Switzerland Languages

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Description[edit | edit source]

Switzerland has four official languages: (Many Swiss speak more than one language)

  • German - 65% of the population (spoken in fifteen cantons)
  • French - 18% (spoken officially in six cantons: Fribourg, Vaud, Jura, Valais, Neuchâtel, and Geneva)
  • Italian - 10% (spoken in Ticino and parts of Graubünden)
  • Romansh - 1% (an old Latin dialect spoken mainly in the mountains of Graubünden)
  • Others - 6%

Records are written in the major languages and Latin which was used extensively in early records.[1] [2] [3]

Word List(s)[edit | edit source]

Alphabet and Pronunciation[edit | edit source]

Language Aids and Dictionaries[edit | edit source]

Language Aids

Dictionaries

  • Beattie, Susie. Collins German dictionary. Glasgow: HarperCollins Publisher, 2019. Available at: WorldCat.
  • Girard, Denis. Cassell's French-English, English-French dictionary. Wiley, New York: Macmillan, 2002. Available at: WorldCat.
  • Rèbora, Piero, Francis M Guercio, and Arthur Lawrence Hayward. Cassell's Italian dictionary : Italian-English, English-Italian. New York: Wiley, 2002. Available at: WorldCat.
  • Gross, Manfred and Daniel Telli. Romansh-English, English-Romansh : dictionary and phrasebook. New York: Hippocrene Books, 2007. Available at: WorldCat.

Online Dictionaries

Additional Resources[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. The Family History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Family History Record Profile: Switzerland,” Word document, private files of the FamilySearch Content Strategy Team, 1984-1998.
  2. Wikipedia contributors, "Switzerland," in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland#Languages, accessed 8 Apr 2021.
  3. Wikipedia contributors, "Languages of Switzerland," in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Switzerland, accessed 8 Apr 2021.