Languages in Switzerland

There are four different official languages in Switzerland: German (74%), French (20%), Italian (4%) and Romansh (1%). People in different regions usually speak different languages and those living on the border of two regions are often bilingual.

People in each canton have their own dialects and the language also changes from north to south and from east to west. Even though the French and the Italian spoken in Switzerland are not absolutely the same as in the neighboring countries, they are not as different as the Swiss-German (Schweizerdeutsch) from the German-German or the Austrian-German.

Romansh is considered a "dead" language because it does not change anymore.