Spanish as a Heritage Language in Switzerland

Switzerland is a country with a multilingual tradition with different linguistic communities. Its multilingual character is evident through the fact that four official languages are spoken, albeit with different levels of prestige and quantity of speakers: German (63% of speakers in the country), French (22.7%), Italian (8.1%) and Romansh (0.5%). Figure 33.1 presents a map detailing the general areas in which each language is spoken.