Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

"It’s not unusual to hear Swiss people from different parts of the country chatting away in English. Not everyone is happy about this, but does using English as a lingua franca – a bridge over the Röstigraben, the country’s main linguistic divide – benefit national cohesion or harm it?"

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/english...blem-/46494332

Rather than dividing the country I could see it bringing it together more, given that most German speakers never visit the French part of Switzerland and vice versa. Maybe it could become a real bridge over the Röstigraben for all Swiss.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

Ireland has spent a 100 years trying to get people to go back to speak Irish and the motivators included additional points for subjects taken Irish on college entry, scholarship for college attendance, grants for home extensions to Irish speaking households. And the result - Polish is the second most widely spoken language in the country!

People learn and use languages they find useful to them and for Swiss kids that means the local language plus English. Every time my kids went to a national gathering such as scouts etc, they always ended up speaking English. The kids just wanted to communicate and it was easier to do it in English.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

Indeed Jim2007. Husband works for an international company with employees from around 55 different countries so English is often the only way they can communicate with each other. Official office languages are French and English.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

My Swiss German friends openly admit that they would rather speak with me in English than high German or French. Therefore my German is a mix of Swiss German gibberish and high German. Very confusing ...

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

Swiss people don’t like speaking High German and neither do I for that matter.

- On one team, I was regularly invited to business department meetings in preference to my boss, who was German and when I suggested it might be an idea to invite her I was told the dept. head did not want to speak High German.

- On another occasion, the Swiss guys would ring me up and ask me to pass messages on to by to German colleagues.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

This is a long running topic obviously. As a naturalized Suisse but native English speaker, I do not like the trend tbh despite recognizing the ease of resorting to english

Long term, I do not agree it helps national cohesion simply because English is not part of the culture

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

That is a crass generalisation. I'm Swiss and High German is a natural language for me to speak, considering the omni-presence of Germans here.

I do not speak High German to people when I know their original language. That is very difficult for me even if they ask me to. I know they want to learn but I'm no language teacher, I just want to communicate :D.
But I automatically switch to it, when I realize the other person is from somewhere I don't speak the language of and struggles with my Swiss German. Just happened again 30 minutes ago with someone I suspect was Eastern European (definitely no chance that I would speak their language).

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

At least in my little bubble of science/engineering I see a lot of German as mother language speaking French badly, and very few French speaking as mother language speaking German badly.

When we first arrived in Aargau we knew nothing of German but it was nice to find at least 1 person speaking French in the pharmacy. In other times we saw people speaking English in the pharmacy being treated as 2nd class citizens. Then, we were the next auslanders in line, saying Grüezi and then asking help in French. The dramatic change in attitude from the people at the pharmacy revealed that they see French as a Swiss language. Even if they not excel at it.

Same when getting the car, I just said Grüezi, sprechen Sie Französisch oder Englisch? and we made the whole process in French in Aarau.

Anyone has the experience of speaking Swiss German on the French speaking cantons?

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

I'm sitting here in a local Swiss company that has factories in the French part of Switzerland. English has become the lingua franca of communication, simply because German speakers are much better at English than French. In addition, English is being taught in schools from a young age, which logically creates English as a common ground in communication.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

All my Swiss German friends speak excellent French. Almost none of my Swiss French friends speak Swiss German and some Hoch Deutsch. While English is logical to communicate in, I still hope that people continue communicating together in local languages and making efforts, it makes understanding local life, local issues and politics much easier. And mobility and integration, too, if one moves from one region to other.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

They don’t teach Swiss German in schools here so unless they have Swiss German family members or make the effort to learn it most Swiss french don’t actually learn Swiss German.
Most if them speak some high German but that’s not actually very useful to them if a lot of Swiss German speakers refuse to use it.

I get that communicating in English is practical but I would find it a huge shame if it became the dominant language here.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

Linguists have been trying to quantify the damage that the use of English brings to vocabulary and terminology of local languages, it is invasive, pushes local terms out. Philo Dept in Vienna campaigns a lot to save Europe's local languages.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

I don't think so. As consultant I usually work for an work with Swiss that speak 2 if not the 3 main national languages. These men and women rule the place. I don't see how they let English take away their hard earned positions of being bridges across cantons.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

The only Swiss Germans I've known who spoke French also spoke very good English.

Many of them don't learn German at all, since it was dropped as a mandatory subject across Romandie, staring with Geneva around 20 years ago. They see it as largely irrelevant in normal life, and prefer to focus on what they perceive as the much more important English.

So I think English as a intra-CH lingua franca is not that unlikely in the future, but it will probably take a few more generations to get there.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

Planck's principle has got you covered there:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Of course, this aphorism was pushed to breaking point by postmodernists like Thomas Kuhn to bring us to the post-truth society we're in now, but it's generally useful at least in social terms.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

Where on earth did you get that idea from?
German is still very much mandatory in Romandie and is the second language after French at school. English (or Italian) are learned after German.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

Of course. But these people is teaching their children the same. I'd expect the next generation to profit from the same knowledge. One professor I met here in Aargau lived a few years in Fribourg so his elementary school age kids learned French. The locals know a thing or two about elitism. Don't think they'll give up that easy.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

Indeed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-ap...3GKQ.jpg&w=916

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

The numbers don't add. There are currently 400+ million Spanish speakers in Latin America. So, is it expected that some countries will leave the emerging- economy status by 2050? Bravo!

Then, another 50 million or so Spanish speakers en los Estados Unidos de América.....fastest growing population of Spanish speakers :D

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

I don't mind you hacking the chart, just scribble yourself in - probably under Hindi. By that time my language will become UNESCO dino.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

It is UN data.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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!!

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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 :)

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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

Tom

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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

Tom

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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 :D

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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.

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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) :mad:

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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

Tom

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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 :rofl:

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

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

Re: Interesting SwissInfo article re English language usage here
 

Sorry for the mansplaining :)