the official languages.
I think u miss understood „Tschau“ and „Ciao“
I am swiss and study sociolinguistics. The information in this video is extremely accurate!!
The best is, we understand german people, but they don't really understand us 😅👌
Chuchichästli
True, but on the other hand, Swiss German is probably the most un-sexy German dialect around.
According to my girlfriend. Who is Swiss. From Romandie. ;)
(Besides, it's not quite that bad. If I concentrate, I *can* understand most of it)
DRSNova yeah, you might be right..
well can it be that you talk different in TV, because when i watch swiss tv i normaly understand basicly everything and i am from more northern area.
Yes, this is the case, Politicians and other people on TV speak Standard German with a slight Swiss accent.
What I find really cool is how languages like Spanish and Portuguese, which are considered definitely different languages are almost all of the time mutually intelligible while languages like Swiss German and German in Germany are dialects of Standard German, but are generally not mutually intelligible. Makes you think about how there’s no concrete line between language and dialect. Also, I love your videos, Paul!
German dialects are not dialects of Standard German. Once they constituted German in the original, broader sense. In the 16th/17th c. Standard German evolved mainly from the chancery versions of some High German varieties, like Austro-Bavarian "Gemain Teutsch" (Common German, 15th c.). Also East Central German (Upper "Saxon") vernacular was influencial. Originally everything was called language, German languages constituted the German language (Dutch included). After Standard German and the Dutch standard made it all other varieties were just called dialects from then on (middle of the 18th c.). These varieties or dialects and Standard German formed mixed varieties (regiolects). They are not to be confused with the historical dialects. Only they could be called dialects of Standard German (Hochdeutsch). But that's uncommon.
Yes, as a Spanish speaker I was surprised that some German dialects are still considered dialects, the same with Italian dialects...
@@Wahrheit_ Germany and İtaly unified in end of the 19 century.Because of that this countries had no one common language.Their politicans choose a language and declared "it is our offical language.Other ones are just dialects"
Portuguese and Spanish aren't always mutually intelligible, this is just a myth. Keep in mind that Spanish has many different dialects, some of which even native speakers have difficulty understanding
Spanish and Portuguese are not mutually intelligible. The written language is maybe 80% mutually intelligible but the spoken one is about 10 - 20% mutually intelligible for a native spanish listening to Portuguese and about 40 - 60% for the other way around. This also varies depending on which Spanish and which Portuguese you speak. Spanish from Chile is harder to understand for other Spanish speakers and incomprehensible for Portuguese speakers. Meanwhile Portuguese from Portugal seems quite incomprehensible to everybody haha
I was born in Geneva (where the language is French) and grew up all my life saying "septante" and "nonante" and was so confused when I later took French lessons and realised most Francophone people say those numbers differently!
Interesting. I've been translating birth, death, and marriage records of my Belgian Walloon ancestors who lived in Hainaut province. The records are in French but they usually used "septante" and "nonante" also instead of the standard French. My great grandfather was born there in 1878.
Francophone people use septante and nonante only french people use soixante- dix and quatre- vingt dix , in Belgium and Canada we use the same as is Switzerland.
@@LucDechamp why is that?
@@Wahrheit_ Because Gauls used to count with 20 as a base. So, in France, people originally kept that habit and that still shows in some numbers such as seventy (sixty-ten) and ninety (eighty-ten). But that's the only difference between French French and other francophone countries.
Swiss Waiter: "Buongiorno, cosa ti piacerebbe, amico?"
Guy: "Bonjour, je voudrais une assiette de poisson méditerranéen! Pour boisson, une bouteille de l'eau gazeuse s'il vous plait!"
Swiss Waiter: "Danke schön!"
Guy: "Same to you, pal!"
Russian:сука
@@pqbdwmnu Swiss waiter wil use MERCI. Auch auf Dütsch
The καρδ оф の U или нахуй
Doge di Amalfi franzoso?
Gli stronzi in questo paese sono gli zucchini...
**forgets Romansch**
Also a fact which some Germans usually don't really understand:
Swiss people do write stuff in their own dialect. There are no rules on how to write something here.
You might notice that some people in the comment section noticed that he should have written "Schwiizerdütsch" instead of "Schwyzerdütsch". That's actually quite normal here. We constantly bicker about how to write stuff, and how not to.
But in the german-speaking part of Switzerland, there's a huuuuge bunch of different dialects, basically each canton has at least one dialect. And as there's no rule on how to write things, people just write it how they would pronounce it.
But no, at school, we don't write like this. We mainly use it for chat-messages.
Everything that needs to be formal, is written in "Hochdeutsch" ("High-German"), which is spoken near Hannover, and is considered to be the "accent free German".
Also, some Swiss people can't seem to speak high-German without a terrible Swiss accent. Even for most Swiss people, this is cringeworthy. Germans then think "ah, he's speaking in his own dialect, and I'm just doing a great job understanding him", while the Swiss person actually just gloriously fails in spelling the words without any accent ^^.
"Even for most Swiss people, this is cringeworthy"
Meine Erfahrung mit Schweizern ist, dass fast alle Hochdeutsch mit so einem Akzent sprechen. Ich hab nie einen Schweizer gehört, der Hochdeutsch ohne schweizerischen Akzent sprechen kann, also finde ich es seltsam, dass es angeblich "cringeworthy" für die Schweizer ist, wenn Leute Hochdeutsch mit einem schweizerischen Akzent reden.
die meisten schweizer sprechen hochdeutsch wie dj bobo (falls der dir etwas sagt) oder michele hunziker oder mit schlimmeren akzent. Nur wenige schweizer können (und wollen) akzentfreies hochdeutsch sprechen (so wie es stefanie heinzmann kann).
Ich bin schweizerin und ich finde es schrecklich, wie es viele nicht versuchen, möglichst ohne akzent zu sprechen. Es stimmt, ganz ohne kann man kaum, aber versuchen kann mans. Bei einigen schweizern ist man fast ein verräter, wenn man akzentfreies hochdeutsch kann. Klingt krass, ist aber so. Ich kriege regelmässig finstere blicke, wenn ich einen vortrag in gutem hochdeutsch spreche.
Nah, definitely not true. I know plenty of Swiss people that can speak virtually accent-free standard German.
That's why I said "some" Swiss people.
Ah, you're right, I missed that.
As a swiss Person I can say that video explains our language situation very well :)
As a French-speaking Swiss, let me tell you that there is nothing more demotivating than having to learn a language (German) in school that is not only a grammatical nightmare, but is not even really spoken in Switzerland. Even the Swiss German don't like to speak it. I live in Fribourg (that marvellous city you see at 9:35 and 9:40 ^_^) and when I go to Bern for instance and ask my way IN GERMAN to someone in the street, they hear my accent and answer in French lol.
+DexM47 ahaahahah thats actually funny as hell the fact when u speak they reply in french ahahaha. i could only imagine what theyre thinking. "here comes a frenchie trying to speak german, let me help him out by speaking french"
+DaniyalZeX7 Exactly, they're trying to be nice, but it's actually extremely frustrating ^_^
DexM47 how good is there french? do they have a big accent?
+DaniyalZeX7 It depends on which part of Switzerland they're from. But those who live near the "Röstigraben" (9:23 in the video) often speak very well (not all of them, but still). Their accent is still clearly present, but not too thick. However, if you go to the more central or eastern parts of Switzerland, they usually don't speak French as well, sometimes it's just the basics, and usually with a much thicker accent :) Those who live very close to a French-speaking city, as Fribourg where I live, are often perfectly bilingual, with very little or no accent at all.
