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English and other foreign languages on rise in Switzerland

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The proportion of people in Switzerland whose main language is not one of the four national languages – German, French, Italian or Romansh - has risen significantly in recent years, according to the Federal Statistical Office.

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German was the most widely spoken language in Switzerland in 2023, followed by “other languages”, with French in third place, the office said on Monday.

Almost two-thirds (66%) of permanent residents speak German as their main language, while 24% use a non-national language. In German-speaking Switzerland, people speak in dialect but write in standard German. 

French is spoken by 23%, followed by Italian (8%) and Romansh (0.5%).

While the percentage of French-speakers has risen over the last five years, German, Italian and Romansh have slipped.

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Pictured from behind, a female Swiss Border Guard employee is sitting on a burgundy chair. She is wearing a blue shirt that says ‘Border Guard’ on the back in at least three Swiss languages. Her long, dark blonde hair is tied into a neat ponytail.

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What language is spoken in Switzerland?

This content was published on Switzerland has four national languages: French, German, Italian and Romansh. English is often used to bridge the divides.

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In total, 17% of people in Switzerland speak two or more main languages, 39% do so at work and 44% of children in Switzerland are in contact with several languages at home.

Do you speak English?

Among the non-national languages, English stands out. In 2023, 6% of the permanent resident population said English was their main everyday language, compared with 4% in 2010.

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Meanwhile, 3% said their main language was Portuguese or Albanian, followed by Spanish and Serbian/Croatian (all 2%).

English is also an important language in the workplace. In 2023, 23% of the working population spoke English at work. This was almost as much as French (28%) and well ahead of Italian (8%), according to the statistics office.

Translated from French with DeepL/sb

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

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