Will the Albanian become Switzerland's national language?

Albanian music is more heard in Switzerland than in the Swiss German dialect. But is Albanian language also on the rise in this country?

The fact that more English music has been broadcast in Switzerland in 2023 than in the Swiss German dialect has been greatly preoccupied in the SRF community. Thus, users within this community have asked whether Albanian is spreading to other segments in Switzerland.

In fact, Albanian is one of the most widely spoken languages in Switzerland, after German, French, and Italian. That's what federal statistics figures show.

Last year, 2.8 percent of people over 15 years of age in Switzerland spoke Albanian as the main language. That's 0.3 percentage point more than ten years ago. And what does that mean for the future?

Stephan Schmidt, a languager at the University of Zurich, has been on the subject for a long time. He explains what happens when immigrants bring their language to a country.

The classic model that explains thismatic is the scenario of three generations. It has developed on the basis of immigration in the United States: “in the first generation, people speak only their native language”. Thus, for example, the first Italian immigrants in the United States spoke only the Italian dialect.

“then their children became bilingual”. Finally, grandchildren became English - speaking Americans. An outstanding example of this is singer Madonna. Her grandparents emigrated from Italy. She almost doesn't speak Italian anymore.

However, the language of immigrants can disappear much faster. But this is especially so if the country of origin and the new country are culturally and linguistically alike. One such example is Argentina, Schmid says.

There was massive immigration from Italy. Because Spanish is very similar (to Italian), the Italians soon forgot their native language”.

But is it possible to spread the language of immigrants to a new country? Sometimes, Stephan Schmidt explains. In German - speaking Switzerland, Italian is a good example of this: There has been a huge wave of Italian immigration during the postwar economic boom in Switzerland.

The “thus spread Italian, especially to construction sites and factories. Many non - Italian immigrants spoke Italian. The main reason was the relationship between” (it is about speakers of languages close to Italian).

However, the researcher believes that it is impossible for Albanian to become one of the main languages in Switzerland: “What will certainly never happen is that Swiss German will disappear and migrants' languages will prevail”, he says.

It is possible for children to receive one or two words of Albanian at the playground called informal language embezzlement, Schmitt says, broadcast albinfo.ch. Studies from Switzerland, however, show that this could almost not happen in the Albanian case.

In addition, children of Albanian origin who are now in elementary school, mainly belong to the third generation, and, as is known by research, they often can only speak Albanian (dialect).

In principle, however, foreign languages in modern countries are slightly easier than in the past and tend to live longer. Among other things, this has to do with modern communication tools such as Whatsapp and the Internet, Stefan Schmidt explains. These make it easier to stay in touch with the country of origin and its language. /Telegraphy/