DexM47 interesting, thanks for the information bro, always love learning more about european languages
Wow, I had no idea that Switzerland was so linguistically complicated! You did an excellent job in explaining it all.
Swiss guy here. Really good and well-researched video!
Thanks!
@Ken narville you haven't learnt English neither didn't you?
Now, this is the best explanation of our 4 lingual country I have heard so far. This gentleman is 100% on the money with his comments. I only hope, that Switzerland will stand up to the trend, that everything has to be english. Years ago it used to be the french language. But I am glad that we are allowed to keep our different dialects and languages.
Thank you for the kind words!
I think it's a bad idea to make English a lingua franca in Switzerland. English is already dominating worldwide and having drastic influence on many languages, in certain cases near extinction.
In Switzerland, making a minor language like Romasch lingua franca would be the best approach in my opinion. There are several advantages:
1) There are very few native speakers, thus the bigger languages don't see it as a threat as a, say, Italian/French speaker would having to speak german. And it will also not threaten the existence of the other languages, given they are bigger in Switzerland & also there are even larger countries speaking those languages.
2) Unlike German, French & Italian, Romansch is a unique language to Switzerland. Having such a unique language as Lingua Franca might strengthen the national identity of the country along the language barriers.
3) Romansch is a small language & declining due to pressure of the larger languages. If something is not done to save it, it will in a not too distant future suffer it's death. Making it Lingua Franca, will save this unique Swiss language from extinction.
Whether you like it or not, English IS being used as a lingua franca in Switzerland. (So are standard German and Italian). And the people in Grubuden who are turning away from Romansch are speaking German instead.
So you are confirming the problem of having the larger languages as lingua franca: the death of the smaller languages.
And no, I really don't like it. It think it's very sad this happens. It's even more sad few people care.
Yeah, I live in Switzerland would love to learn Romansch, but I live too far west and no one speaks it here...
MellowMaroon we stand to lose a culture. Our lives are in many ways defined by language, they connect us to our roots, and losing them is losing parts of a culture and a society that you can never get back.
@Miniooster What makes you think that using English---or for that matter ANY language----to communicate with someone else stops you from using your own native language? And for that matter, why is it that English can never be considered a "Swiss" language but high German can?
well first as a swiss woman I'd like to thank you for the quality of your video, there is nearly no mistakes.
I'm not only swiss, I also have the chance to be born in a bilingual home, my mom is swiss german and my father is french and italian.
I grew up in the romandie and had to learn standard german like all my school mates. It was hard for them and after 8 years of german lessons they new less than after 6 years english lesson. The swiss french friends I know who speak well german are those who went on studying trips for a long period of time.
i think teaching english early at school isn't good at all. The kids would loose a part of our culture.
I live in one of those bilingual cities (Fribourg) and I dont get any german word so going to the other side of the river is pretty exotic !
Aber nicht offiziell und Biel liegt nicht direkt auf dem Röschtigraben, dem Saanetal. Will man im Kanton Freiburg Staatsangestellter werden - das Kantonsspital (gute Klinik und sehr nettes, kollegiales Betriebsklima) zum Beispiel stellt sehr gerne deutsche Ärzte und deutsches Pflegepersonal ein -, muss man nachweisen, dass man in der Schule Französisch und Deutsch hatte (das einzige Mal, bei dem ich den Bewerbungsunterlagen das Abiturszeugnis als Beweis beifügen musste) ...
Wusste ich ehrlich gesagt auch nicht, bis ich mich dort bewarb.
War auch recht unkonventionell, meine Frau sah morgens im Ärzteblatt unter "Vermischtes" eine Kleinanzeige "Westschweizer Spital sucht Assistenzarzt mit Berufserfahrung und Fachkundenachweis Rettungsmedizin für das Fach Orthopädie.", sie faxte meine Bewerbung hin und abends rief mich der leitende Oberarzt an, ich dachte nur, um einen Termin für ein Vorstellungsgespräch auszumachen. Tatsächlich WURDE das schon das Vorstellungsgespräch, er war nämlich der Meinung, dafür müsse ich nicht extra die 300 km nach Fribourg zu fahren. Und zeitlich passte es sehr gut, mein befristeter Vertrag an der Uni.-Klinik Freiburg lief am 31. Juli aus, am 4. August war Vertragsbeginn in der Schweiz (1. ist Nationalfeiertag, 2. und 3. waren Wochenende ...
Doch Biel ist offiziell eine zweisprachige Stadt, sowie auch der Kanton Bern ein offiziell zweisprachiger Kanton ist. Biel ist wohl die Stadt mit der ausgeglichensten Sprachbevölkerung in der Schweiz, was man von der Stadt Freiburg weniger behaupten kann, da dort Französisch klar in der Mehrheit ist.
In Fribourg, Freiburg liet in Baden-Würtemberg ;-) , redet nur ein Drittel Dütsch.
Dann gehen Sie mal an den Bahnhof von Freiburg im Üechtland und lesen das Bahnhofsschild. Übrigens wurden beide Freiburgs eh vom selben Herrschergeschlecht gegründet, den Zähringern ...
Btw., als Arzt aus Deutschland bekam ich natürlich auch mehr deutschsprachige als französischsprachige Patienten. Ich zumindest mochte "meine" auch Sensler sehr gerne, klasse, handfeste Schweizer ohne jeglichen Vorbehalt dem "Schwaben" gegenüber! Und die Zugschaffner mussten immer lachen bei der Fahrkarte von Freiburg nach Freiburg und zurück (irgendwie klappte das mit Freiburg i. Ü. und Freiburg i. B. nie, das war dem Computer anscheinend zu viel), da kannte ich das tolle Generalabonnement der SBB leider noch nicht.
as i am from switzerland (swiss german speaking region) i never relay saw a better video about the languages here no spreading of fake information in this vid i very often see people on YT spread false information keep the good work up
I just returned from an year long exchange in Switzerland, where I went to a university in the German-speaking part of the country, and as an outsider, I noticed a few things:
1) Germans frequently marginalize Swiss German. It's often a topic for jokes on how gutural it sounds, how "it's not real german", and even that it sounds "uneducated", all ridiculous in my opinion, since it's a matter of how the language develops. Swiss people are very considerate and change it quickly to standard German if they realize the other person is a foreigner or not a native speaker, something Austrians do as well, but Germans sometimes minimize it, by saying things like "it's cute that they are trying". Germans take pride on speaking what they consider to be the real German. Also, elderly and/or more isolated Swiss people can actually have a problem speaking standard German;
2) Italian is very isolated, I didn't meet a single Swiss Italian outside of Ticino, nor it's a popular choice amongst Swiss people to learn. I only met one Swiss who spoke all 4 native languages (plus English). But you'll always be reminded of it's presence, since basically every product you buy has instructions, nutritional content and etc in all 3 languages;
3) Swiss-Germans tend to speak more languages than the rest, as the comment below already stated, but from my experience, not a lot of them stick to French, they might study it in school, but a lot of them let go of it afterwards. Most Swiss-French I met couldn't communicate in German, even if they had taken classes in high school, at the university they seemed like exchange students, I remember talking to this guy from Geneva, and he was impressed at how many Swiss-German spoke good french, when him and his friends couldn't remember any German; and
4) English is widely spoken, but don't always expect people to know it. I've had a waiter who spoke 5 languages, while the lady responsible for the immigration office's hot-line couldn't speak a single world of English. Swiss with different native languages mostly communicate in English, I believe it's sometimes for lack of knowledge of each other's language, but also sometimes because of pride;
Sorry to any Swiss to whom I may have seemed like just a nosy Brazilian, or if my impression doesn't exactly fit the reality. I'm just very interested in linguistics and also love your beautiful country. xx
Thank you for sharing impressions
When I grew up I was exposed to all 4 languages, my father spoke French , my grandmother Romansch, my grandfather Italian and we all communicated in Swiss German...
