***Warning newbie first posting***

If you talk about the Swiss or Switzerland are you talking about life in the whole of Switzerland or life just in one cultural group in Switzerland?

Personally I find the cultural groups quite diverse, off the top of my head the can only think of a few things that the Swiss share between the cultural groups, The Post, The Rail, The Political System, oh and that strange brown liquid you find on the table in restaurants, Aromat/Maggi (side post which one is better?). So what are the other (cultural) similarities?

One last thing, according to Wikipedia, below are the names for each area in the various languages, notice the english name for the Deutschschweiz looks strange, anybody got a better suggestion?


German speaking part of Switzerland, Romandy, Italian Switzerland
Deutschschweiz, Romandie / Welschland / Welschschweiz, Italienische Schweiz
Suisse alémanique, La Suisse romande, Suisse italienne
Svizzera Interna, La Romandia / Svizzera romanda , Svizzera Italiana

As a "Suisse Romand" myself, I must say that we have very much our own cultural identity which we (with pride) look at as being very different from Swiss-German culture...

Lostvalley, you might confirm that you have a small resentment of the Swiss German part and in particular people from Zurich?

Haha, on the contrary - after a decade in Zürich I've managed to stifle my 'Suisse-Romand' pride and learn to peacefully co-exist with my Swiss-German countrymen. A little progress is made every day.

you are shameful. A traitor!

Lostvalley: So it doesn't bother you anymore when people refer to the Swiss, when they're really only talking about the Swiss-Germans?

Rock Lobster: Got anything useful to say about the thread topic?

Your point is?

I hate everyone equally but habitually would refer to the Swiss thinking of the Swiss Germans. I think that's an answer to the question you're asking?

Thanks for chasing me up.

No point, just questions. What's your's?

(sorry for not quoting before, I guess you can tell I'm a newbie)

I'm a little confused by the question, but I suppose you could rephrase the question so... what are the cases when it makes sense to talk about the Swiss as a homogeneous cultural group? I think there are some similarities, I'm interested to find out what they are. And besides that do you prefer Maggi Würze or Aromat ?

You can start here .... Food in Switzerland am sure you will find an answer to every culinary question ....

Let's put it this way, when I went to watch Switzerland-France in Stuttgart I was with 30000 other Swiss, mostly Swiss-Germans and I would have happily snogged the nearest one if we had scored and there would have been many manly hugs and tears. However the minute the game was over, I would have more inclined to have a chat with a French fan (beyond any piss-take reasons). The night before, we chatted with French fans, we did not talk to the Swiss-Germans.

Fair enough, so a sense national identity, but there must be something else, I dunno, there are lots of Private Banks in Zürich, Geneva and Lugano, maybe there's a common commercial culture. Neutrality maybe?

(btw I'd love to visit manchester again, too bad they destroyed the corn-exchange - and I'm not talking about the terrorists)

Swiss culture was mainly created during WW2 to unite the country, it's a rather odd concept that I don't really believe in. Switzerland is more of an patchwork of small republics that got together for security reasons rather than any shared cultural bond.

Aflecks Palace is under thread as well from promoters, you better visit before they pulled down everything that made the city distinctive and it's turned into some consumerist paradise full of pretend continental bars....

Holy Krapp, the next thing you know it'll be full of ponces, just like in lugano and zürich. Good memories (is bar-ten still happening i wonder)... gotta get back :-) btw. cheers for your twopence.

Switzerland may be a patchwork of cantons but surely 700 years of [almost peaceful] coexistince must have created a cultural bond?

It might even explain nationalism's late arrival in WW2.

You might want to consider that very few of the cantons were members of the federation for the whole of the 700 years. Maybe that's why they "coexisted" so peacefully - with the exception of the Sonderbund.

The issue is that there are three distinct cultures based around the regions plus there are some micro-cultures in certain places. The Alps and the Röstigraben have much to answer for

It is chocker full with ponces already, you know you're in trouble when you see blokes with a scarf and flip-flops sporting a mullet in town...

Indeed, hence the "almost peaceful" remark. This is a controversial topic for sure. For those who are interested Wikipedia has a nice article with a brief look at history and a colorful map: Old_Swiss_Confederacy