I agree with you there. I mean sometimes it's funny to write in dialect - as the readers of the classic "Viz" magazine will tell you. But that's all it is - funny. The sad truth is that most of the time young Swiss are writing in Swiss German, and that isn't funny at all. And as you point out - they are losing their writing skills (if they were all that good in the first place?). The rule used to be that high German would be spoken at school, but that doesn't seem to happen anymore. If the teachers don't have the skills - can they pass them on to the children?

But I do think it is a threat the national cohesion - Switzerland loves to pride itself on having four official languages, but what is the point when the French speakers try their best to learn German (cough... splutter...) and then still find themselves in situations where their co-workers speak Swiss German amongst themselves? I think it is a great shame, and with each year that goes by the Röstigraben gets deeper and deeper.

But - in the eternal words of Homer Simpson "Yeah, well - what are you gonna do?"

Do you know many Americans who can understand that movie? Let's not forget that there were subtitles in some parts because nobody except those born within a few miles of the Bow Bells would have understood a word of it..

But I should point something out here - I don't think one can draw a comparison between various dialects of English and then make the leap from there to the difference between High German and Swiss German. The point is that there is too much similarity between the English dialects - sure a non -native speaker will find it hard at first to cope with a new dialect, but it won't take them long to figure it out.

When I arrived in Frankfurt I had learnt High German and I was totally shocked at the local Hessisch dialect, but after you figure out a few of the different slang words and different sounds it's not that bad. Moving from there to Switzerland was another story. I stood open-jawed in front of the TV on my first day in Switzerland. I couldn't understand a single word of what was being said - not a single word! I tell you - it really took the wind out of my sails! It took me about 18 months before I admitted to being able to understand and follow some Swiss German conversation.

Native German speakers can get up to speed faster, but from what I've heard for some it can take months. I've been to most of the English speaking world, but I've never been somewhere where I can't understand people.

There are two exceptions - Newcastle, England. It took me about a day to figure out what people were talking about. It didn't really matter since it usually involved beer and football and hunting members of the opposite sex. That's what the women were talking about anyway, I don't know about the men.

The other place was Kerry, Ireland. I honestly thought they were speaking Gailic (spelling?) but I was assured that it was English.... But I'm sure if I'd had the patience to hang around I would have got the hang of it.

Anyway my rather long winded point here is that if Germans struggle with Swiss German when they get here then it has to be pretty hard for dirty foreigners like us to deal with it!