So cool!!!! My family only spoke English. I’m American and it honestly feels like a default to me that English is my native language. I speak Spanish as a second language because there’s lots of Mexican immigrants here and it’s the second most spoken language.
that's so cool! 😀
That's interesting!
And now you know English...
You are example of a perfect natural polyglot
@@muhammadisaac07 He is the perfect model of the modern nat'ral polyglot.
As a Swiss and someone who studied linguistics, I can confirm that this video is spot on and well researched! Great job.
Swiss movies shown in Germany have subtitles.
Also the dialects of Sachsen-Anhalt and Kölsch und etc. have normally subtitels.
Noch nie gesehen
because are different languages (alemannic in CH and german in DE)
What swiss movies do they show in Germany? There aren't that many (good) swiss movies, lol.
@@mkm_ Ist einfach so noch nie einen Schweizer Film im Fernsehen gesehen
As a french speaking Swiss national, I can confirm that we do not enjoy learning german! However, I do not think that we should remove german (or french for german speakers) as the second language we learn in school. First of all, german is harder to learn for most of french speaking students, so starting to learn german before english makes sense. Furthermore, it is still very useful to know a second national language, because if you want to get a job, having three languages (first and second national language and english) on your CV will always help!
Great video as always!
I do not fully agree with your first statement. I'm a french speaking Swiss person, but I know a lot of people who like to learn and speak german too :)! Everyone is different. I think english is easier to learn, both for german speaker and french speaker, and that's why some don't want to study german/french that much.
mdr tu dis quoi, juste parce que toi t'aimes pas apprendre l'allemand ça veut pas dire que tout le monde déteste l'apprentissage de l'allemand. perso j'ai toujours gardé une moyenne de 5.5 en allemand et j'ai fini avec une matu gymnasiale!
Chill, je dis ça par observation, parce que qu'une majorité de gens que je connais n'aiment pas l'allemand. À part ceux qui avaient beaucoup de facilité en allemand (comme toi par exemple), mes camarades ont passé leur temps à se plaindre.
+Ali Hussein Mohamed Peut-être, mais je pense aussi qu'une majeure partie n'aime pas l'allemand à cause des profs, y'a eu des années où j'ai vraiment foiré et d'autres où c'était facile. Faut juste être intéressé et ça roule. J'suis aussi contre l'anglais devenant la linga franca, car ça n'a rien à voir avec notre histoire. Y'en a qui diront que les immigrés ont de la peine, mais personnellement, je pense que si ils le veulent, ils arrivent à s'intégrer très facilement, alors on peut très bien se passer de l'anglais.
***** Pour l'anglais, ce n'est pas qu'une question d'histoire. ça n'a peut être rien à voir, n'empêche qu'on sera compris avec l'anglais dans tous les pays du monde tandis qu'avec de l'allemand on risque de ne pas aller très loin.
I'm from Switzerland and my school is trilingual (German, Italian, Romansh). so my native language is german and I have to learn Italian at school. I don't really like it but I still think it is somehow important to teach the national languages and not just make english the lingua franca. I know a lot of people don't share that opinion with me. but it is part of our culture and it makes our tiny country somehow special :)
can't you also choose romansh if you dont like Italian?
Oooh, as a Swiss, I can speak german, french and italian. I know nobody who really wants to use english as a lingua franca. We are happy to speaks the langage of our neighbors and usually everyone answers in its own mother tongue and it works.
How did you learn them so well?
Wawruto Wawruto You learn at least 2 Swiss languages in school, many people choose to learn Italian on top of that, and you basically everyone at least understands Romantsch because of the other languages.
I don't know if it's only in my town somehow but no one ever likes to learn french, we prefer Italian for reasons even we don't know
@@i.e.s.u7155 französisch esch gayyy - jede dütschschwizerisch schüeler
Congratulation, it's very rarely in switzerland .
You are Swiss Romand, Swiss German or Swiss Italian ?
Félicitation ! C'est rare en suisse des gens qui parle les 3 langues .
Vous êtes Suisse Romand, Alémanique ou Italien ?
Felicitacione rara swiss que parla Italiano Frences y Allemane.
Tu es Swiss Romand, Italiano, Allemane ?
Ich hallo
Ya Wonderrrrfull neinn ?
Deutch, French, Italian ?
Very fun recent thing, there's a recent horror game published on almost all major platforms (Steam, Xbox, Playstation, and Switch) with its spoken dialogue entirely in Romansch! It's called Mundaun, after the town in the Swiss Alps it takes place in, and its also noteworthy for having textures entirely hand drawn in pencil. It's a really great game, very good story deeply rooted in local culture and fantastic visuals, I would strongly recommend giving it a look if you're curious about Romansch.
+Langfocus Hi! I'm Swiss. I'm fluent in German and English, because those languages are similar, but I struggle with French. I also learned the basics of Italian and understand some words of Rumantsch. That's because the Swiss way of thinking is: Understand at least 2 languages well and try to be good enough to understand basic small talk of the other languages. Even if it's just "hi" and "goodbye" people who speak other languages will appreciate it. I think it is great to go to school in Switzerland, because from an early age Swiss kids learn at least 3 different languages: German, French and English. They are compulsory at every public school. Students who like learning languages can choose to attend other lesson to learn Italian and/or Spanish as well. Most students like to focus on English rather than on German/French/Italian as a second language, because 1) English is relatively easy to learn and 2) because it is important for business or to attend a higher school. Swiss people don't appreciate if foreigners don't try at least to learn the basics of Swiss German or French. Such tourists are often considered ignorant and close-minded. So if anybody ever visits Switzerland: Makes sure you know the basics of the language in the place you visit. You will get bonus points ;-)
+Ruth Steiner Hi Ruth, thanks for commenting! If you are visiting the French area, do you try to address people in French?
Langfocus Yes, sure! I try to speak their language until I run out of words. Then the French will either step in with German or English or I will kindly ask if it's possible to switch language. The willingness to adress people in their own language is highly appreciated by the local people. Even if you make horrible mistakes ;-)
I speak french quite good? Is this fine?
Well she's quite right, but it's not compulsory to know French to visite the Romandie. Especially in big cities as Geneva where you can hear lots of foreign languages in town. Most people can answer in English (much more than in German or Swiss German^^)
Ruth Steiner Ruth Steiner from my own experience (Swiss; french speaker) German is paramount to get a promotion here, even better would be to learn a Swiss German dialect (like züritüütsch) or sometimes even Italien. English is not considered a plus here, because you ought to speak it (it's almost mandatory) and everyone does so you won't win any points with it.
I command you for learning so many languages, indeed we love it when Swiss germans say "adieu" ("ade") and "merci" even though it's probably not considered french anymore since it's part of most dialects. There is a small community of English speakers in the Romandie which only speak English even though they live here some more than a decade and it's utterly judged upon.
Ich habe schon bemerkt während des Militärs das Sie (schweizerdeutsch) können mehr Sprachen sprechen als wir und Sie können oft perfekt Englisch sprechen, das hat mir wirklich beeindruckt als ich im Thun (Thoune) war. Würdest du sagen das es stört dich wenn jemand (einen Romand) Hochdeutsch spricht statt Schweizerdeutsch? Ich habe immer diese Gefühl sobald die Leute bemerken dass ich nur Hochdeutsch reden kann.
