Swiss Status Quo

The below story about Switzerland is, like so many articles of this kind, replete with assurances by all concerned that English will not likely tarnish the importance of Switzerland's national tongues, the author even suggesting that measures might at some point be taken to maintain the status quo if it was ever put in jeopardy (one is left wondering if she has ever given the concepts of language or personal freedom any thought). Yet whatever the denials and caveats, the story that we reproduce underneath does describe a situation in which Switzerland's national languages are retreating from vital cultural fields, especially in Academia. In linguistic terms, this means that languages other than English are becoming incomplete languages, i.e. languages that are not suitable for certain areas of life because they lack the necessary vocabulary. The more research is conducted in English only, the more new terms are coined solely in English and the more difficult it gets to describe realities that belong to those new fields of knowledge in languages other than English, both because all the new vocabulary hasn't yet been translated in other languages and because the experts and professionals themselves increasingly lack practice of their very own mother tongue in this or that particular technical subject.
Neither can it be discounted that English is affecting other languages and making them more like itself when ever more people use it in addition to their respective mother tongues in their everyday lives and English idioms and words worm their way into their native tongues. This represents a loss of language diversity which is less obvious than outright language extinction but is also significant in the long run.

The Sarine river running through the medieval Swiss town of Fribourg acts as a language border between its inhabitants, with German speakers living on the east bank and French on the west. Fribourg (Freiburg in German) is one of several towns that straddle Switzerland’s language divide. It is officially bilingual and as such its river also goes by its German name, the Saane.

Switzerland’s multilingual heritage sets it apart in Europe, with the four national languages – German, French, Italian and the little-spoken ­Romansch – contributing to about 10% of the country’s gross domestic product, according to a 2008 study.
English has entered the mix over the last two decades. Its influence has been spread by the numerous international firms headquartered in tax-friendly Swiss municipalities, its increasing use in academia and its general acceptance as an additional language in wider communication.

“Over the last 20 years English has made quite a lot of inroads in Switzerland,” said Daniel Stotz, an English-teacher trainer in Zurich and researcher into the role of language and Swiss identity.

“In most cases now English is used in wider communication among non-native speakers. Quite a lot of Swiss adults have experienced the fact that English has become a company language. Sometimes it was forced upon them as well. I think some of this interest and perhaps pressure has trickled down to family life.

“It is connected a lot to young people’s life chances. There is a perception that English is important, that it allows you to get better jobs. It has a highly symbolic value as well,” Stotz said.

In a ruling last year, the government decided that the most important Swiss laws should be translated into English in response to growing demand for translation of legislation.

Strong demand for English lessons in schools has also undermined the priority given to national languages in the curriculum. Switzerland’s 26 cantons have agreed to introduce measures over the next few years whereby English will be taught in all primary schools alongside a second national language. Eight and nine-year-olds are already learning it as their first foreign language – ahead of another national language – in 10 cantons.

Swiss multilingualism has been the subject of a four-year research programme by the National Science Foundation that aims to understand the role of language and help the government to map out “a new equilibrium”, according to Walter Haas, president of the steering committee.

The programme is currently compiling a final report from 26 research projects, which is due for review by government at the end of 2009. The findings show English has a place in Swiss culture, although not necessarily a dominant one.
In one Bern University study, Swiss people viewed English as the most useful foreign language, although most opted to use one of the other national languages when first trying to communicate with someone from a different part of the country.
Another study by the University of Teacher Education found that early English teaching later helped German-speaking pupils to learn French, while a third project by lawyers proposed making English a semi-official language in order to attract more foreign professionals to the country.

Another contributor, University of Geneva economics professor François Grin, calculated that Switzerland’s multilingual heritage gave it a competitive advantage worth $42bn – a tenth of GDP.

“If society is going to invest money anywhere, investing in foreign languages, which in Switzerland means essentially one other national language and English, the rate of return is simply fantastic. By and large, we find that multilingualism is a very well paying asset,” Grin said.

Past research by Grin also pinpointed that English was more valued in German-speaking parts of Switzerland. As German is the majority language spoken by 63% of the population, it was more advantageous for Swiss ­Germans to know English than French or Italian.

It was different in French-speaking regions. The 1997 study established that while English added 18% to salaries in German-speaking regions, it equated to a 10% pay difference in French areas, compared to 14% increases with German or Italian as a second language. Between 1990 and 2000 the use of English increased in the workplace by about 28% and overall use rose in line with other languages, according to census reports.

