Lol at that Hindi figure. Came up with by someone who has zero appreciation of Indias linguistic situation.

It is UN data.

Been here 35 years, the lingua franca in every company/situation I have been in has ALWAYS been French.

But perhaps I only know educated people.

Tom

In my office, almost exclusively staffed my PhDs it's definitely English, to a lesser extent German.

I work in the French-speaking part and am also surrounded by PhDs, the language of communication is definitely English. Over the years I have been required to do trainings/certifications in Bern organized by an office of the Federal Government and the language for that has always been exclusively English as well.

In my Swiss German youth it was kind of traditional after mandatory school to go to the 'Welschland' (Romandie) to perfect the French learnt at school, either as an Au-pair or like in my case nurses assistant in hospitals or retirement homes.
This 'custom' is on the decline for various reasons. I think this is sad, it was it a rite of passage.


I only speak High German with the German mates of the Pirate or when we're in Austria. As a Swiss, I hate that language with a passion!!

It’s still woefully off. Hindi is used by the central government and maybe half of India’s population. Then you’ll have Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Urdu and I think at least another 10-15 official languages. Oh, and English of course as a second language

Of course. Bunch of other sources band Urdu & Hindi together in their stats, at least they spell it out separately but that doesn't make it much better.

I assume the stats include Uyghur in Chinese numbers, too.

All the Austrians that I know understand Swiss German just fine!

Tom

But are they Swiss companies, or multinationals? (I have never worked in a multinational)

Tom

I want to dream there's a life outside the job. That's why I left the university after PhD. Even if the life is in Swiss German

But you don't get to define what the culture is, it's a living think. Are you going to tell us the an English man who does not know how to do Morris dancing or an Irish woman who does not speak Irish are not part of their cultures? The Swiss culture is a blend of several cultures and for young people speaking English is part of what defines them.

I know very few young (or old) Swiss who speak more than minimal English, for most it's about at the level of my Rumantsch.

Anyway, it seems to be a German and French thing:

"OLSI said the reduced presence of English at work and the relative importance of the national languages in the Italian-speaking area was “undoubtedly” due to the school system – especially in Ticino, where the other national languages have priority over English in compulsory schooling (first French, then German).

It explained that if you work in a minority language region – and if your work is at a national or interregional level – then the other national languages can’t be ignored.

“For this reason it can be said that in Ticino there is generally little need to use English as a lingua franca and skills in the national languages can be assumed.”

So English is not seen as a disruptive invader? “Even if in Ticino we note a certain importance of English in the professional world, we certainly can’t speak of a problem with English, for example in the sense of a real danger that English might supplant Italian.”"

Tom

You are both right and not so right, wouldn't go as far as to say wrong.

It is a fact, that we were (and most still are) very proud of the 4 national languages we have here and this was cultivated and promoted for a long time.
It was mandatory a long time to learn at least one other national language at school.

Quite commonly young lasses, occasionally boys too, went to another part of Switzerland to learn the language better. English was kind of reserved for the tourists.

With globalisation and influx of new culture, English suddenly rocketed among the youngsters and for the past 25-30 years established itself firmly as part of life.

Nowadays, other Swiss languages are not mandatory at schools anymore or English is favoured over them, e.g. English is taught earlier and longer than say French/Italian in schools in the Swissgerman speaking regions.

As much as I know that we have to go with the flow and times, I regret this development, because I feel it is a loss of our multilingual culture.

A particular bugbear of mine are unnecessary anglicisms in a German/French text ( I don't speak Italian so can't judge that).

Putting English words where there would be perfect original ones, or worse...germanising or frenchifying proper English words to make them fit ( and do anything but)

So, that's why I get funny looks when I say keine souci!

My wife HATES "OK", despite every Italian speaker that I know using it, including her kids!

Tom

People say it as [o:k] here. Took me a while to get used to it, too.

That's pas des soucis, literally means no worries. But if you insert a kein (whatever the right form is) instead of pas des, people gets uneasy and I'm promptly corrected

I know. It sounds like "no saucisse" to me. But that's because I come from a Wurst region.

Sorry for the mansplaining