In the first six months of my life in Switzerland, I was rather confused and disappointed with the behavior of the people here. Why would drivers in Geneva park their cars all over the place? Why can’t passengers just move to the window seat on the bus? Why don’t people line up when waiting to buy food?
My frustration was actually entirely my own doing, while Swiss people don’t like to be told they’re “like Germans” or “like French” people, it is entirely true. I was using an etic perspective when approaching Swiss culture and mannerisms. In Geneva, I would compare the Swiss to the French, while in Zürich I would compare the Swiss to the Germans. We’ll leave out the Italian- and Romansh-speaking Swiss here.
This is especially true in the linguistic border regions of Bern, Biel, Freiburg, and Brig. When I was at Rendez-vous Bern for the animated film on the moon landing, I was lining up for some Chäsbrägu there was essentially no line, just a bunch of people funneling towards the cashier. Remarkably, this French-line was enforced with German-discipline and people actually remembered who arrived before them and allowed them to approach the cashier first.
Lingustically speaking, Swiss-German, also known as Alemannic, is a language on its own. Through the advent of texting and emails, this largely spoken language has been textualized with regional dialects depending on which commune you’re from. For example, a “krankenhaus” (hospital) is called a “spital”, and a train platform “abschnitt” (sector) is called a “sector”. It also has some French mixed into it; a “pfand” (deposit) is called “depot” and a “fahrrad” (bicycle) is called a “velo”.
However, there still remains behavioral differences between the French- and German-speaking parts of the country. While passengers in the German-speaking region almost always move to the window seat on a bus or a tram to allow others to sit on the aisle seat, French-speaking passengers almost always sit on the aisle seat hoping to have both for themselves. Parking in the French-speaking regions is also a rather liberal affair, if there’s space and it won’t obstruct anyone else, you can park there even if it’s not an official parking spot.
This split in behavior has both its benefits and inconveniences. In the German-speaking regions you can be reasonably sure that others won’t break the rules, and neither should you, so you’ll be fine as long as you stick to the rules. On the contrary, you can treat rules as a general suggestion in the French-speaking region and others allow a reasonable leeway when you break certain rules for convenience.