According to Grin, this shows that multilingualism is expanding as a whole. “English is a very frequently used language but it is not replacing national languages. It plays a supplementary and complementary role,” he said.

One area where English is gaining prominence is within academia. Switzerland backs the 1999 Bologna Declaration, which aims to create a European space for higher education, and the Rectors’ Conference of Swiss Universities has in the past acknowledged English as the “language of academia”. It supports offering more courses in English as the best way of attracting foreign students.

Grin says use of English in academia has grown significantly, but as an advocate for linguistic diversity, he warns that the dominance of any one language in intellectual circles risks “eroding creativity”.

“I believe we are better off with ­diversity than without, and that it is important to develop language ­policies that are conducive to the maintenance of diversity. This means if a hegemonic language becomes too overbearing, you have to keep this in check.

“Switzerland defines itself not despite its multilingualism, but as a product of its multilingualism. It’s a very deeply rooted cultural value. Without multilingualism, [there is] no Switzerland,” he said.

It is a view shared by the cross-cantonal educational authority, the Swiss ­Conference of Cantonal Education Directors. “In a multilingual state, the coordination and development of language teaching is particularly important,” a spokeswoman said.

“Therefore the notion of a ‘lingua franca’ will not be limited to English, but rather to an ensemble of languages used within a real context in order to achieve a linguistic exchange.”

She said under Swiss linguistic strategy English had and would continue to have “an important status as an international language”.

But, she added, it is still only part of a bigger picture in which Switzerland shares goals set by the Council of Europe to prioritise multilingualism by ensuring a range of languages, including English, are taught.

Jessica Dacey

Hat tip: Edward J. Cunningham

Merry Christmas to you all

English – fifth language of Switzerland?

Technorati:English Switzerland's lingua franca,decline of French in Switzerland

swissinfo.com, August 22, 2002

While the majority of Swiss speak one of the four national languages, the number using foreign tongues – especially English - continues to rise.
According to a recent study, almost 64 per cent of Swiss speak German, 19.5 per cent French, 6.6 per cent Italian and less than 0.5 per cent Romansh.

But almost ten per cent of people living in Switzerland do not count one of the national languages as their main tongue.

Since 1950 the proportion of foreign language speakers has risen steadily and now languages such as Serbian, Croatian, Albanian, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish and Kurdish – not to mention English - are more frequently spoken than Romansh.

Of all the foreign languages spoken in Switzerland, English is by far the most dominant and could soon become the main foreign language taught in schools in many cantons.

So is English destined to become the principal lingua franca between the different linguistic regions of Switzerland?

A decision last year by canton Zurich to make English – rather than French - the first foreign language in the school curriculum has made this more likely.

Canton Zurich’s decision met with a strong reaction in French-speaking Switzerland.

The day after a press conference in September 2000 by Zurich’s chief of education, Ernst Buschor, the French-language newspaper “Le Temps” asked if the inclusion of English in the canton’s school curriculum spelled the “End of Switzerland?”

Many people, particularly in the French- and Italian-speaking areas of the country, feared the choice of English would undo the glue in the Swiss national identity.

While Switzerland’s linguistic minorities need to learn German for professional reasons, Swiss from all language areas find it useful to acquire a knowledge of English.

Many parents want their children to have access to the language of globalisation. In the field of scientific research, in some professions and at the higher levels of UBS, Swisscom, and Novartis, English is already used for in-house exchanges.

Decline of Romansh and Italian

But while French and German are continuing to hold their own against the onslaught of English, Romansh is rapidly losing ground.

In 2000 Switzerland’s fourth national language was spoken by just 0.46 per cent of the population – or around 34,000 people – compared with 0.6 per cent 10 years before.

This trend has led a number of Romansh representatives to ask canton Graubünden for stricter measures to protect the language.

One example would be to oblige dual-language communities – where Romansh and German are spoken – to use Romansh as the language of teaching and administration.

Fewer people are also speaking Italian. Some 7.6 per cent of people living in Switzerland used Italian as their main language in 1990. Ten years on this figure has dipped by one per cent.

The drop is in part due to the diminishing number of Italians amongst Switzerland’s foreign population. In 2000, Italians accounted for 21.4 per cent of the country’s foreign population, compared with 60 per cent in 1960.

Federalism – a double-edged sword
It remains to be seen how many cantons will ultimately embrace English as their first foreign language.

