Switzerland Languages

Switzerland Wiki Topics

Beginning Research
Research Strategies Record Finder Finding Town of Origin Online Learning
Record Types
Cemeteries Census Church Records Civil Registration Court Records Directories Emigration & Immigration Compiled Genealogies Heraldry Jewish Records Land and Property	Military Records Naturalization & Citizenship Notarial Records Obituaries Occupations Online Records Periodicals Probate Records Religious Records Schools and Education Records Taxation
Switzerland Background
Biography Church History Cultural Groups French Word List Gazetteers German Word List Handwriting Historical Geography	History Italian Word List Languages Maps Naming Customs Social Life and Customs Websites For Further Reading
Local Research Resources
Archives & Libraries Societies FamilySearch Centers
Moderator
The FamilySearch moderator for Switzerland is Daniel Jones.

Description

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]

Language Aids

Dictionaries

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

Online Dictionaries

↑ 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.
↑ Wikipedia contributors, "Switzerland," in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland#Languages, accessed 8 Apr 2021.
↑ Wikipedia contributors, "Languages of Switzerland," in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Switzerland, accessed 8 Apr 2021.