Albanian is spoken more than Portuguese in Switzerland

Albanian deposes Portuguese in Switzerland

According to a survey conducted by the Federal Statistical Office, Albanian has become one of the most widely spoken foreign languages in the country.

Published: 03/25/2024 at 6:47 pm

Switzerland has 292,717 Albanian speakers compared to 292,219 Portuguese speakers in 2022 according to the ONS survey (illustration).

AP Photo/Bella Shandelsky

The distribution of national and non-national languages has changed relatively in Switzerland over the past five decades, as has Switzerland Pass it on to our colleagues from “20 Minutes”. While the Portuguese language has been the most widely used foreign language in Switzerland, after English, during the past ten years, Latest OFS Investigations It reveals that Albanian has overtaken the language of Portuguese speakers in 2022.

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To conduct this survey, the OFS relied in particular on the number of permanent residents on Swiss territory. However, numbers are still very limited, as Switzerland has 292,717 Albanian speakers, or 498 more speakers than Portuguese speakers. This represents an equal share of speakers of both languages, 3.4% of the total population, compared to 6.1% of English speakers.

Before Portuguese, Spanish, Serbian and Croatian, Albanian is spoken mainly in Zurich, Winterthur, Basel and St. Gallen.

Within Swiss families, the trend is reversed. Portuguese returns to first place in the ranking of foreign languages commonly used at home.

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