Languages in Switzerland

Switzerland has four national languages, and which one you meet depends entirely on where you are standing.

Swiss German is a separate matter

The single most useful thing to know: in the German-speaking two thirds of the country, what people speak is not standard German.

Schweizerdeutsch is a family of Alemannic dialects, and it differs enough from standard German that Germans frequently cannot follow it — Swiss speakers on German television are sometimes subtitled. The dialects also differ from city to city; Basel does not sound like Zurich.

Writing is standard German. Schooling is in standard German. But adults speak dialect in almost every everyday situation and many are visibly uncomfortable speaking standard German, which they treat as a foreign language they learned properly rather than a register of their own.

If you speak German, you will be understood and people will answer you in standard German — with, usually, some relief on both sides. If you are German, expect to be teased.

You will also hear other languages threaded through: in Zurich the ordinary word for thank you is often the French merci.

The röstigraben

The German–French border has a name: the Röstigraben, the “rösti ditch”, after the potato dish eaten enthusiastically on one side and not the other. It runs roughly north to south through the middle of the country, and it marks a real difference in politics and temperament as well as language — the French-speaking cantons vote differently, and reliably so.

A few places sit directly on the line and are officially bilingual, with both names always written together: Biel/Bienne, Murten/Morat, and Fribourg/Freiburg, the largest of them, where the river divides the two.

Romansh

Spoken by a few tens of thousands of people in Graubünden, and a national language since 1938 — a decision taken partly as a statement against fascist Italy’s claims on the region.

It descends directly from the Latin of the Roman province and exists in five written dialects plus a unified standard. Road signs, local newspapers and schools use it in the Engadin valleys, and it is the reason for the improbable place names you meet on the Bernina line.

Will English get you through?

Yes, in practice. In cities, hotels, stations, restaurants and anywhere touristed, English is spoken well and often preferred as the neutral option between two Swiss who share no language.

Away from those — a village shop in Appenzell, a farm bus in Valais — it thins out, and some effort in the local language is appreciated well out of proportion to how good it is.

What to say

Grüezi is the one to learn. It is the standard greeting across German-speaking Switzerland, it is expected on entering a shop or a small restaurant, and saying it marks you as someone who has paid attention.