Languages spoken by Swiss residents

Except it’s not. The French one works, but none of the others which just take you back to a start page. One of the more annoying features about quite a few Swiss government websites - if you don’t have a particular page or article in a given language then do not list that language at the top.
Google Translate works though

Normally E is greyed out when they don’t have it in English. Which is often but you may forgive admin.ch for the latter :slightly_smiling_face:

Not sure about “normally”. My point was that this one does not, and Bowlie reposted the incorrectly linked page presumably without noticing that it wasn’t right.

Yes, I was in a hurry. Kitten wanted to be fed, again!

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you’re right, I remember now; somethimes the E has a link that leads to nothing.

Even if the English version is a semi-useful page, the attachments are often missing. In this case they appear to be available in German and French only. As it happens, these attachments are the actual point of interest, but that went straight over your head.

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Hilarious.

Why the personal dig? I made a mistake because I was distracted. And I was trying to be helpful.

Please don’t reply as I’m not going to get into a back and forth discussion.

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sorry, I didn’t mean it to make a dig at you, more at the website itself.

It wasn’t you … Some newbie.

It’s interesting that as someone from Romand you and @Bowlie have a different opinion than @curley and @linnea_uzh . I guess they as Swiss German no longer think that French and Italian are useful and they prefer English for practical reasons. At least thats the opinion I made here in Zhr.
Ideally maybe both languages can be taught at the same time.
Still, do you think in Valais pupils will chose English if given the choice as first foreign language?

It’s complicated. I’m sure the youngsters would prefer French/English as their languages. But their parents, and grandparents, who have a vote on these things would insist on Swiss Unity …

The youngsters already speak a form of English, learned from their phones.

I, curley, also find it interesting to read about the opinion I allegedly have. :thinking:

I speak both French and Italian albeit I forgot the Italian a bit due to lack of usage but I’m sure it would return when used regularly.
How can French and Italian no longer be useful?!

Guess they could drop teaching English at school, kids get that from tik-tok and X at the Kindergarten-age now, no?

Isn’t English the common equation between those three? Seriously, when I was learning French I thought, oh, indeed there’s so many common words with English, just mispronounced. However when I learnt a bit of German I actually hear much more similarity to English, both in grammar and vocabulary.

The English language has its roots in the West Germanic languages brought to Britain by Anglo-Saxon migrants from the mid-5th to 7th centuries AD. These migrants originated from regions that are now northwest Germany, southern Denmark, and the Netherlands. The language evolved through several stages: Old English, influenced by Latin, Old Norse, and Anglo-Norman French; Middle English, shaped by the Norman Conquest; and Modern English, further developed by the Renaissance and the British Empire’s expansion. English also incorporates many loanwords from Latin, French, Spanish, and other languages.

So roots in German, French and Italian.

As long we you’re on the topic of English language origin, a great read/TV series is The Story of English (1980s) with Robert McNeil narrating. Wiki says it’s been updated since then. It is fascinating!
The Story of English - Wikipedia.

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Depends on the generation. For instance people my age (in their forties) speak decent French (and some Italian too) but the younger generations - e.g. under twenty - prefer English and neglect their French, even though they HAVE to study French in school. I have a friend who teaches French and she said they can’t be bothered too much (OK, she isn’t teaching at top schools but she could form an educated opinion - her students are anything between 16 and 25).
But then again…kids don’t bother too much with other subjects either …:wink:

I recall reading the book some years ago, had no idea it was originally paired with a TV series. But it stands on its own, thoroughly enjoyable and informative. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in language and languages in general.

Correction: I thought it was odd that this seemed to be a North American production, whereas the book I read was most certainly by a Brit.

In fact it’s a different book altogether, the Stories of English by David Crystal that I read and enjoyed so much.

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Certainly consistent with what I’ve found with Swiss German guests - some older ones prefer to speak French with me rather than English, many of the younger ones profess not to speak French at all.

Slightly biased, perhaps, as obviously (my native) English is better for me so I’d veer in that direction given the choice.

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I’ve taken a bus past 7 am this week and surprisingly two stops away it was overly crowded with school kids going down towards Pfaffikon. Obviously I had a close contact with the youths conversation, about 30+% of it was in English, not just using English words but the kids were mixing sentences in English midway speaking local German.

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