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Opening of the exhibition “Sprachenland Schweiz” at the National Museum
At the Swiss National Museum in Zurich, Alain Berset opens the exhibition “Sprachenland Schweiz” (Switzerland, a land of languages), on show from 15 September 2023 to 14 January 2024. Visitors follow the route with headphones, in five languages, from the Röstigraben to the Jura question. At the opening, the Bernese poet Ariane von Graffenried reads texts in dialect.
A speech in German, with passages in French and Italian. He starts from Camus, “My homeland is the French language”, and his schoolteacher, M. Germain. He quotes Mark Twain: 30 hours for English, 30 days for French, 30 years for German. Then the substance: “Languages are the software of our politics.” Without them, the institutions do not work. He recalls the 2016 Thurgau dispute over French in primary school: federalism does not mean that each canton does as it pleases. More than 20% of the population speaks a language other than the national languages.
Speeches on this site
- Vernissage de l’exposition « Sprachenland Schweiz » au Musée national suisse (in German, French-language page)
Sources