Anche tu stai imparando l'italiano? È una bellissima lingua, ma non è tanto facile per noi (Romand). Spero che hai imparata più di me ^^
you my friend, are the MOST interesting man in the world.
Why thank you, sir. :) I don't think it's true, but I appreciate it.
I agree with him, I also _truly_ like your work! Keep it up. :)
A world where everyone speaks only English would be a sad one.
I agree!
+bass9454 How so? Logically, wouldn't people be more unified? In the later half of this video, I see towns divided.
+gredangeo
but they can still speak the language of the others and the more language you can speak, the funnier it is being able to understand other languages to a certain level right? haha
I live in the German-speaking part of Switzerland and sure, we might have difficulties speaking French because it has other roots than German but we don't reject our other languages.
They do speak other languages.
But native English-speakers keep jerking off thinking about this fantasy world...
I am a German from the center of the state of Bavaria (south-east of Germany) and I took part in a student exchange to Geneva. I stayed at a pretty multilingual family, which was great. The father was an Irishman, the mother a Swiss from Zurich (so a "German native") and they live in the French speaking part of Switzerland. As a result, I have had a lot of experience in communicating in (foreign) languages.
My exchange partner and his sister can of course speak French fluently since they have grown up in Geneva. However at home, the language was English because the parents wanted at least one of them speaking their native language (the father hardly knows any German). To the children I spoke in French, but with the parents in English and whenever I could not come up with a word or a definition I asked the mother in Germany, specifically my Bavarian dialect, and she replied in Schwitzerdütsch. We hardly had any problems communicating, our dialects being very similar in my opinion.
The English of the father was relatively clear standard English as far as I can rate that, but with an Irish accent in pronunciation. But as I asked him to speak his mother tongue, I did not get much of it (he grew up near Cork, I believe).
Now to the French part, I did not have a hard time understanding at all, whereas in Paris and in Bordeaux, I have always had to beg people to speak more slowly so I could understand them. This was not the case in Geneva, neither at home with my exchange partner nor on the street (slang is a different point here), In my perception, the Swiss French is much more intelligible than the Francais Métropolitain (French natives, do you agree with my statement here?).
When my exchange partner was with me in Germany, he said that he had understood more here than for example in Zurich. But I suppose that's because I live in a rather suburban area where the Bavarian dialect becomes more and more replaced by standard German. However, he could follow the conversations within my family, which are in my mother tongue dialect of course. Additionally, my partner is very exposed to German because of his mother watching German TV and calling Swiss-German friends, so that was a huge benefit for him.
In the canton of Geneva, he started learning German as the first foreign language in the third year of primary school and English as the second foreign language in the fifth year of primary school, as far as I remember (here again, please correct me if I am wrong); I do not remember him learning a third foreign language in the Collège (High School).
Actually I think it's a bad idea to make english our lingua franca because you'll anyway will learn english. I'm proud on my language (swiss-german) and I like that we have cantons with other languages. I'm not good in french but I want to get good so I can speak french with french speaking Swiss even if they don't want to speak german.
Also I think the french, the italian and the rural german part of Switzerland don't want English as the lingua franca, only the cities want this.
+VR96FE I agree with you, though I think the best thing about your comment is the great Swiss attitude of hospitality. Every swiss person that I've met has tried to speak the native language of the people that they meet. Though idiomatically for me it would be, "I think it's a bad idea to make English our lingua franca because you'll learn English anyway." Merci pour votra mot ;-)
thing is most non german speaking swiss hate the fact that even if they learn german they can't move around german switzerland cause they use dialect
Well... I had 5 years of french lessons and I can't even say "Can I have a bread"? xD
You see, when I lived in Switzerland and even after that, when I visited it often and travelled most of it (well, tried) I thought it was the Swiss German who didn't want to learn the other languages.
But now that you mention it, as I lived on the French side although not far from the Bern canton, you are right, French Swiss are even worse on language integration... At least that was the case 25 years ago (I'm getting old).
I really like it because it is really good to have other languages I hate globalization
I am Swiss and must say that I have never seen such an excellent and well-informed summary of the Swiss language situation. It covers every aspect and avoids the usual clichés. The best way to evaluate somebody‘s credibility is by looking at what they say about a situation that you know well. By this standard I must say that the credibility of this site ranks very high. I shall feel very comfortable about anything else it has to say about languages. Congratulations!
What I'd really like to know is why Swiss German is so different from the standard language while Swiss French is just standard French with a handful of regionalisms. As a non-native speaker of both languages, I can't understand much spoken Swiss German without subtitles. On the other hand, the French spoken in Lausanne or Geneva sounds basically the same as Parisian French. Indeed, there are regional accents in France itself that are much more distinctive than that la Suisse romande.
Short answer: standard german is a once artificially constructed language made up to unify many different "german" languages while metropolitan french is a centralistic one which expanded from the northern part of France. The original languages/dialects still exist to some extend, in Switzerland more, in northern Germany less.
I'm from Ticino and I leave in the bilingual city Fribourg since 2011. In Ticino there are not a big choice for universities, so we have to learn languages if we want continue to study in Switzerland. Now I can currently speak 4 languages. I'm really glad to be born in a State where we can speak differents languages. I think that in these way we become more open towards the foreigns, because we can communicate with anyone. So, pls, don't try to imagine a Switzerland with only a unique official language ;)
All French speaking Swiss people I met so far, refused to talk with me in German, Italian or English (I don't speak French).
Bs
You say "refused" but do you know if they were even able? If this video is true, they'd have learnt some German in school, but that doesn't mean they can hold an adult conversation.
@@_Shadbolt_
Most of them worked at CERN, an international Research Center, where the official languages are English, French, German and Italian and I am fluent in all of these languages except for French and they should have been able to at least speak one additional language apart from their own. I think it is highly unlikely that they would have gotten a job there if French was the only language they were able to speak. It is more likely that they refused out of pride. I mean, they couldn't even tell me the prices for a meal there in another language (I was lucky that I can at least understand numbers in French).
@@BarelloSmith You should've spoken to them in algebra! Science nerds ahoy! In all seriousness - wow, that sounds annoying.
@@_Shadbolt_ xDD Sadly I'm not fluent ib algebra either but good idea! :P
Hello PaulI am from the (Swiss) German speaking part of Switzerland and at least here I have NEVER heard of any obligations to learn a third NATIONAL language. (It might be different in Ticino for example.) What is definitely true here is that it is mandatory to learn two foreign languages over all. Learning French and English as foreign languages is mandatory in eighter all or at least most places in the German speaking part of Switzerland. (Don't want to say things here I am not entirely sure about.) And it is also very common to only learn French and English - the two mandatory languages - when you're from the German speaking part of Switzerland and instead of learning Italian or Latin (starting during mandatory school years) or Spanish, Russian or Ancient Greek (starting during "additional" school years) or two or of these languages additionally to learning French and English, they opt for other additional subjects/classes. Or - when possible - none at all. The of the content of your video was EXTREMELY accurate and whenever I thought something like "Well, this is not perfectly correct" you added something that made it perfectly correct. So, well done. Much better than msny Swiss people could have done it. I wonder where you got these accurate facts that were understandable enough for people who don't live in Switzerland.
Thanks for the comment! The information about being required to learn a third national language came from a Swiss person I spoke with online. He said that was the case everywhere, but I guess that might just be the case in his canton and he assumed it was the same everywhere.
Thanks for the correction and the compliments too!
