Languages in Switzerland
Switzerland has long been known for its chocolate, its beautiful mountains, and its ability to
stay out of the European wars of the 20th century. Switzerland is an example of a
multicultural society in which people manage to coexist peacefully and thrive economically in
spite of their linguistic differences. Over the last 2,000 years, Switzerland has been inhabited
by Germanic tribes, Franks, and Romans, all of which left behind their languages. Today,
Switzerland is a country of immigrants, with nonresidents making up more than 20 percent of
the population. And 50 percent of the population has a parent born in another country. With
so many ethnicities, it's not surprising that Switzerland has four official languages and many
other home languages and dialects spoken throughout the 26 cantons, the states of the
confederation.
German is the predominant language, spoken by about two-thirds of the Swiss people and in
19 of the 26 cantons. These areas where German is spoken are in the northern, central, and
eastern parts of Switzerland and include the cities of Bern, Zurich, and Basel. Although
standard German is the official language, there is also a distinct Swiss German dialect or
dialects, known as Schweizerdeutsch (pronounced SHVITE-suh-doitch). Swiss German is not
a formal written language, so spellings and pronunciations of words differ from one town or
region to the next. Swiss German differs from standard German in vocabulary and the use of
tenses. For example, in Swiss German, speakers often add an -li ending, meaning "small," to
many nouns. Some suggest that because they come from a small country, the Swiss like the
idea of smallness. If you speak standard German, you will have no trouble communicating in
these regions of the country.
The next most popular language is French, which is spoken by about 20 percent of the
population. It is spoken in four of the western cantons of Switzerland, which include the cities
of Geneva and Lausanne. Three other cantons are bilingual in German and French. Unlike
German, the French used in Switzerland is nearly identical to the French spoken in France.
So, if you are traveling from France into French-speaking Switzerland, you will notice little
difference. Not surprisingly, Italian is spoken in the cantons close to the Italian border,
including the cities of Lugano and Locarno. However, only about four percent of Swiss speak
Italian as their first language.
Romansch (or Rumantsch), the fourth official language of the country, is in jeopardy. It is
only spoken by about one percent of the population, those living in a small area in
southeastern Switzerland. Because so few speak it, most speakers of Romansch can speak
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German as well. This area of the country was settled by the Rhetians about 2,000 years ago.
The Rhetians had adopted the language of Rome, so Romansch derived from Latin. The
language has been officially recognized as one of the four national languages of Switzerland
since 1938, and in an attempt to preserve it, in 1983 the federal parliament passed a law for
the protection of the Rhaeto-Romansch language and culture.
Unfortunately, the language has declined over the last few decades, with speakers dropping
by a third from 1980 to 2000 for several reasons. Because the Romansch speakers lived in
narrow isolated valleys, speakers developed seven separate dialects and three different written
forms. Romansch speakers live in an economically depressed area of the country. As tourism
becomes more important, German becomes a more viable language, and as German speakers
move into the canton of Graubenden where Romansch is spoken, the Romansch speakers
assimilate.
However, because of the efforts of a grassroots revival and government support, there is
hope for Romansch. The government made it an official language in 1996, meaning native
speakers can use the Romansch idiom for government correspondence. The government
spends about $25 million a year to promote the language. They are also trying to standardize
the written form of it. But help has come from another source—new technology. Microsoft
has released a Romansch edition of its Office software, even flying a linguist over to
Switzerland to help develop the spell-check program. And Google has followed, developing a
version of its search engine in Romansch. Now, the Swiss can stay connected, no matter
which of the four official languages they speak.
Land Art
A number of years ago, an art student named Erik Lindeman and some of his friends decided
to try to find the Roden Crater. This crater, formed by an extinct volcano, is on the edge of the
Painted Desert near the Grand Canyon in Arizona. The artist James Turrell has been working
on the crater since 1972, and although it is not open to the public, its unveiling has been
eagerly awaited by those interested in land art. The crater wasn't marked on commercial maps,
and Turrell discouraged visitors from trying to see it. The students played detective, looking
up topographical maps in an Arizona library and matching the land formations to the few
photos available. Then they drove until it was too dark to see. They set up camp and awoke in
the morning to finally find themselves on the edge of the crater. They wanted to get closer and
actually see what Turrell had done to the crater. As they drove up, a construction manager
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stopped them, asking them their business. All their hard work was nearly undone. But the
manager liked what they said and as a favor gave them a tour on the spot.
So how can a land feature like a volcanic crater be art? Back in the 1960s, the term "land
art" was coined by Robert Smithson. It refers to art which is intrinsically linked to landscape,
meaning the art and the land itself are intertwined; it's also known as "earth art." This
movement grew out of the minimalist art of Brancusi, Beuys, and the De Stijl movement, and
uses natural materials such as soil, rocks, and water. Land artists were reacting against the
materialism of the art world and wanted to create art that could not be housed in a museum or
bought and sold. Instead the art is created from and becomes part of the natural world. One of
the earliest examples may be Isamu Noguchi's design for the Contoured Playground in New
York. His design combined playground elements like basketball hoops, jungle gyms, and
tunnels while contouring the land into organic forms. The design reflects his idea of a
playground as a structural landscape, using forms found in nature. The Contoured Playground
was never realized, but another one of Noguchi's playground designs, Playscape, was built in
Atlanta. Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, created in 1970 in Utah, may be the most famous land
art piece. Like all land art, it is subject to temperature changes, light and dark, and wind and
erosion. Smithson used rock and salt crystal to create a huge spiral in the Great Salt Lake. The
level of the lake rises and falls, revealing and then hiding the spiral.
Land art, by its very nature, is difficult to preserve. Natural forces are its biggest threat, but
development threatens it as well. A Canadian oil company wants to start drilling in the bed of
the Great Salt Lake where Smithson's Spiral Jetty is, but the company is probably not going to
get away with it. Conservationists have halted that plan for now. Development in the western
United States also threatens a project by artist Michael Heizer. He has been working on a
massive complex of sculptures and earthen forms called City for the last 30 years. City is next
to the artist's ranch in Nevada. Stretching one and a quarter miles across the desert, City is one
of the largest works of art ever undertaken. Recently, the United States Department of Energy
revealed plans to build a railway next to City and Heizer's ranch. The railway would be used
to transport nuclear waste, an obvious detraction from the artwork. Another work created by
Heizer is deteriorating, but in this case, it was part of the artist's plan. This work, created in
1969, consists of two trenches, from which Heizer removed around 240,000 tons of
sandstone. The trenches span 1,500 feet and are 50 feet deep. Without maintenance, they are
slowly crumbling.
Perhaps the most vivid example of the impermanence of land art is Andrew Rogers's
Rhythms of Life. Rogers, an Australian artist, has worked for the last 13 years on this project
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that involved more than 6,700 people in 13 countries across six continents. The project forms
a chain of massive stone sculptures around the globe. The last link in the chain is on the
seventh continent of Antarctica. The sculpture there is created out of the dust left behind when
glaciers crushed the rocks. The life of this sculpture will only be a few weeks because it is
built on a frozen lake. As the lake melts, the sculpture will disappear, and the chain will be
broken.
It's ironic that much of land art takes so long to create and yet may last such a short time.
Lindeman and other visitors to these projects know that such works cannot be taken for
granted. Lindeman would like to return to Roden Crater when it finally opens. Hopefully,
other visitors will get a chance to see it too.
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