FRANCE, LUXEMBOURG, AND SWITZERLAND

Here, for your reading pleasure, we present expert information about France, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. We've started with a very brief history of French poetry, followed by surveys of the oh-so-linguistically-complicated Luxembourg and Switzerland. Then you'll find the beginnings of a discussion about national identity in the poems and in the anthology, which we hope to continue in class. Last but not least, we've posted two poems by Bruno Grégoire, for several reasons: we think it would be fun to have a more focused discussion of a poem or two; we found the poems to be among our favorites in the anthology so far; and, the poems embody a lot of specific anxiety of identity that correspond with our questions about the section as a whole. Hope you enjoy!

And, of course, useful phrases:

German:
I am going to beat you to death: Ich gehe zu schlagen Sie zu Tode.
My hovercraft is full of eels: Mein Luftkissenfahrzeug ist voller Aale.

French:
I am going to beat you to death: Je vais te cassé la goule.
My hovercraft is full of eels: Mon aéroglisseur est plein des anguilles.

A CONCISE HISTORY OF LANGUAGE IN SWITZERLAND

Compiled by Stephen Hess

Of the four official languages in Switzerland, German, or 'Swiss-German', is the most pervasive -- as of 1990 (sorry as I could not find more recent data) 63% of the population speaks German; 20% French; 8% Italian; 0.5% Romansch; the remaining +/-8% speak other, 'unofficial', languages.

German has also been dominant as the literary language in Switzerland. Like with Austria, it is uncommon to hear of a sovereign literary movement within Switzerland -- these nations are, by most, considered to be German in language and culture. This, especially when considering Switzerland, must be taken with extreme caution -- Genève, for example, is in the French speaking border-region of Switzerland -- the writers of Genève write in French and are considered to be French writers…this is to say that there is, among the Swiss (according to a variety of recourses), no specific national identity...it is impossible to make generalizations as every town and region is wrapped up in a highly specified cultural-geo-political-lingual situation.

Further reading:

• Swiss Literary Culture since 1945: Productive Antagonisms and Conflicting Identities; by Michael Bohler

• Cultural Pluralism and Linguistic Equilibrium in Switzerland; by Kurt Mayer

• Why Switzerland? By Jonathan Steinberg

p.s. A few of the links require you log into your MyBama account. Then you'll go right to the article.