+Langfocus You're welcome. And sorry for misspelling your name, that was a typo. Do you happen to know where he was from, how old he was, what level of education he was talking about or what native language he spoke?
@ Marie Lastname....hey there...i waz reading ur comment...u mentioned u r frm Switzerland.... u knw wt i'v plans f moving 2 switzerland... i really wanted 2 get in touch with some swiss....so if u cud plz get in touch,it'll be realy helpful....tnq in advance & regards frm India....
+Ramandeep Singh Okay, here I am. What is your request?
+Marie Lastname hey....i guess it wud btr nt 2 tok ryt here.....can v chat on FB or can u mail me....???
my email id is ramandeepsingh14u@gmail.com
ohhh....& tnq so much 4 replying...really it means a lot...
as a northeastern Italian, I can't tell the difference between someone from the northern parts of Lombardy and Ticino
Saluti dalla Svizzera! (Canton Ticino).
Λευκός άγγελος Gopfristutz. Das Italiänisch chani nit. Kän iu speek inglisch?
No_Idea_4_Pseudo verstandi nid
Ciao anche io son ticinese! (And hello random german speaking friend)
Saluti dall’Italia 🇮🇹🤝🇨🇭
Solo so dire parolacce in ticinès!
well it seems swiss french is improved french french since french numbers are a mess with that eighty-ten for ninety thing
agreed
French French is actually just Parisian French. Everyone else from Brussels to Geneva knows it's soixant, septant, octant, nonant. Parisians are weird.
+BarbikaPahor I agree on the "messy" part. It's even worse. "quatre vingt dix" is not "eighty - ten" its "4 times 20 plus 10". But hey, that did also exist in English. Lincoln began his Gettysburg Address with "Four score and seven years ago" and meant 87 by that.
+BarbikaPahor Allow a "weirdo" (I guess :D) to provide an explanation. In early middle age, calculations for numbers used the base 20 and 10 (ie. 83 = 4*20+3 or 172 = 8x20+10+2)..Then numbers like "thirty" (trente), sixty (soixante) were introduced in the "french" language. Then nobody's sure why but in the XVIIe century, the french academy decided that the last 3 numbers, 70, 80 and 90 would keep that same base 20 (though hopefully, we kept numbers like 100 (cent) and 1000 (mille). So soixante, septante and nonante are indeed an improvement. Fun fact: In the city where I live (Geneva), they also say "quatre-vingt" yet they do find "quatre-vingt-dix" completely illogical...So I guess it's mostly about what you learn as a kid..:D
that is interesting. now i know :)
If I were swiss, I'd love to study "the other" national languages.
If you were a French-speaking Swiss , you'd want to learn German and obviously English .
If you were a German- speaking Swiss you'd certainly choose French and English : Italian and Rumantsch are both totally useless...
As a swiss, I can only agree, but many people think otherwise.
@@Ado555555 I totally agree! An exchange in one of the other parts should be mandatory in the "Oberstufe" or in "Primar". It would be so easy and way more efficient.
@@albertfoulon8049 , why is Italian useless? Don't people close Italy travel there or do business there?
we hate it lol
Bonjour je suis Suisse! 💖
salut ! je suis congolais mais j ai vécu en suisse
+Luc l'Africain salut je suisse et j'ai un prof d'art qui vient du Congo :')
+Joël P prof en art ? 😁 venant d'un congolais c'est pas étonnant ^^ il fait quel genre d'art ?
Luc l'Africain de la poterie et puis la base pour nous apprendre :)
+Joël P ah ! c est cool ca
Also, from my experience it is in fact true that all swiss cafes have a buzzer sound for using the wrong language.
Indeed, that part was filmed live in location! :D
Hi! I just discovered your channel, and I must say it's quite interesting.
I was born and raised in Geneva, (Switzerland :p).
I studied German for ten years, but I'm still bad at it.
Here's what I think the problem is (I'm not saying it's the general opinion in Switzerland):
French and German are both grammatically complicated, with a sh** load of exceptions.
The strategy of teachers (in the french part at least) is to emphasize Grammar and conjugation courses for the second language, and that kills it.
We don't practice our speaking enough.
So I wouldn't say that the problem is cultural.
Also, French speakers have more issues with their second language than German speakers, so the latter usually make the effort :-p
Keep on uploading
MrVickilatombe So I assume you raised in the French part of the country, why didnt you choose italian as a second language? It's the closest to French.
As a Liechtensteiner i am very impressed how accurately you described everything about Switzerland and even that some Austrians understand it. BTW we speak very similar like the Swiss but the "ch" doesn't crack like them and they replace alot "k"s with "ch"
My family and I went to Liechtenstein in the summer of 2017 for your national day. Had a great time.
I really like the way you elaborate something, It's pretty clear and interesting. Keep up the good work!
I live in the North of France and use "déjeuner" for breakfast ^^
We do the same in Canada. I'm pretty sure the Belgians and several African nations use the déjeuner-dîner-souper convention too. Some francophiles use the "petit déjeuner" terminology here and they just get funny looks, like an American calling a truck "a lorry" would.
paranoidrodent i use Those!
You use 'déjeuner' for breakfast? Is that because you get out of bed at lunchtime? (Throaty laugh)
@@phyllisbiram5163 Ahaha no 😜
I think we use Déjeuner as it's shorter to say... But sincerely I have no idea 🤷♂️
Même chose au Québec
I'm french and I'm living very close to Switzerland (near Genève and Lausanne)
I have relatives and friends in Switzerland
what you said is
100% true
I didn't expect someone to be so right about it xD
the only thing missing is:
in the Vaud canton, 80 (quatre-vingt in french) is huitante
and the school system is so different
like:
french: collège
swiss french: cycle
french: lycée
swiss french: collège
da hell-
when I was doing my mandatory military service I was standing guard with a ticinese (I'm from grison). we basically spoke a mashup of italian, german, french but mostly english lmao so I definitely support learning only your native tounge and english
As a Swiss living in Brasil I like to congratulate you to your perfect and complete resume!
Je suis contre l'Anglais comme lingua franca en Suisse. La prédominence hégémoniale de cette langue se renforcera. Par contre il fallait apprendre davantage le Francais et l'Allemand en Suisse Alémanique et en Romandie. Et on devrait abondonner le ressentiment de parler Schriftdeutsch en Suisse Alémanique avec ceux qui ne parlent pas le dialecte. On n'est plus au 20 siècle.
Als Deutschschweizer macht es für mich keinen Unterschied ob ich jetzt Hochdeutsch oder Englisch spreche. Beides entspricht nicht meiner natürlichen Sprache, beides spreche ich fliessend. Mit mir Hochdeutsch statt Englisch zu sprechen ist nicht wiirklich ein entgegenkommen und bringt mir nichts. Im Gegensatz möchtest du, dass ich mit dir in deiner Muttersprache spreche.
Je ne parle pas les "dialectes" de mes parents, c'est un sentiment d'aliénation, une langue "officielle" est simplement un dialecte qui a pris le dessus sur les autres dialectes car à un moment de l'histoire cette région a eu + de pouvoir, mais cette langue "officielle" n'a rien de supérieur.
wtf kein Deutschschweizer redet gerne auf Hochdeutsch, da spreche ich lieber Englisch...
Als romanischsprachige Person bin ich der Meinung, man sollte immer bereit sein, auch einzulenken. Ja, ich liebe meine Muttersprache, aber ich erwarte nicht, dass die Leute in einer anderssprachigen Region mich verstehen. Man kann immer auch Kompromisse finde. Wenn ich mit Tessinern rede - was ziemlich oft vorkommt - reden wir oft Hochdeutsch. Das macht für uns Sinn, weil wir das in der Schule gelernt haben und Schweizerdeutch erst später gelernt haben.
