Talk:Swiss people

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Deletion review discussion

Please see the deletion review discussion here. Badagnani 18:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I could not find anything related to this article on the page you link to ??? Schutz (talk) 00:19, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What is going on here?

So... this article basically says that the Swiss are mostly of four different ethnic groups - German, French, Italian and Romansh. Yet, the articles specific to Germanophone Swiss, Francophone Swiss as well as Italian and Romansh-speaking Swiss have been deleted. Why? They've also been marked as "misspellings" when it is clear that they are not. Or is Switzerland the only country in the world without ethnicity? Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 08:32, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Switzerland isn't "the only country in the world without ethnicity". There are lots of countries that aren't
dab (𒁳) 14:04, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply
]
And yet, they still are part of a very clear ethnic group. In Australia, 37% of the population identify as "Australian". These are however part of a clear ethnic group the "Anglo" or "Anglo-Celtic" majority, which is defined by its majority status and the politics of "whiteness". To say that this ethnic group does not exist and that they are all just "Australians" is ridiculous. Likewise, removing clear ethnic groups that exist just because they are steadily disappearing (which may or may not be true), or because they have a clear Swiss identity ridiculous! You also have not justified your marking of the page as a misspelling. All countries that are not nation-states have ethnic groups, in fact, they have often have more than nation-states (compare India to Albania).
Swiss-Germans exist, Swiss-French exist, Swiss-Italians exist and Romansh exist - so why can't they get their own articles? Saimdusan Talk|Contribs

well, if "white Australian" is an ethnic group, then I suppose "white Swiss" is also an ethnic group. That's just a matter of terminology. It isn't disputed that these sub-groups exist. They aren't called "Swiss-Germans" or "Swiss-French" however, they are called "German-speaking Swiss" and "French-speaking Swiss". In terms of "ethnicity" there are five basic possibilities:

  • the German-speaking Swiss are ethnic Germans (this is what the CIA states, but most of the people concerned would be apalled at the suggestion)
  • the German-speaking Swiss are ethnic
    Alamanni
  • the German-speaking Swiss are an ethnicity unto themselves
  • the German-speaking Swiss are "ethnic Swiss", i.e. you take "Swiss" as an ethnic identity with several sub-ethnic groups
  • the German-speaking Swiss have a linguistic and a national but no ethnic identity.

There is no "correct" choice here, all five are arguable. The important thing is that you

WP:CITE
your authority for any possibility you want to argue. Just claiming that this or that is "ridiculous" or a "clear ethnic group" isn't helpful. The fact is that Switzerland is a special case: "Switzerland is regarded as the prototype of the so-called 'multinational state'" (as opposed to multi-ethnic state), C. Pan and B. S. Pfeil, National Minorities in Europe(2004), p. 165. Note that
WP:SS
. Also, do not underestimate Swiss federalism. There is a "Swiss" national identity, but the next sub-level to that likely isn't "German-speaking" or "French-speaking" as much as cantonal identity. In theory, the Swiss cantons remain independent states within a confederation. Also linguistic identity isn't "German", the various dialects are far too diverse for that. A person from
dab (𒁳) 10:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply
]

I agree! My only point is that each of these specific "groups" should get their own pages! Yes, it's totally controversial and there are many different interpretations of ethnicity in Switzerland. However, I also think that Swiss Germans (Germanophone, Alammanic, etc.), French (Francophone, Romand, etc.), Italians (Italian-speaking, Ticinese, etc.) and Romansh should get their own articles that outline the different linguistic, ethnic, cultural and regional interpretations of their identity. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 09:41, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, you're all making such a fuss for nothing. There's not nearly enough material for four articles yet, we should worry about "fattening" this one first. What would be the point in creating four stubs now?--Piccolo Modificatore Laborioso (talk) 12:37, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
precisely what I'm saying. There may be a debate in this, but we're nowhere near the point where the debate even begins. You will also note that the "speific groups" do not even have standalone articles on
dab (𒁳) 13:09, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply
]
Heh. Yes. I can't help but be amused at the idea, cropping up here from time to time, that of course the Swiss should have somewhat arbitrarily delineated ethnic groups because every other decent nation-state has them.  Sandstein  22:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

photo selection

I was thinking about creating a photo-mosaic of famous Swiss to use in the infobox, but after I saw the amount of discussion for the French article I thought it'd be much wiser to talk about it first. I say we should choose 6-8 individual photos (rather than 27) to use in the top-right corner. Any suggestions?--Piccolo Modificatore Laborioso (talk) 16:54, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

these "mosaics" are a terrible idea. just use individual thumbnails and combine these. --

dab (𒁳) 17:32, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply
]

