Four languages, one tiny country

 

The German and French speaking Swiss television stations air their news at 19:30 every night. When we tuned into the French station news one night, we were surprised.

Our regular presenter spoke a few words of French before explaining the two stations were doing a special program with him presenting in German and the German presenter speaking French.

Her French was wonderful. I describe my German as "shopping German" and I couldn't judge his German but he spoke with no hesitations.

The special program discussed what it is like to have a parliament where the members had to deal with multi languages. 

There is a debate in various cantons on teaching other national languages and also English. Some question the need for bilingual schools.

Parents who come from different countries try to decide which language(s) should be spoken in the home. I'm prejudice on that. Had I been allowed around my French-speaking grandparents, I might not have had to spend so much energy in my forties learning je parle, tu parle,etc. 

Before I was granted my Swiss nationality, I attended a session of the Swiss parliament and was impressed that it worked despite different languages. Most Swiss speak two, three or four languages, not including English which about 60% of the population speaks in addition to other languages.  

The Swiss also have many parties. The colors represent how many members are from each party. Within each party there are variations of the languages. I tried to imagine the U.S. Congress doing as well. Mind boggling. 

When I return to an Anglo-only environment, I find it hard to concentrate in comparison to my daily life in Geneva and Argelès where there is a babble of tongues. This is not a complaint. It is a richness.