Am schönsten fände ich es, wenn jeder in seiner Muttersprache reden könnte. Die anderen müssten die Sprache verstehen, aber nicht selber können.
Thank you for this video, really well investigated! I live in Switzerland very close to the Röstigraben, work in Biel (a City where German and French are official languages) and had French in School for a total of about 8 years but still my French-knowledge-level is very low.
Maybe you said it but one think I'd like to mention is, that for Swiss German speaking people it is really no problem at all to understand standard German (even though it is almost a foreign language for us). When chatting to each other (eg. via Whatsapp) we sometimes use Swiss German but otherwise the writen language we use is almost always standard German (newspapers, magazines, manuals, letters from goverments, invoices, ...). In fact there are even no grammatical rules for Swiss German (and there is not THE Swiss German as you've correctly mentionned).
One last thing: There is no obligation to learn a third language or maybe it depends on the cantone you live in.
Btw: In my channel you can find a video in which I explain how to pronounce certain words in Swiss German!
I used to live in Geneve, and even the University students from the eastern parts of the country learned French to fit in. My French speaking friends who grew up there said it was difficult to learn German, because what is spoken and what is taught in schools are too different. When I visit Zurich, I find they have a lot of pride in their language, and they feel English would take away their identity. But that's just the opinion of my Swiss friends. Many of them do still learn English, but they also know at least two others languages already.
As an American exchange student, I studied in Biel/Bienne. The city is bilingual, with most shops, and even my school, being bilingual. Most of the time, I would observe the Swiss Germans speaking German while the Swiss French spoke French to each other - two languages simultaneously! My neighbor, a Swiss German, married a Swiss French, and this was how they communicated with each other, and their children were raised purely bilingually.
Great video. So true, I'm from Geneva, When I travel to Zûrich, I speak english. Like it or not but English becomes the lingua franca of Switzerland. Maybe be not such as good think because : les suisses s'entendent bien parce qu'ils ne se comprennent pas :-)
I am
Swiss from Ticino. It’s true we study so many languages and love our dialects.
Do you also speak dialect? Because I spent one year in Ticino and I'm still wondering why nobody's using it anymore (at least not like the Swiss German dialect is used, for example at school)
@@pati4871 really? Omg I do. But in Ticino everyone speak dialect if you.
My mother only dialects and every village have a specific one.
If you come back let me me as I can bring you around so you can hear different dialects
@@pati4871 Swiss German it’s an official language :) for Swiss
@@pati4871 where are you from ?
@@Randomme87 Sono da Berna, ma vivo ancora in Ticino (nel Luganese) per una settimana, dopo è finito il mio anno qui. :(
Ci sono tante persone che dicono che se parli svizzero tedesco e tedesco non puoi dire che parli due lingue. Ha anche senso, però secondo me si potrebbe dire.
I lived several years in Biel/Bienne the largest bilingual town of Switzerland, virtually everyone speaks both French and German but they have their preferences. It is common to speak in two languages at the same time as both understand them. The local television is bilingual and even the newspaper has every article in two languages.
Same in Luxembourg, everyone is fluent in German&French, but they speak Letzebuergesch amongst.
Great video! Just one comment: Standard Swiss German is similar to the standard variety of Germany but I wouldn't go as far as to say that it is "basically the same". It is a distinct standard variety 1. in terms of usage (mostly used in written language as you hinted at) and 2. in terms of lexicon, pronunciation, grammar and even orthography in some cases.
Why is this important? Many Swiss people are not even aware that they have their "own" standard German. Studies show they consider their competency in standard German as inferior compared to speakers from Germany. This results in them abandoning their own standard variety believing there is just a single standard variety namely the German one. Due to the fact that - from a linguist's point of view - German is a pluricentric language with distinct standard varieties, it should be in the interest of all of us to speak up for every single one of them. Linguistic awareness and open-mindedness are important factors that contribute to mutual cultural understanding and transnational cooperation.
I got a bit confused there as well but I think with standard Swiss German he meant the Duden (in German but with Swiss flag and double S instead of the funny looking B). They make this for every nation so that all can see their flag and go to sleep hapily but he is right to say that it is basically the same.
@@pingo6874 Yes, if you only look at written Standard German (e. g. newspaper articles) you won't find a huge difference between Standard Swiss German and Standard German used in Germany, except for some words that differ and minor differences in morphology and grammar. However, I think it is important to look beyond the level of written language - differences are significant and don't only concern pronunciation (spoken Swiss standard German exists) and the lexicon but particularly sociolinguistics (Swiss people only use the spoken standard in very specific situations). This is just an addition to what he said, to make clear that if you look at all aspects of Standard German, Swiss standard German and standard German in Germany do indeed differ.
@@Erik9994 Hä? :D
Du seisch also es git so öppis wie "Hoch-Schwiizerisch"? No nie devo ghört...
Er meint halt eifach de Duden und brucht Swiss obwohls Dütsch isch (wahrschinli weiss er da sogar und will eifach politisch korrekt si)
@@pingo6874 You call it Schriftsdeutsch, I believe. I haven't noticed any pronunciation differences in Zürich (unlike in the villages around it), but there's no ß, no Ö and some words are different, like Velo instead of Fahrrad and Gipfeli instead of Croissant.
This is a brilliant, in depth analysis of the linguistic situation in Switzerland. My father grew up there. He is right and shows how practical, logical and rational the Swiss people are in regards to language use. If only more people had this logic (and key to success in a modern world) in other parts of the world.
Swiss are great. Lived there for over a year. I speak English, French, Italian; I’m also a native speaker of Spanish, Portuguese and Ladino. My assistant tough me Romansh. At first it sounded like German speaking in French and Spanish. Very good video.
What is Ladino?
A cousin of mine has been living in Switzerland for 20 years, she is fluent in French, German, English and Spanish, but on a daily basis only uses French and English. She felt frustrated trying to communicate in German and stopped trying when she realized that Swiss German speakers rather switched to English than to Standard German.
Great video :)BUT Ticinese is not a dialect of Italian. It's a dialect of Lumbaart, à gallo-italic language spoken in northern Italy (and southern Switzerland). That's why it's so different.
Yes, it's true but lombard and italian are very close, somebody thinks that lombard is a dialect of italian and in the last decades lombard was influenced by standard italian. There's the same difference that exists beetween German and Swiss-German.
Very true. And I was disappointed to hear him saying that "it's not so widespread". I mean, we all speak it, or mix it with italian. and it's COOL!
To be honest, it's not so widespread comparing with German Switzerland where nobody speaks official German. In Italian Switzerland you use ticinese with family and friends but never in official situation. I'm Italian and the difference with Italy is that here young people don't speak dialects anymore (or few people), in Switzerland you still do. But I live in Ticino and you know what official and unofficial language mean.
Well, actually you can use it even at work (I used to). And with the administration, orally. I regularly use it when I go to redo my passport. You usually start in Italian (because it's considered polite) and then you go on in ticinese.
I live now in Paris and when I went to the Embassy I also spoke ticinese to a ticinese trainee there.
If you have an Italy Italian accent, people would not speak to you in Ticinese because it's considered offensive : people speak it only when they're sure others can answer and understand 100%. In our culture, especially educated people, it's considered rude to use languages that others don't understand (it's not the case in the German Speaking Switzerland or in Romandie). That's also why many parents teach french or german at home even though they're not native speakers.