I cannot agree, it just doesn't look as neat and using a mosaic seems to be standard in this kind of articles.--Piccolo Modificatore Laborioso (talk) 20:54, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not opposed to a mosaic if it looks better than the present concatenation of images and if we can avoid the drama of Talk:French people/Vote...  Sandstein  22:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

it will look every bit as "neat" if you scale the image thumbnails properly. Infoboxes attract cruft and bad practice like dead meat attracts flies, this is a well-known problem on Wikipedia, and the presence of infobox drama elsewhere on Wikipedia is no excuse for introducing it here as well. --

dab (𒁳) 16:44, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply
]

I tried to line the portraits. We should find another image of Nestlé or another personality if we can't find any appropriate image for him, all the other portraits have regular edges so that one kinda looks out of place. For the considerations about infoboxes in general, I read the link you provided, and that user is right, but the fact that infoboxes continue to populate the Wiki servers in hundreds of thousands proves that we have yet to find a suitable replacement for them.--Piccolo Modificatore Laborioso (talk) 16:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You did well, but as you suggested a photo-mosaic would be better and I think there should be more people than just 9 (but less than the 27) and also at least one italian-speaking person. MadGeographer (talk) 17:25, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

population figures

you want to update the numbers with more recent data? Then please be my guest and do it (remember to update

dab (𒁳) 17:37, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply
]

I assume you're talking about me and my recent edit, and I do only because it was the sole recent activity on the page, but from reading your message it's kind of hard to tell. If that's the case, I wasn't trying to update the census figures, in fact I added the "citation needed" template because I couldn't find any in the first place. Even if you did not understand my intentions I can't see how requesting sources can be considered "demolishing".--Piccolo Modificatore Laborioso (talk) 20:54, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring to this edit of yours, where on top of plastering the article with a flurry of citation requests, you remove the figures for Asia, Africa and Oceania. --

dab (𒁳) 16:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply
]

Which were and remain unsourced, and thus worthless. We need citations for pretty much everything here, but when we are talking about detailed and questionable figures (177,000 Swiss in France? 48,000 in Italy?) we must either find sources, request them, or delete what still remains unsourced. For the "plastering": that's the only way I know to place inline citations requests. A banner at the top of the page would have been much too generic.--Piccolo Modificatore Laborioso (talk) 16:01, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

what the hell are you talking about? These figures are, of course, sourced. The source was right there, in the aritcle. It was the authoritative source for such data, admin.ch. --

dab (𒁳) 17:43, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply
]

jesus christ you're flaming someone who left a message five months ago!!!--Soap9000 (talk) 23:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
jesus christ, I just noticed that this user continued edit-warring after I turned my attention elsewhere. jesus christ, are you just here to voice your exasperation at me or what? If you have an opinion on the matter let's hear a coherent rationale for whatever it is you are trying to do here. So you merged
dab (𒁳) 08:04, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply
]
that's impossible, because that user hasn't edited a page since early april. that's three months ago. he couldn't have edit-warred with anyone. that's my coherent opinion on the matter. oh and heroic feat? you've been here for five years and made over 100,000 edits. what could ever impress you?--Soap9000 (talk) 09:29, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Moving the page

I'm moving the article to

Colombian people, etc…), but rather, that they form a populace.--Soap9000 (talk) 10:04, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply
]

ahem, this article is indeed about " holders of the red-crossed passport". I don't know of any other definition of "the Swiss". "Colombian people" is also a rather dubious title, but

dab (𒁳) 17:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply
]

