An interesting development has been brewing in Switzerland; not satisfied with being a land of 4 official languages, the Swiss are potentially about to set themselves up for more communicative confusion. In the German speaking part of the country it has always been the norm to speak dialect in social contexts but to use High German when speaking with foreigners or in the written language. However, people’s preferences are shifting and it seems that over the past 20 years a reluctance to switch to High German regardless of the social context is becoming the latest norm.
As if to prove a point, canton Zurich has set forth a vote as to whether kindergarteners should be taught in High German or in Swiss German; unsurprisingly, the latter is showing a stronger following - so much so that talk of banning the use of High German altogether has started to circulate.To appreciate the situation, one must set aside the context of Switzerland and look at the issue at hand as a general dialect vs. official language debate: then this decision appears rather farfetched and possibly not very well thought out. Swiss German is not a variation of German in the same way that a Texan’s accent is different to a New Yorker’s; a speaker of High German will find Swiss German virtually unintelligible.
Not to mention someone from canton Wallis is likely, in turn, to be unintelligible to someone from canton Zurich, making the issue even more of a headache.This discussion hasn’t been brought about as a practical solution to an existing language problem - it is a manifestation of identity pride. It seems with the influx of foreigners, namely Germans, the German speaking Swiss people are sensing a threat against their dialect. It is suggested that there is also the possibility that they harbour an inferiority complex when addressed in High German by Germans as they are forced to speak in a version of their language they do not have a strong command of.One of the main arguments for the initiative is to ensure foreign children integrate well into Swiss society.
“In Switzerland you are only accepted if you speak Swiss German,” according to Allan Guggenbühl. “If you speak high German, you are not accepted”, he says. While the importance of maintaining a nation’s linguistic traditions are understandable, one cannot help but wonder how they will deal with the potential problems this will bring about.To start with, if this becomes a nationwide phenomenon, there is the matter of varying dialects from region to region to consider, as mentioned above. If Swiss German is to replace German as one of the national languages, then surely it will need to be homogenized and standardized in order to enable people to communicate with fellow citizens residing on opposite sides of a mountain or lake.
Does this not then undermine the whole point of trying to keep local dialects strong and alive in the first place? There would also be a need for somebody to take on the mammoth task of pinning down a whole new set of grammatical rules in order to enable Swiss German to be the official written language as well. Despite the headaches this could cause, it’s interesting to see the way the value of the Swiss dialect has increased in the eyes of the Swiss over the past 20 years as the number of immigrants has slowly risen.
While the suggestion of banning High German in kindergartens as it stands is wholly impractical, it does highlight a sentiment that has been seen in many a country before. At the time of Italy’s unification, for example, there was no standardized form of Italian and when the Tuscan dialect was nominated as the ideal version, many people were averse to having to learn it and propagate its use when dialect had served them just fine up until then. People take pride in their origins and language or dialect is one of the major factors with which we identify ourselves as belonging to somewhere particular – after all, as David Gaunt points out, “a nation is a dialect with an army”. Whether Switzerland will choose to officially back the Swiss dialect with its army or not is yet to be seen, but for now we can watch and appreciate the food for thought.