But the debate on English highlights one of the fundamental problems which has be to confronted by the Swiss federalist system: the possibility of a clash between the autonomy of the cantons with respect to education, and an appreciation of the needs of cultural minorities, and the subsequent effect on the sense of unity within Switzerland.

swissinfo/ Andrea Tognina

English is the 'Neutral' Language of Switzerland

Saturday, February 16, 2008

I follow the use of English in Switzerland more than in other parts of the world because my school is made up of a large percentage of Swiss students. Most of them come to San Diego to prepare for the Cambridge Certificate Exams.

On my first trip to Switzerland in 2001, I went with the expectation that the people there could speak at least two of their four national languages (German, French, Italian, Romansh) and that since I knew some French, I could rely on that more than on German. I didn't expect people to prefer to use English. Contrary to my image of a country where people moved freely from region to region, easily slipping into French in Geneva, Italian in Lugano, and German in Zurich, there were strong feelings against German-speakers in the French or Italian part, and against Italian- or French-speakers in the German part. So, apparently, the way this small country functions with four distinct national languages is by strong regional linguistic separation. In addition, with the recent introduction of English into the public school system, English is becoming the neutral lingua franca of Switzerland. That is, most German speakers would rather speak English than French in Geneva, and French Swiss would rather speak English than German in Zurich.

Naturally, I am not the first to make this observation, and I've often queried my students about this phenomenon. Their responses vary. For example, I have encountered Swiss school teachers who were rather irritated or indignant that they had to pass an advanced level Cambridge exam in order to secure or hang on to their teaching positions in Switzerland, even though English is not one of the country's national languages nor is there any deep historical connection to an English-speaking country. (But see an account of the English love of Swiss). On the other hand, many young Swiss German students are happy that they had an opportunity to study English early in their education. Few German-speakers enjoy studying French, especially since they 'dislike the sound of it.' Likewise, the French and Italians claim that German is a harsh-sounding language that is difficult for them to pronounce.

The following are some online references which you might want to peruse. The first is an essay by Duermueller entitled "English in Switzerland: From Foreign Language to Lingua Franca?"From a different perspective, there is an abstract by Christof Demont-Heinrich, "Language and National Identity in the Era of Globalization: The Case of English in Switzerland." For a historical perspective, Duermueller also wrote an article about 20 years ago based on a survey of roughly 5,000 Swiss military recruits, exploring their attitudes toward learning English.

Romansh, which is a nationally recognized language of Switzerland, now appears less important than English. In fact, the canton of Zurich broke tradition when it made the change from French to English as 'the first foreign language' for its school-age children. Swissinfo.com comments here on the importance of English - the Fifth language of Switzerland? Finally, here is some commentary in French and German about English in Swiss schools. 

Hat tip: Edward J. Cunningham 

Switzerland: more English, less French

Technorati:Languages in Swiss education

swissworld.org

Foreigners often assume that the fact that there are four national languages in Switzerland means that every Swiss speaks four languages, or at least three. However, the reality is very different.

The Swiss can certainly be proud of their linguistic proficiency and many understand the other languages of their fellow countrymen very well. However, proficiency in the national languages is decreasing in favour of English. Quadrilingual Switzerland is apparently becoming a two-and-a-half-language Switzerland. Many people speak their mother tongue and English and understand a second national language.

Each canton makes its own decision about which language will be taught when. In German-speaking Switzerland children have traditionally started French from the age of 9, while French speakers have started German at the same age. In Ticino and the Rumantsch-speaking areas, both French and German are learned during compulsory schooling. Ticino decided in 2002 to make English a compulsory subject, alongside French and German. To lighten the load, children will be able to drop French when they start English in the 8th year.

Zurich's education minister provoked a national debate in 2000 by announcing that his canton intended to make English the first foreign language, rather than French. Supporters of the move point out that English is more useful in the world. They add that children and parents are in favour and that since motivation is an important ingredient in language learning, pupils are likely to learn English more successfully than they do French.

Opponents see the decision as a threat to the unity of Switzerland, and fear that French and Italian speakers will be put at a disadvantage because they will still need a good standard of German to rise in their careers within Switzerland.

The French are afraid of the workload of learning languages. Who'd have thought?

Hat tip: Edward J. Cunningham

English Language in Switzerland

Technorati:English in Switzerland,l'anglais en Suisse,l'inglese nella Svizzera,Englisch in der Schweiz

switzerland.isyours.com

Traditionally, Switzerland is home to a large anglophone community. The English language is very widespread and is used as a link between Switzerland's various linguistic communities. Switzerland is extremely open culturally and economically, and thus has all the services an anglophone could possibly want. So much so that some English speakers who have lived in Switzerland for years have not felt the need to learn one of the national languages, since they are able to deal with any situation in English.