The lead clearly states otherwise, and this kind of articles are usually called fooish people, so at least in this case I didn't "unthink" anything, as I'm actually following procedure.--Soap9000 (talk) 22:53, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, this one will take a while apparently. You seem to just proclaim things as they are, you speak the truth and need no discussion
no, the count does not include "ancestry"
they aren't known as "Swiss people", they are known as "the Swiss"
without providing any kind of evidence, or an argument even. is it really so obivious?--Soap9000 (talk) 23:18, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
um, you are the one overturning the long-standing revision, so the burden of presenting sources for your claims would probably lie with you, no?
the "descendants" claim is highly dubious. So you are "Swiss" if there is at least one person holding a Swiss passport among your ancestors?
Swiss American is an adjective, not a noun. Swiss Americans are Americans with Swiss roots, not Swiss with American passports. It is true that MW
besides 1 a: a native or inhabitant of Switzerland also has 1 b: one that is of Swiss descent. So? It also has 2 any of various fine sheer fabrics of cotton originally made in Switzerland and 3: swiss cheese. This is a matter for disambiguation. This is the article about dictionary meaning 1a. You don't cite dictionaries to change the lead section to "natives of Switzerland, their descendants as well as textiles and a certain type of cheese of Swiss origin". "Swiss" is not an ethnicity. Being Swiss is being a member of a confederation, these days expressed in the ownership of a Swiss passport. Ethnicity is an entirely different affair, discussed in the section "Ethno-linguistic composition".
Re "following procedure", what procedure would that be? Our proper procedure is
dab (𒁳) 07:50, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply
]
I will not revert you for know, as I hope to solve this in a
WP:CIVIL (as you seem to enjoy linking policies) manner. Now, back to your claims: I did provide a reference, a proper one, which you assimilated to a different dictionary (without reading the original I suppose, because the arguments you made don't hold for the NO entry). But following your argument, in the case of Swiss fabric and cheese, you certainly wouldn't oppose the creation of separate articles on those topics, so does that mean that you don't oppose the creation of an article about Swiss people as I intended this one? I read a similar proposition above, and it was dismissed because of a lack of content. That's not an issue for me, I can provide plenty, I'm reading an article about Swiss Italians gold-diggin in California just now. And the "fooish people" title, if not a procedure is a custom, given that 80% of all pages within the WPEG have that name. I don't know about you, but I don't feel that special ;)--Soap9000 (talk) 09:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply
]

Descent

So "the Swiss" include "people of Swiss descent". Now, the Swiss Confederacy has existed for 700 years, but a Swiss passport has been in circulation for some 200 years (since 1815), so we can only meaningfully speak of "Swiss citizenship" since the 19th century. That amounts to about 8 generations. If the argument is that you are "Swiss" if you have one bearer of a Swiss passport among your 2^8=256 possible ancestors eight generations back this would mean that every person alive today might claim membership in up to several hundred ethnic groups. There would probably be several hundred million Swiss according to this definition. This makes any sort of population estimates completely futile. This holds for proper ethnic groups, and it certainly holds for the case of the Swiss, which, as the article points out in very clear terms, are a nationality, not an ethnic group. I also refer you to de:Schweizer which naturally also states that

Jeder Schweizer ist Staatsbürger der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft. Er besitzt das Schweizer Bürgerrecht ... Ende Dezember 2007 lebten etwa 6,66 Mio. Menschen mit Schweizer Staatsangehörigkeit;

--

dab (𒁳) 08:12, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply
]

That's just meaningless, you could make the same argument for dozens of countries, including the two with the longest tradition of emigration (Germany and Italy). The same is true for you argument on ethnic origins, I mean if you are right the US census department has been wasting billions asking useless questions over the last two hundred years... somebody should tell them!--Soap9000 (talk) 09:20, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The US census department is asking people about their ancestry, not their nationality. This article is about the Swiss nationality. US citizens with Swiss forebears are the subject of our

Swiss American
article.

I hope the well-referenced additions I have made to the article establish once and for all that the Swiss are a nationality, composed from a multiethnic populace, formed since the later part of the 19th century. The previous patriotic or national identity on the cantonal level has not been superseded by this and depending on the canton remains rather stronger than the "Swiss" identity at the federal level. Being Swiss is a synonym of being a member of the Swiss Confederation, or more accurately, a citizen of a member canton of the federation. The term, as a noun, has no other meaning than this. To be distinguished from this is the adjective "Swiss" which means "related to or originating in Switzerland in some way". --

dab (𒁳) 11:28, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply
]

Move?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move per request.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:25, 10 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Swiss (people) → Swiss people
—

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

move back

This was an ill-advised move. It has not been shown that this is a recommended standard, and the support votes, such as they are, are a pure example of WP:OTHERCRAP.