In German Switzerland is the opposite: they want to speak with you in Schwizerdütsch if it's possible and if they know you're been living in Switzerland for a long time because they considere it... polite! They think in that way you don't feel like a stranger...
I am French, I worked in Switzerland, this video explains and describes very well the situation. Congratulations to you, Mr Langfocus.
There it is... My parents are from Geneva so we spoke French and German for my dad he was originally from Bern, we spoke both language at home, in School we also had to learn English or Italian, I chose English, but since we travel a lot in Italy I do understand it too....
good for you
The most used immigrant language in switzerland is portuguese (3.5%) and after that comes albanian(2.6%). Serbo-Croatian is on the third place with 2.5%.
Shit! You're right on this one....looked up at the admin.ch site.
andré Karmann
Ever been here in Switzerland?
amazing video paul, thank you.
+Ari Parker Thanks, Ari!
I live in one of the bilingual cities mentioned in the video (map) and that is Murten/Morat. It's an insane situation sometimes as e.g. in supermarkets you sometimes just don't know which languages to use. More or less everyone here speaks French, German, Swiss German and English fluently and apart from that very often also another language (Portuguese, Albanian, Serbocroatian, Italian, Spanish) since their has been lots of immigration for the last decades. It's really a polyglot paradise and I just love that!
There are speakers of the other languages in every part and even in the swiss german region I speak italian with swiss people. italian is growing again and people in other cantons learn also italian, not only french or german. by the way, ticinees is still alive.
you did a great job in reporting about the languages in switzerland! really accurate!
Watching and listening to this videos improve mi listening capacity, thank you! Im a native spanish speaker
It’s my pleasure. I’m glad you find them useful. 👍🏻 Also have a look at my second channel “The GEOfocus Channel” which will have new videos starting next month.
I think that is a terrible idea to stop teaching the other swiss's national language in the profit of a foreign one.
American here. I can see how it would be very convenient to use English as the official lingua franca. But, to me, that would be kind of sad. Taken to its extreme, it could imply, some generations down the line, that Switzerland would have English as its first language. That just feels very wrong to me.
From the video, it sounds like Swiss German is either a first or second language for all kids to learn, so maybe that would be a better lingua franca than English, if the other 3 language speakers could accept that.
Dionisio Junior Oliveira To be honest I don’t think we benefit to much from it because it is hard to learn a other language (french/italian/german) when you can speak german/italian/french and english. In my case I’m fluent in German, English and my mother tongue . And it was hard for me to learn another language
It's always a good idea to learn English. You will probably need it anyway.
@@CoolGuy_77777 not saying it's not useful to speak English. I'm Brazilian, if I took the time to learn it it's obvious it's useful. But to forget about the past and to look to the future is historically proven to be a recipe for disaster, hence the genocide of innumerous native people in all of the continents in the name of progress
@@CrimTheKitty I know it's hard to learn another language. I learnt four and I'm learning a fifth one now. We shouldn't stop trying to learn something because it's hard tho. This is just stagnating. In this case specially, because learning those languages may mean for them preserving their Identity and culture.
0:49 Don't forget little Liechtenstein! :D
Hahaha Barby
Haha ländle 😂
I stayed there recently and in that little country they have at a minimum 3 main dialects!
just adore little L. used to go there quite often when we lived in Germany. And look up Zug in Switzerland. The sweetest place in the.... sigh... miss it still
69th like.
Great video as always, but you cannot avoid talking about Lombardy when talking about Canton Ticino.
Ticinese is not a dialect of Italian, but a dialect of Lombard Language. Lombard is mostly spoken in the adjacent region of Canton Ticino and Graubünden, which is Lombardy. It's a recognised language by UNESCO and the variety spoken in Ticino, though there are differences in phonetics, is very similar to Milanese dialect (which again, whit the word 'dialect' we mean dialect of Lombard Language, NOT Italian!).
Plus, Swiss Italian is almost like the regional variety of Italian spoken in Western Lombardy (it's really hard to tell if someone is Swiss or Western Lombard just by hearing them speaking Italian, as well as speaking Lombard).
Thank you
Somehow, Canton Ticino is culturally like a piece of that area of Lombardy which corrisponds more or less to Western Lombardy, which is often called 'Insubria'. Western Lombard dialects (plus Ticinese) are referred also as 'Insubregh' because of the fact that they are spoken in the area of Insubria. This means that:
a)When speaking Italian, the accent folks have in Canton Ticino is really close to the one people living in Western Lombardy have (like Milan, Como, Monza, Varese).
b)When someone from Milan listen to someone speaking Ticinese, they will just think they are from Milan's Hinterland/Brianza/Como.
@@t.p.6327 when speaking italian, a ticinese is quickly revealed when he goes by saying "devo rispondere al natel / hai preso la posta ?" Also in dialect they've a more conservative dialect than us in Brianza, less italianized !
I really like your ending: yes, they don't really like to speak other languages, but that's exactly how you can come across surreal situations like I saw in Biel/Bienne:
3 old ladies laughing together. The first one speaking German, the second one answering in French and the third, commenting in Italian.
Hello, i was born in ticino and im a italian native speaker, after when i was child we had moove to the romandie and i had learn french, at school i had just study the english and i cant have a conversation in german... so with swiss german cousin i always speak in english beacause our english its definitly much better then my german or their french 😆
Yes i think that is a good neutral language to comunicate betwen us
Can you do a video about Belgium situation?
As a dutch guy, i have always enjoyed listening to swiss german, and the fact i can understand it better than most Germans
Thats true. And we understand Dutch better than meany Germans. Cause we speak the Umbrellagerman to. So that is a advantage to us. Cause some words can be related to swiss or to standard german. The Platt-German Dialects are super related to Dutch. So for them it must be like almost the same Language.
@@viddl8267 Well even Dutch is easier to understand than Swiss German...
@@panzrok8701 i like dutch. Should watch some videos about it... or travel there once
@@lilbirb8333 nice, if we are lucky we run i to eachother. I am from Bern. We speak high-Allemanic here.
Once, staying in Luzern, our hotel manager said I spoke German with a Dutch accent.....but I'm English.
Interesting and well described (I'm discovering your channel, some 2 years after this was posted).
Being a Québécois living in Zurich, I would wish more and more Swiss people would learn the other languges to avoid English - which is anyway the Lingua Franca with the rest of the world and the business. And I'll soon work towards that goal, teaching French in the swiss-german city of St Gallen.
I'd love if you did a similar video about linguistic tensions in Canada between French, English, and the native languages, and the language of the immigrants...!
Of, and a video on the native langugages of North America, how they are related to each other (or not) and basics of how they work!! It would be great!!!
Thanks!
About English as "lingua franca": What many of you non-Swiss don't get is how super-hard and frustrating it is for the non-German speakers in Switzerland to communicate with the 65% majority of Swiss German speakers. Why? Because we seem to speak a totally different language than what they were taught. Someone in e.g. Geneva can learn and study (High-) German all their life; they can read every book written in German... but as soon as they travel anywhere into the Swiss German parts they won't understand zip because of all our funky Swiss German dialects (100s of them!). And none of them has any standardised form; and even we native Swiss German speakers don't understand every of those dialects (... looking at you, Wallis!!! :P ...). All those German lessons instantly feel like a huge waste of time because you still won't understand anything unless we want you to understand and switch to High German, just for you. Or even to French, or Italian. Or English. And this is where English makes most sense: because *both* sides (Swiss German and French speakers) need to learn it, they both find themselves on "equal footing" since it is a foreign language to both and both will stick more or less to the Standard English they learned at school. This makes life a lot easier for both sides.
