Book chapter

19. Multilingualism in Switzerland

    2018
Published in:
  • Manual of Romance Sociolinguistics / Ayres-Bennett, Wendy ; Carruthers, Janice. - De Gruyter. - 2018, p. 526-548
English This chapter deals with the two Romance languages which are officially recognized as minority languages of Switzerland, Romansh and Italian, and with Francoprovençal and French dialects spoken marginally in the francophone area of Switzerland. Romansh, the language that has gained new recognition in the process leading to the quadrilingual Swiss Confederation, is considered in most detail. The comparison of the Romance minorities shows the different starting conditions from which they have developed and the various initiatives undertaken to organize them at private and state levels. The last decades have been characterized by concerns about maintaining language territories, development of mass media in minority languages as well as promotion of minority languages in education. The trend towards a more ethnolinguistic conception of Switzerland has recently been counterbalanced by the greater attention paid to the promotion of minority languages outside their traditional areas.
Faculty
Faculté des lettres et des sciences humaines
Department
Département de plurilinguisme et didactique des langues étrangères
Language
  • English
Classification
Language, linguistics
License
License undefined
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/307327
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