The bulk of the anglophone population is concentrated in the Lake Geneva area (31%), where the cities of Geneva and Lausanne are located. Other thriving communities also exist in large cities such as Basle (12%), Zurich or Zug (9%). The percentage of anglophones has reached as much as 13 to 15% of the population in some communities such as Founex or Bogis-Bossey, near Geneva.

The English language is very widespread in Switzerland. After their mother tongue, the Swiss speak English best, since it is used as a link and the language of communication in this multilingual country of germanophones (65%), francophones (20%), italophones (7.5%) and Romansh (0.5%). The Swiss English-language skills shown in the following table indicate that two out of three German-speaking Swiss and one out of two French-speaking Swiss speak English.

Swiss English-language skills (Grin: 1999)

The tourist industry and the presence of many international organizations and businesses make English a must in Switzerland. English dominates the worlds of business, commerce and finance. The Swiss are used to English, which conveys a young and positive image. It's the language of choice for advertisers wishing to avoid multilingual campaigns. And it's not by chance that the recently privatized Swiss telecommunications firm adopted a single English-sounding name: Swisscom. The same goes for the major Swiss airline, which is called Swissair. As a general rule, "Do you speak English?" is greeted with a smile and a well-spoken reply in this multilingual country. Proof of this is the fact that many anglophones who do not speak any of Switzerland's national languages have lived there for years without the slightest communication problems.

English is really en vogue with young people. Most of the successful films are American and the music that is popular with the youth is almost exclusively anglophone. English is also the language of the Internet, which many Swiss use as a means of communication.

You can be understood in English in almost any shop or business. At the post office, the bank or the train station, all the employees speak English. In all the major urban centres there are English-language bookstores and video rentals as well as English grocery shops. Most of the cinemas show films in the original English as well. The anglophone community in Geneva benefits from a dozen or so cultural organizations, notably the American library. Several English-language radio stations broadcast in this region, the main one being World Radio Geneva on 88.4 FM. And of course, all the English newspapers are available at any news stand.

You can find English churches in all of the linguistic regions, and anglophone schools are located throughout Switzerland. The most renowned are along the Genevan Riviera and in the Vaud Alps, giving Switzerland its excellent international reputation for private education. Young people from around the world come here to study. Princess Diana studied in Switzerland, as did many other members of the Royal Family. So it's not surprising to find the gliterati taking part in the joys of skiing each winter in the Vaud Alps and Gstaad ski resorts.

Hat tip: Edward J. Cunningham

The fading French connection

Technorati:French in Asia,Olympic Games French

Greenway wrote this in the IHT, on November 19, 2008:

As summer was ending I went up to St. Andrews in Canada; a pretty little seaport town near where New Brunswick melts into Maine.

There are signs everywhere of a British past. The streets are named Prince of Wales, King, Queen and Princess Royal, not to mention Victoria Terrace. Up the hill is the Loyalist Burying Ground, filled with New Englanders who decided to remain British during the Revolutionary War.

But this is bilingual Canada, and in places where they don't want you to leave your car the signs say: "Stationnement Interdit" as well as "No Parking."

Canadian French may make Parisians wince, but it is French, nonetheless, jealously promoted and mandated by Canada's Francophones even in English-speaking provinces. Canadian politicians when speaking abroad often begin the first couple of paragraphs in French, which will be broadcast back home, before they revert to English.

Elsewhere, the French language isn't doing so well. A recent insult came last summer when the Ladies Professional Golf Association insisted that proficiency in English be required of its players. Libba Galloway, the organization's deputy commissioner, was quoted as saying that since the fan base and the sponsors are mostly English speaking, "we think it is important for our players to effectively communicate in English."

South Korea's golfing star, Se Ri Pak, said: "We play so good all over.... When you win you should give your speech in English." But the rule could run into trouble in the United States, where discrimination on the basis of national origin is illegal.

French used to be the language of diplomacy. Lingua franca means a common language by which people can communicate. But today most diplomats use English as their lingua franca. I remember covering a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in which the Asian leaders really got to know each other on the golf course speaking English.

English-language schools dot the back streets in former French Indochina, and a meeting of French-speaking countries in Hanoi a few years back had difficulty finding enough local people to make up a French-speaking staff. Attempts by France to insist that French be spoken in Cambodian hospitals donated by France failed miserably when Cambodians demonstrated in favor of English.

