Page 230 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

208 Christiane Meierkord

Switzerland, or rather the Swiss Confederation, dates back to 1291, when
the people of the valley of Uri, the democracy of the valley of Schwyz, and the
community of the Lower Valley of Unterwalden decided to succor each other
in loose alliance. These three cantons were joined by others in the subsequent
years, eventually yielding what is present-day Switzerland when a modern fed-
eral state was founded in 1848. Against the background of the country’s history,
its constitution is designed to balance the interests of the state as a whole with the
interests of the individual cantons. As a result, Switzerland acknowledges four
languages as national languages, although Romansh is only spoken in the tril-
ingual canton of Graubünden, by approximately 0.5% of the Swiss population.
However, Romansh is not an official language, but Romansh speakers have a
9
right to address the authorities in their mother tongue. Interestingly, neither of
the four national languages serves as a nation-wide lingua franca today. Rather,
many cantons have opted for English as the first compulsory foreign language to
be taught in schools. And as a result, younger Swiss citizens frequently have a
better command of English than of the other languages spoken in their country.
Canada and Australia have a different history, characterized by the migration
of large British English speaking populations. Originally a British settlement,
Canada became self-governing in 1876. It has since been a country attracting im-
migrants from all over the world, and this is reflected in its population as well as
in the linguistic situation pertaining to the country. The Ethnologue currently
lists 85 living languages spoken in Canada. These include languages as diverse
as Dutch, Punjabi, Spanish, Ukrainian, Arabic, and Chinese, all of which have
considerable native speaker communities of several hundred thousand individ-
uals. However, the number of national languages in Canada is limited to two:
English and French, which is due to the country’s history as both a British and a
French settlement and the size of the English and French speaking communities.
Similar to Canada, Australia has been an immigration country for centuries.
The Australian government presents a very clear outline of the country’s multi-
cultural policy. With regard to the languages spoken by its immigrants, Austra-
lia has chosen to designate English as its sole national language. As the govern-
ment itself declares in its section on Australian multicultural policy on its
official website,

All Australians are expected to have an overriding loyalty to Australia and its people,
and to respect the basic structures and principles underwriting our democratic so-
ciety. These principles are: the Constitution, parliamentary democracy, freedom of
speech and religion, English as the national language, the rule of law, acceptance
and equality. 10

The Ethnologue presently lists 235 living languages spoken in Australia. Most
of these are Aboriginal languages, which, however, have only very small
numbers of mother tongues speakers (the total figure for all speakers of Aborig-