In everday life (e.g. where I work) this often means that chats between Swiss German- and French-speaking coworkers will jump between languages; sometimes even in the same sentence. E.g. chat starts off in German, then gets switched to French, then a few words in English are used, then back to French, a few replies in German, a few fragments in English, and so on. If anything then *THIS* is the "Swiss Identity", e.g. the willingness to find common ground, e.g. speak English if needed, not force your native language on the other guy (whose language is just as native as your's!!). English has proven to be helpful in this regard (e.g. bridge the gaps); but it's not even remotely going to "replace" any of the native languages soon, so no danger there.
I'm from Lausanne and I'm passionate about languages. The problems is that Swiss German people have disgusted me. I know 5 languages, but I can barely introduce myself in German, skipping a lot of lessons in school and hating this language. The reason? I was feeling like learning a language that doesn't exist in my country. Who cares about just being able to read the newspapers or watching TV, I want to know my fellow citizen... Why do you hate so much German? Is it so uncomfortable for you to speak in German? I have never understand how is it possible to speak a language at school and in every formal situation and then switch to another language. Can you give me your point of view about this?
It's exactly like that! I learned German for 12 years but when I started working with a lot of Swiss German, I just couldn't understand! Plus everyone has their own dialect so I have to get used to everyone speaking :) At my work, everybody is bilingual so I speak German (with swiss german words sometimes :D) to everyone and they answer in French. English isn't allowed at my work place, as it's a non national language. So far it has worked perfectly:)
@@Wawruto I understand your feelings, but I think it's not fair to lump all Swiss German people together. That would be like saying all the French speaking people are arrogant and too proud to speak English. I would never do that. I'm from the German speaking part of Switzerland and I really think it's great when people from the French part of Switzerland speak German to me. And of course I speak standard German and not Swiss German to them. We had French at school, but I didn't learn much back then. Actually I was very interessted in it, but our lessons were so boring and our French books ancient.
I neither do hate German nor Germany and I have no problem speaking standard German. If someone comes from a non-German speaking region and he or she tries to speak German I gladly change to standard German.
@@bengez2382 Glad to hear that :)
How would you describe other Swiss Germans' feeling about this issue? How many of them have the same vision?
scorp73 As a non-Swiss person, I think you make the most sense 👍. Yes, making use of English to ease the communication between all Swiss when nothing else works is only logical and practical, and we are not even going to bother talking about benefitting from fluency in it because of its status as a global language. The term "lingua franca" basically means "bridge language" anyway. Of course, that does not necessarily mean using it to actually replace other Swiss national languages other than your own, that would be silly. The way you speak of multilingual interactions between Swiss from different regions in everyday life sounds exactly like the Swiss way to me, so I also believe Swiss culture should remain intact in this way.
I think that they should use Italian as a common language. Both the German and French speaking communities should be willing to accept this and Italian unlike English is already one of Switzerland's official languages.
Frank Gilmartin uh no... Italian is rarely used as lingua franca and french is a global language unlike italian, german or romansh
Here in Indonesia we have local languages more than 600. So we choose Malay based language (Bahasa Indonesia) as a lingua franca. Even now mostly people here speak Bahasa Indonesia as a second language.
I can't imagine if Swiss has many local languages like us.
Yes. I am Australian but my second language is Indonesian. I have travelled widely in their huge country and everywhere I go I can talk with everyone in Indonesian. My children can speak some Indonesian too and had the same experience in Indonesia, Malaysia and southern Thailand.
@@rais1953 👍👍👍👍
@@dedisaputra3460 With Bahasa Indonesia the Indonesians have brought 270m people together in thousands of islands with hundreds of local languages and several different religions. Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, former Czechoslovakia and Sri Lanka could not do this in small countries with just a few local languages and one or two religions.
Hi Paul! I reside in Switzerland and I thank you for being keen on providing accurate information not only in regard to this video but this includes your other videos as well. Personally, I think that English have become indispensable and crucially important for all countries and Switzerland is just one of these countries. While I was studying psychology at the university of Neuchatel, most of the scientific articles we used to read were in English. However, we were asked to submit essays, reports etc or answer questions in French. As far as I have experienced, you can communicate with teachers at the Swiss universities using any language as far as they can communicate using this language. There is really remarkable tolerance in regard to languages in Switzerland because Swiss people know more than others how difficult learning a foreign language is :-)
Grüezi mit enand
ich chume us de schwyz
like wers verstande het
Voll
+mic 8854 Deutsch ist sogar nicht meine Muttersprache, ich habe nur B2, aber hatte ich ganz kein Problem diese drei Sätze auf Romansch zu verstehen.
So "gefällt mir"
+Alexander Menakhin Hätte kaum gemerkt, dass deutsch nicht deine Muttersprache ist :P
+mic 8854 TAMINONAMOLE WIESO CHEMMED IMME SÖETIGI SCHIISSDRECKE
+mic 8854 dein dreck versteht keine sau
That's amazing how Switzerland is the same as Belgium ! In Belgium, we say 70 and 90 just like in Swiss French, and, just like in Switzerland, here in Belgium, most native French speakers don't like to learn Dutch (and vice-versa) so they speak English between French and Dutch native speakers
And many people say swissgerman sounds similar to dutch.
The swiss "ch"-sound is the same like the dutch "g"-sound (not like the german "ch"-sound) and I when I read a dutch I understand it pretty good and a few words are spoken exactly the same way in dutch and in some of the swissgerman dialects.
So there are more similarities 😂
I've heard someone speaking in Swiss German in a video, and when I asked my brother to let him guess, he said Dutch, until I told him it was German !
+imaginox9 c est un peu comme la suisse aussi.
mais en Suisse à l'époque certaines personne disaient même 80 = "huitante"
En effet j'ai déjà entendu ça, le "huitante"
la version suisse/belge est vraiment plus facile que la version de la france.. mais, malheureusement, nous devons apprendre/utiliser la version française (soixante-dix, quatre-vingt et quatre-vingt-dix) dans les écoles de la suisse allemand...
Yes, Paul. It is a brilliant idea and already a reality all over the world. English is already a de facto lingua franca globally. Moreover, it is comprised of vocabulary from French, Anglo Saxon Germany, Latin,Greek, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, Sinhalese, Native American, African and other languages, so it is extremely diverse. English unites over 1 billion people as a lingua franca in India alone. Phenomenally successful Singapore unites 3 different linguistic communities with English. Same all over Africa and much of Asia.
It is also the language of internet and of pilots.
8:20
A Swiss lady I know is fluent in German and Italian. She also said that she can understand and read French, but can't speak it very well.
Yeah, I'm fluent in German and Italian, and I also can read, speak, and write a little bit in French
fluent in german, french and italian... i usually make the effort
As a swiss citizen, my mother tongues are Italian and French, I study in German in Zürich and know English better than I know German
8:20
Hello Paul, I live in the French part of Switzerland so here are my feedbacks : We need t learn a 2nd official language so in school we have to take either Italian or German (my sister took Italian, I took German) but none of us had to study the 3 languages. English is mandatory. When I go to Zurich or Bern, I try my best to speak in German. People understand me but I don't understand them (they sound like Dutch). I don't think they are more serbo-croatian speakers than spanish or portuguese speakers. I even believe that more people speak arabic than serbo-croatian.
A normal swiss would speak 3 languages : 2 official ones + English. In my case, I speak French, German and English.I would say that it is a polyglot paradise because you have to be fluent in at least two languages if you want to survive in Switzerland.I also have the feeling that more Swiss-Germans learn French than Swiss-French learn German