The World Economic Forum, which is based in French-speaking Geneva, insists that English be the official language of its annual meeting in German-speaking Davos. But the forum provides a French-speaking dinner for those Francophones who need a little relief.

Some say that fear of English influences French foreign policy. It is said that France backed the murderous Hutu faction in Rwanda because France didn't want English-speaking rebels from Uganda to win. The Rwandan government prepared a 500-page document accusing France of assisting the genocide, and took Rwanda out of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, or OIF, the French-led association of French-speaking countries.

France denied the charges, but now the former French-speaking Belgian colony is switching its entire educational system from French to English.

The OIF is well financed and, with the help of the Foreign Ministry, tries to make sure that France remains a language of international communication.

The LPGA may stress English, but last summer saw what the Financial Times called an "eccentric quest for perpetual linguistic pre-eminence in the Olympic movement."

Eccentric is not the word any linguistically patriotic Frenchman would have used. After all, was not the modern Olympic movement founded by Baron Pierre de Courbertin? And did not the Belgian head of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, declare in Bejing last summer that although English and French were both official languages of the OIC, French took precedence in cases of dispute?

At the Games, signs were in French, English and Chinese, although the Chinese themselves preferred to use English when not speaking their own language.

Spanish, Chinese, even Portuguese, never mind English, may be spoken more than French around the world, but France's effort to keep its beautiful language alive, to turn back the rising tide of English, and combat the dreaded American cultural tsunami has a certain doomed nobility about it.

English is supplanting French as the favorite second language of the Bernese

In sacred-destinations.com:


Bern (or Berne, the official English spelling) is the capital of Switzerland. It is a smallish city with a population of about 130,000, surrounded on three sides by the meandering River Aare. Bern has long been a firmly Protestant city. The main language spoken is Swiss-German. English is supplanting French as the favorite second language of the Bernese (...).

Switzerland: "At school we learn French then after school we unlearn French"

ParistoBeijing.blogspot.com, 3rd May, 2007, about people in Basel:

I sat with three locals who bought me beers while I ate Ross (Horse) steak and chips cooked by an expert Austrian chef. They talked of their lives in Basel, the great social structure, their dependence on the Rhine for work and of their travels in their youth. They also gave my an explanation of why they speak perfect Italian and excellent English rather than French despite the proximity - "You see the french: they make noises like frog, they eat frog, they are frog... We don't like the frog. At school we learn French then after school we unlearn French."

WHY FRENCH TEACHERS HAVE THE BLUES

From Pave France, February 23, 2005, previously published on http://www.expatica.com/:

The French language is in dramatic decline around the world, including in its traditional foreign heartlands, according to international language teachers recently gathered in Paris ...for the Expolangues trade fair...
A teacher from Portugal, Teresa Santos, said in her country 70 percent of Portuguese students preferred to take English courses, compared to just 10 percent for French.
"English is magnifique!" a teacher of Ancient Greek at the Aristotle University in Thessalonika, Thalia Stephanidou, said. "Even in poorer neighbourhoods, that language - which replaced French right after the second world war - is taught, even to old people," she said.

Even in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, English has crowded French out of the classroom, despite French being one of the country's official languages.

In Russia, where speaking French was once a prized talent among the tsars, French is trailing "far behind English" in Moscow and Saint Petersburg schools, Mascha Sveshnikova, of the Russian Cultural Centre, said.

Hat tip: Damian

French is losing ground fast

In wordquests.info:

English is the dominant global language

English is becoming more popular than French in many countries
The dominance of English as the world's lingua franca continues to grow, with the number of pupils studying French dwindling every year.
The predominance of English on the internet, the relative ease of learning basic English and the perception that English is "cooler" —thanks in large part to popular music and films—means French is becoming more and more restricted to older generations and the upper classes of many countries where it used to be the second language of choice in schools.

French is losing ground fast

French remains a beautiful language much appreciated by the upper class but it is losing ground in curricula, even in areas near the French-German border. French is still holding up compared to Italian and Spanish, but that may change.
Given the difficulty of French grammar and spelling, many prefer not to learn French. A teacher from the Spanish town of Burgos said most of her colleagues agreed that French was "in free fall".
A teacher from Portugal said in her country 70% of Portuguese students preferred to take English courses, compared to just 10% for French.
Even in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, English has crowded French out of the classroom, despite French being one of the country's official languages.
In Russia, where speaking French was once a prized talent among the tsars, French is trailing "far behind English" in Moscow and Saint Petersburg schools.