Official Status in Switzerland and Language Politics
In Switzerland, official language use is governed by the "territorial principle": Cantonal law determines which of the four national languages enjoys official status in which part of the territory. Only the federal administration is officially quadrilingual. Romansh is an official language at the federal level, one of the three official languages of the Canton of Grisons, and is a working language in various districts and numerous municipalities within the canton.
Read more about this topic: Romansh Language
Famous quotes containing the words official, status, switzerland, language and/or politics:
“I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“As a work of art it has the same status as a long conversation between two not very bright drunks.”
—Clive James (b. 1939)
“I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)
“He had not failed to observe how harmoniously gigantic language and a microscopic topic go together.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Politics begin where the masses are, not where there are thousands, but where there are millions, that is where serious politics begin.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)