Interesting facts about Switzerland

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Bix

Switzerland is a very small country. Despite this fact, we have 4 national languages: German, French, Italian and Rhaeto-Romanic.

And German is not just German but a dialect called Swiss-German. German people or Austrians have difficulties to understand us if they are new in our country.

And Swiss-German is not only Swiss-German. The dialect is quite different in the different regions. When I'm saying region, it's even possible that the population of a village speak another dialect than the neighbouring village. The dialect of Davos in the canton of Grisons where the World Economic Forum is taking place in these days is different to the one of Klosters, where Prince Charles is usually going on ski vacation. Same canton, just a few kilometers and another language.

There are some Swiss-German dialects very hard to follow even for native Swiss-German speakers. During my military service (Swiss Army is also a very interesting subject by the way), I once met a Swiss-German guy from Fribourg, which is predominantly a French speaking canton. The Swiss-German population there is quite small. I couldn't understand his Swiss-German and therefore, I asked him to speak French (because everybody in Fribourg speaks French). Can you believe that? 2 Swiss-Germans speaking French because of the dialect of one of them! The Swiss-German of Valais is also quite funny. Sometimes, we have difficulties to understand them.

In the French and Italian part of Switzerland people speak also dialects but their diversity is not as huge as in Swiss-German.

Rhaeto-Romanic... Well, these people are our Navajo Indians and we do everything to preserve their language and culture. Only about 39,000 people in the Canton of Grisons speak Rhaeto-Romanic as a main language.

39,000!

Not only that!

There are 5 different Rhaeto-Romanic languages:

- Sursilvan
- Sutsilvan
- Surmiran
- Puter
- Vallader

To see how different they are click the link below:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A4toromanisch#Rumantsch_Grischun

Switzerland feared that Rhaeto-Romanic could disappear because of this diversity and the fact that only 39,000 people speak it. Therefore, an artificial Rhaeto-Romanic was created in 1982 and since 2001, it's the official language in the regions where Rhaeto-Romanic is spoken.

barca71barca

I went to Basel in Switzerland i'll tell ya..

the north and central switzerland they speak swiss-german, in the south they speak italian, and the west they speak french.. its multicultural.

the trams (which is kinda like a bus) are ALWAYS on time, i was amazed..

Switzerland is known to be one of the SAFEST and RICHEST countries in the world.

However.. i came across one time when i was not safe.. i was riding a tram at night and a drunk/weird guy kept staring and winking at me.. it was scary.

The swiss are good at making chocolate, and many many different types of cheeses.

Jean-Paul J

Here are some facts:
*Switzerland has not been in a state of war with any nation since 1815

*There is a new President of Switzerland every year (and in any case, being Swiss President is a purely ceremonial role)

*The Executive Branch of the government is made up of seven people, of which one is chosen every year by parliament to be the president. Traditionally it is the Vice-President who succeeds the President every year.

*The Swiss People do not directly elect the Executive. They only elect Parliament, which is made up of the National Council (equivalent to the Commons/House of Representatives) and the Council of States (equivalent to the Lords/Senate). The Parliament then elects the seven-member executive

*There are four national languages (as explained in the constitution: "the national languages are German, French, Italian and Romansh")

*Switzerland has a literacy rate of 99.9% and a life expectancy of 80. The GDP per capita is US$ 32'000

Hope this helped,

JPJ

Bill K

its surrounded by the alps also its a neutral country.

Pigeonwing

It has never been involved in a war. It is located in the
Alps. It gets spring two-three weeks before us. Some of the best skiing is in the mountains there. Verbier a mountain in Switzerland is semi-famous, a special event for skiers is hosted there annually. Switzerland's abbreviation is Ch.

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