Multilingual Switzerland

The lads crowded their way onto the tram at lunchtime, heading out to get some food. Looking out of the window, I suppressed a smile as I took in the wide variety of teenage slang. One suggested getting some chicken from Migros, using Swiss German permeated by fashionable Balkan slang. Originally inspired by the migrant languages of the former Yugoslavia, it dispenses with prepositions, articles and pronouns, so his proposal came out something like “we go Migros chicken?”. It gives a certain rhythm to the casual staccato in the way young people speak, and has firmly cemented itself in youth idiom. I keep my ears pricked a little longer and pick up a whole symphony of voice and language. Two young girls are speaking English, two ladies High German, businesspeople are conversing in Spanish, others in Serbo-Croat and a mother chats with her child in Ukrainian. Behind me, someone is explaining the forthcoming lunch menu in broad Bernese German, while a female voice counters in a harsh Zurich dialect.

During working hours and in our leisure time, it’s impossible not to hear that Switzerland has transformed from a land of four languages to a land of many. Once upon a time, Die Viersprachige Schweiz (“Quadrilingual Switzerland”), published in 1982, was the seminal work on multilingualism in our country. A comprehensive update has now been released in the form of Sprachenräume der Schweiz, subtitled “Languages and Space in Switzerland,” edited by the three linguists Elvira Glaser (German), Johannes Kabatek (Romance languages) and Barbara Sonnenhauser (Slavic languages). At a good 500 pages, it looks like quite the tome, but upon closer inspection, reveals itself to be an entertaining book to dip into. It collates articles on Switzerland’s four national languages and on the most commonly spoken migrant languages. These include English, Spanish, Portuguese, Albanian, and the language of the successor states of Yugoslavia, Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS).

Beyond identifying languages, the authors highlight a number of peculiarities. For example, why you will hear the Southern Bavarian and Tyrolean dialect in Samnaun, how the now rarely-spoken Yiddish came to Zurich-Wollishofen, or what languages were spoken by Swiss  Baptists in North America. There is also an article on the differences between the three different sign languages in use in Switzerland. As many as 159 variants have been documented worldwide.

As a country, Switzerland loves languages. The majority of the population speaks at least two, according to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO 2021). What’s more, many people regularly speak languages other than the country’s national four. English heads the list, followed by Spanish, Portuguese, Albanian and BCMS. The statistics might well give an oversimplified picture, however. As Romance languages expert Johannes Kabatek remarks: “It is not the country that speaks, but the people.”

Language is a multifaceted phenomenon. Sometimes people will speak a different language at home than they do outside of it. They might switch dialect as soon as they leave the house. Take the family example: if the parents come from the Bern area, then the Bernese dialect will be the family language, even if they live in Zurich. Or perhaps the parents originate from Kosovo, in which case their adult children might speak Albanian at home, but a perfect Zurich German dialect at work. A person’s language of origin, passed down through the generations, is not necessarily their main language, the one they speak day to day. 

But what form does this multilingualism take in real life? “Languages are not static, they are dynamic. They are phenomena that adapt constantly to communication needs,” the new book explains. They are just as malleable and flexible in everyday use. There are instances in which language variants become wonderfully mixed. I recently spent an evening in a café with friends. While the waiter welcomed us and took our order in English, we all stuck with our native languages: One spoke High German, one in Basel dialect, another used their Zurich dialect sprinkled with some Italian expressions. Of course, everyone got the drinks they ordered.

Admittedly, as a quadrilingual nation, Switzerland has had a bit of practice when it comes to languages. “Unlike surrounding countries, in German-speaking Switzerland at least people are used to asymmetrical communication,” Johannes Kabatek explains from the linguist’s perspective. Each person speaks in their own language. “People from Zurich and Bern think nothing of speaking their own dialects when they talk to each other.” Kabatek highlights the difference from Germany, where individual dialects are spoken only in private or very local contexts, while the formal High German is used in public. Given the presence of new languages, Switzerland could still serve as a model for the perfect blend of plurality and independence, the authors write in their introduction.

Yet even in Switzerland we can be lost for words when the person behind the counter asks in charming, Spanish-accented English how we would like our coffee. We’re left puzzling what language we should answer in. English? German? “We communicate at two levels,” says Kabatek. At one level we have a clear aim: we just want our coffee. At the other, we are simultaneously dealing with language issues when we’re thinking about the appropriate language to use in that situation.

There are repeated flashes of linguistic diversity if you hike along the linguistic ditch between German and French speakers in Switzerland, known as the Röstigraben because of the relative prevalence of the popular potato dish on either side. You’ll find that walkers’ greetings wander from “bonjour,” to “grüessech” and “guetetag” and back again. This approach to linguistic difference ranges from good-natured teasing to grudging rivalry, and is one of the subjects explored by a special section on linguistic relations and rules in multilingual Switzerland.

“Language is always an expression of a whole range of histories, cultures and identities,” Kabatek continues. The geographical distribution of Switzerland’s four national languages is also the product of history, he says. The Walser dialect, a variety of Highest Alemannic, illustrates this. Migration in the late Middle Ages meant that it reached as far as the canton of Grisons and Bosco Gurin in the canton of Ticino.

Reading between the lines of more recent migrant languages also reveals historical inflection points and developments, as we discover in the articles on Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and BCMS. Following the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, there was a major wave of migration away from its successor states of Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia. Their languages now number among the most heavily represented migrant languages in Switzerland.

In the 1950s, it was Italian migrant workers who came to this country for economic reasons. They were followed in the 1960s by those from Spain, and in the 1970s many Portuguese found employment in Switzerland following the end of the Salazar dictatorship. Spanish workers went into the factories of Zurich, Geneva and Basel, while Portuguese migrants joined the hospitality sector in western Switzerland and at tourist destinations in the mountains. That is why a significant proportion of residents in the Zermatt area today has Portuguese roots.

Some of the non-national languages spoken in Switzerland are more highly regarded than others. Eastern European migrant languages seem rather less popular, for example. We read in the article on Albanian that the language is little known and even less spoken in public. That’s despite a number of prominent individuals who have Albanian as their native language, such as Islam Alijaj, the National Councillor from Zurich. It is worth remembering that, after English and Portuguese, Albanian is the third most frequently spoken non-national language at home (FSO 2024).

Not everyone is thrilled by this new linguistic diversity. Far from it. Some are anxious about the status of their own language, irritated by the polyglot barista when all they want is to order a standard coffee. Might we see the day that Swiss German, in its multiple dialects, is drowned out by the global languages of English or Spanish? Kabatek takes a balanced view. It is already quite normal to hear English as a professional or even teaching language, while Spanish is gaining ground. At the same time, migrants are learning local Swiss German, and the use of these dialects is extremely stable. Ultimately, it’s almost impossible to predict how things will go, because the realities are far too individual, as the book shows.

In their choice of the articles making up Sprachenräume der Schweiz, the editors successfully paint a thorough and nuanced picture of lively linguistic diversity in Switzerland. In our inner world, we can see the country’s linguistic map, once divided neatly into four,  gradually giving way to a richly colored patchwork carpet, full of surprising detail.

Johannes Kabatek mentions the Swiss national football team. On the picture, these young men stare confidently into the camera. Some of them have immigrant parents or grandparents from countries such as Spain, Portugal, Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Turkey, Cameroon and Senegal. Once they start chatting and displaying all their linguistic talents, they perfectly reflect a Switzerland in love with language.