A Swiss glottophile legislation? Between territoriality and freedom, pragmatism and indifference: A multilingualism with a very variable geometry

Abstract

Unlike other officially multilingual states, Switzerland is often seen as a glottophile country, where linguistic minorities have few complaints. Its success is often attributed to the principle of territoriality (one official language per territory), but the principle of personality (free choice of by citizens of the language in State-citizen communications) is also important in bi/plurilingual cantons, in what appears to be a differentiated territoriality. The legal framework is based on cooperation between the cantons, which govern their own linguistic matters, and the federal State. The officialization of the three main languages (German, French, and Italian) was recently supplemented by that of Romansh, a vulnerable language from a demographic perspective. At the same time, the Swiss-German dialects have remained very much alive, despite their absence from constitutional texts. However, one should be wary of total acceptance of this idealised image of Switzerland, when the legislator seems indifferent to languages of immigration and, moreover, does not grant recognition to Franco-Provençal. This Romance language that is still spoken in parts of Francophone Switzerland is not protected by any policies aimed at ensuring its survival. This article aims to reflect on the applicability of the notion of glottophilia to Switzerland by focusing on the texts that constitute the architecture of language legislation in the country.