Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
While the French-speaking Swiss prefer to call themselves Romands and their part of the country la Romandie, the German-speaking Swiss used to refer to (and, colloquially, still do) the French-speaking Swiss as "Welsche", and to their area as Welschland, which has the same etymology as the English Welsh (see Walha).
The four national languages of Switzerland are German, French, Italian, and Romansh. [3] German, French, and Italian maintain equal status as official languages at the national level within the federal administration of the Swiss Confederation, while Romansh is used in dealings with people who speak it. [4]
Swiss Standard German [1] [2] [3] (SSG; German: Schweizer Standarddeutsch), [4] or Swiss High German [5] [6] [7] [note 1] (German: Schweizer Hochdeutsch [8] or Schweizerhochdeutsch [9]; Romansh: Svizzers Alt Tudestg), referred to by the Swiss as Schriftdeutsch, or German: Hochdeutsch, is the written form of one of four national languages in Switzerland, besides French, Italian, and Romansh. [10]
Linguistically, Alemannic is divided into Low, High and Highest Alemannic, varieties all of which are spoken both inside and outside Switzerland. The only exception within German-speaking Switzerland is the municipality of Samnaun, where a Bavarian dialect is spoken. The reason Swiss German dialects constitute a special group is their almost ...
Standard High German (SHG), [3] less precisely Standard German or High German [a] (German: Standardhochdeutsch, Standarddeutsch, Hochdeutsch or, in Switzerland, Schriftdeutsch), is the umbrella term for the standardized varieties of the German language, which are used in formal contexts and for communication between different dialect areas.
Switzerland lies at the crossroads of several major European cultures. Three of the continent's major languages, German, French and Italian, are national languages of Switzerland, along with Romansh, spoken by a small minority. Therefore, Swiss culture is characterized by diversity, which is reflected in a wide range of traditional customs.
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
In 2017, permanent residents who spoke German (mostly Swiss German dialects) as their main language or co-main language numbered about 63% (5.2 million), followed by 22.9% (1.9 million) for French (mostly Swiss French, but including some Franco-Provençal dialects), 8.2% (678,000) for Italian (mostly Swiss Italian, but including Insubric ...