Switzerland

Abstract

Switzerland is a multilingual federal state constituted of 26 cantons (political and territorial division units) with four national languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh. The first three are official languages of the Confederation; Romansh is a semi-official language (art. 4 & art. 70 of the Federal Constitution5). Swiss language policy and planning follow the principles of territoriality and personality: the language(s) of the cantons are language(s) of communication in official contexts (e.g., education, local administration), whereas in interaction with the Federal administration, all national languages can be used. Sociolinguistics in Switzerland is thus strongly anchored in a multilingual perspective, which we will keep in mind in the four sections dedicated to each national language. Our contribution draws on various sociolinguistic approaches and reviews important work published in the last 10–15 years dealing with topics such as language policy, language attitudes and ideologies, language contact and variation, and sociolinguistic debates, without claiming to be comprehensive.