Panel on utopias and dystopias/Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian-Swiss-German

[Peter Slomanson]

   Adrian Wanner <aw6 at mail.evansville.edu> wrote:

   I have been following with interest the discussion about
   Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian. Since I am from Switzerland, I think some
   observations about the linguistic situation there might be
   illuminating.  The language spoken in the German part of Switzerland
   differs so significantly from standard German that unprepared German
   native speakers do not understand it (i.e., it varies much more from
   German than Croatian does from Serbian).

   There were in fact some Swiss nationalists, especially
   during the 1930s, who proposed that Swiss German should be declared a
   separate language and be used as the official idiom.  I can only say,
   thank God it never happened! The result would have been the
   provincialization and linguistic isolation of Switzerland. We would have
   had our own "official" language all right, but few people in the rest of
   the world would have bothered to learn it. Not everybody in Switzerland
   likes the Germans, but by staying within the orbit of the German
   language, we have made sure that our writers are read not just locally,
   but also in Germany, Austria, and in the rest of Europe and the world.


Glad you are satisfied with the turn of events, but I'd say your take
on them is open to discussion.  First of all, in linguistic (that is
technical/structural, as opposed to sociocultural) terms, Swiss German
already _is_ a distinct language (group of languages actually).  By
stating that it is not understood by Germans, you are making that
point yourself.  Its phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon are
distinct from that of German German dialects (including the standard
language).  If what you mean by "declare a separate language" is
"declare an official language," I would say that although it is not
official de jure, it might as well be.  Swiss German, as you know, is
used in every conceivable context in German-speaking Switzerland.  The
contexts in which standard German is used _as a spoken language_ are
severely restricted by cultural convention.  I'm sure that what you
mean to say is that the nationalists in question sought to make Swiss
German the _written_ language of German Switzerland, which it has
indeed never been.  I take issue with your assessment of what this
would mean for the Swiss German people, culture, etc.  Italian
literature is read all over the world _in translation_.  Admittedly,
translated literature is not most people's first choice, but it has a
world-wide audience.  Do all Russian literature enthusiasts learn
Russian?  Unfortunately not, but the number of readers of Russian
literature in translation is nonetheless immeasurably large.  Do
Italians, Czechs, Swedes, etc. feel impoverished and deprived of an
international audience because they write in a "smaller" language?  I
don't think so.  If Swiss Germans decide to continue writing in
German, that is fine, although since it is not their daily vernacular,
I personally feel that something is being sacrificed.  Also, how many
ordinary Swiss Germans who might have become great writers have not
done so as a result of a lack of facility with the standard language
(although they might have extraordinary expressive abilities in their
native language)?  I would not be easily convinced that all Swiss
Germans have equal linguistic facility in the standard language and
that such factors as socioeconomic class do not influence who does and
who does not.  Finally, by your use of the term "provincialization"
you _are_ implying that nations whose writers employ languages other
than the obvious English, French, Spanish, German, possibly Russian,
etc. are in some sense "provincial."  What does this mean really?  How
many of the readers of and contributors to SEELangs would feel
comfortable with this statement (a rhetorical question, obviously)?

Peter Slomanson
Philadelphia, USA