jimservo wrote:
Switzerland's evolution as a country is much different then the United States. It used to be more of a confederation structure as has evolved into essentially a federal republic.
63% of the Swiss populace speaks German, 20.4% speaks French, and 6.5% Italian. These are the only official languages of the country.
Actually, that sounds a lot like how the US was formed... a military alliance against Britain, followed by loose central government (Articles of Confederation), then by a stronger central government that gradually became stronger, a process culminating in the Civil War. Under George Washington, the US followed a policy of armed neutrality. Switzerland also began as a loose military alliance that expanded by conquest, and that experienced increased centralisation in which a civil war played a major role (though it is less centralised than the US).
The fourth language, Romantsch, does not have the same legal status as the others, but it is native to Switzerland and does appear on the currency. The Swiss Germans are all fluent in High German (standard German from Germany) but speak Swiss German dialects as their native language, some of which appear to be substantially different from High German. Likewise, the Swiss Italians are all fluent in High Italian but many also speak dialects. French is more uniform, but numbers are usually said French-style in Geneva but not in the rest of French-speaking Switzerland.
Switzerland is not ethnically homogeneous - Geneva is as multiethnic and cosmpolitan as NYC.
Perhaps a key point is that multicultural countries that are formed naturally and largely spontaneously (like Switzerland) can function while artificial colonial creations like Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Iraq and a number of African countries cannot.
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17 Mar 2007, 7:53 am
