Swiss & Austrian lanuages

[ali_alic]

Probably a stoopid question, but a client of mine has asked me to do a mailing to 12 different countries in their own language. He has stated Swiss and Austrian as 2 of those lanuages. As far as I was aware the Swiss and Austrians speak german or french. But he insists on Austrian and Swiss. We are talking modern day here, so am I way off line? Just need confirmation before I go back to him

[Quizmonkey]

You're basically right - although there are variations between the Swiss and Austrian versions of German and French and the 'official' languages. There are also little-spoken languages such as Romansch which are probably not worth worrying about...

[Drusilla1S]

I think different parts of Switzerland speak German, French or Italian, whereas Austrians speak German.

[Drusilla1S]

This helps,

http://www.about.ch/culture/languages/words_n_ phrases.html

[maxi29]

Swiss German bears little resemblence to German as it's spoken in Germany but you should be all right using hoch-Deutsch. As Drusilla says, bear in mind which part of Switzerland the recipient is in: if it's in a French-speaking part, use French, if Geman, then use German.

[ali_alic]

Thanks for that. You know what its like when people are certain they are right, you can actually doubt yourself!!

Thanks again

x

[sddsddean]

Austrian German isn't quite German German (in the south the language even varies from valley to valley), but for the purposes of a mail shot, German German should be OK.

[ali_alic]

Thank you all, spoke to the client today and I think we have whittled it down to only 12 languages - got shot of the flemish and dutch translation at least!!

Thanks again