Each article is named on a case-by-case basis. The only valid way to move this away from "Swiss (people)" within

WP:NAME
would be to show that "the Swiss people" is more common in English usage than "the Swiss". If you argue that "the Dutch" is also more commonly used than "the Dutch people", that's a point for moving the
dab (𒁳) 15:39, 10 July 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

Which people group is more commonly referred to as "x people?" I always say the English, the Americans, etc. Yet they all use the same format. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.206.155.53 (talk) 00:34, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Paul Dirac

Is he really a representative Swiss?

Sorry I can't articulate more. Bye — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.112.179.51 (talk) 17:24, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've done a second version (
SonntagsZeitung article (Louis Agassiz and Paul Dirac weren't). I've also blurred the distractive background on the Ursula Andress picture. I hope you like it. mgeo talk 18:36, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply
]

Swiss Argentine

There's 300.000 Swiss in Argentina, not 140.000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Argentine is there a particular reason to why it is so? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mariano Menéndez (talk • contribs) 22:39, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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Talk to my owner:Online 22:19, 17 January 2016 (UTC)[reply
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External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 4 external links on

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When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

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Talk to my owner:Online 10:20, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply
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Related people?

The very fact that natives of Switzerland speak either a Germanic dialect or a Romance dialect - which ultimately leads to which language primarily represents which canton - it is patently obvious that the citizens do not identify as a single ethnic group. By all accounts, it would be absurd to do so in the circumstances because what exists in Switzerland is no different to any multi-lingual state. With language comes ethnicity, and no ethnicity has a tradition of unrelated languages being spoken by its members. Obviously it is possible that members of an ethnic group may have a margin of speakers of a different language but this is normally short-term while the internal minorities are in the process of assimilation.

I draw attention to a similar dispute I am involved in at Poles and a conversation I have started at Talk:Germans. I would like to see an overall change in the "related people" categories on infoboxes. To explain, the usage is full of inconsistency and differs according to local editing community. The result? It tends to be non-reciprocal. I believe that ways to resolve this problem include: outright removal of the category; confinement to nations speaking related languages; or a re-branding of the title to "related or associated nations". One thing is for certain, what appears on one article should certainly be mirrored in the matching article. --OJ (talk) 11:40, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Facilitated naturalization

There is a line in the naturalization section that states facilitated naturalization requires 5 years residence. This is only true for facilitated naturalization under article 29 of the BüG, which is only one type. Some articles for facilitated naturalization under the BüG require less time or no time at all. This line in the text should be removed or qualified.

2606:A000:7585:6400:C555:8038:6402:E25 (talk) 05:56, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox languages

I added Lombard and Francoprovençal to the infobox, which was reverted by the user @Place Clichy with the following justification:

In infobox, linking to the national variants is sufficient. It is not necessary to add there other names for the same languages that are already introduced in text body and on the dedicated articles.

The issue here is that Lombard is not another name for Swiss Italian, nor is Franco-Provençal another name for Swiss French. I see no compelling reason why the traditional Romance vernaculars should be treated differently to the Germanic ones (note that we differentiate Swiss German, i.e. the term for Alemmanic dialects spoken in Switzerland, from Swiss Standard German, i.e. the Swiss national variant of the German language).

Since the reversion was based on the erroneous position that these words (Swiss Italian/Lombard and Swiss French/Franco-Provençal) are synonymous, I'll go ahead and re-add the terms to the infobox. I am open to leaving them out if I am presented with a better justification for their exclusion. saɪm duʃan Talk|Contribs 09:48, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Improper deletion.

I don't think the principle of

MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES is properly applied in this edit. Because the illustrations were depictions of costumes and traditions, not specific individuals. It is absurd to suggest that a Wikipedia article, irrespective of kind, should not contain depictions of humans. Perhaps it should be reverted? Dhyana b (talk) 18:09, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

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