Switzerland has four national languages, but they vary greatly in the number of speakers.
German
German is by far the most widely spoken language in Switzerland: 17 of the 26 cantons are monolingual in German.
French
French is spoken in the western part of the country, the "Suisse Romande." Four cantons are French-speaking: Geneva, Jura, Neuchâtel and Vaud. Three cantons are bilingual: in Bern, Fribourg and Valais both French and German are spoken.
Italian
Italian is spoken in Ticino and four southern valleys of Canton Graubünden.
Rhaeto-Rumantsch (Rumantsch)
Rumantsch is spoken in the only trilingual canton, Graubünden. The other two languages spoken there are German and Italian. Rumantsch, like Italian and French, is a language with Latin roots. It is spoken by just 0.5% of the total Swiss population.
Other languages
The many foreigners resident in Switzerland have brought with them their own languages, which taken as a whole now outnumber both Rumantsch and Italian. The 2000 census showed that speakers of Serbian/Croatian were the largest foreign language group, with 1.4% of the population. English was the main language for 1%.
German 63.7%
French 20.4%
Italian 6.5%
Rumantsch 0.5%
Other 9 %
Languages in Switzerland Source: Federal Statistical Office 2002
