Switzerland has four national languages — German (about 62 per cent), French (23), Italian (8) and Romansh (0.5) — and no common language in which everyone converses. That explains the country better than any other figure.
The languages
Standard German is written but Swiss German is spoken, and it is often hard for Germans to follow. It is not a dialect subordinate to a standard language but the everyday speech of every social class. Romansh survives in the Grisons, with around 40,000 speakers across five idioms.
The German-French language border is called the Röstigraben and runs through the canton of Fribourg. In Biel, Fribourg and the Valais, towns and communes are officially bilingual.
Direct democracy
Four times a year Switzerland votes — on federal, cantonal and communal questions at once. With 100,000 signatures any group can force a popular initiative to amend the constitution; with 50,000, a referendum against a law. The result is a system that decides slowly and then holds to its decisions.
There is no president in the usual sense: the Federal Council has seven members of equal rank and the chair rotates annually. Few people in the country can name the holder without pausing.
Customs you can see
- Basel Carnival, the Monday after Ash Wednesday, opening at four in the morning with the Morgestraich: every light in the centre out, only painted lanterns glowing, piccolos and drums through the alleys. UNESCO intangible heritage
- Alpabzug in September: the herds come down decorated, with bells and traditional dress, in Appenzell and the Bernese Oberland
- 1 August, national day, with bonfires lit on the summits
- Swiss wrestling, the national sport: wrestling in sawdust wearing canvas breeches. The federal festival is held every three years and fills stadiums of 50,000
- Hornussen and stone-throwing as further national sports, hard to explain from outside
- Chalandamarz in the Engadine on 1 March: children drive out winter with cowbells
- Sechseläuten in Zurich in April, with the burning of the Böögg
Music and art
Yodelling and the alphorn are living practice, not museum pieces; yodelling joined the UNESCO list in 2023. In art, Paul Klee (Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern), Alberto Giacometti and Ferdinand Hodler shaped the twentieth century; architecture carries international weight through Le Corbusier, Herzog & de Meuron and Peter Zumthor. And literature through Gotthelf, Frisch and Dürrenmatt.
Etiquette
- Punctuality is not relative. Five minutes late needs explaining; for a train, the second counts
- You greet the room on entering a shop, a lift, a waiting room — Grüezi, Bonjour, Buongiorno
- Formal address stays until the informal is offered; among younger people it comes faster
- Quiet hours are taken seriously: after 22:00, all day Sunday, and in many buildings no laundry on Sundays and no showering after ten at night
- Waste separation is compulsory, in many communes only with a chargeable bag. Wrongly disposed rubbish is searched and fined
- You do not push in, you queue, and you speak quietly on the train
- Service is included; rounding up is enough