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Comment by ucaetano | Hacker News Reader

Interesting facts:

- More people speak Portugese in Switzerland than Romansch

- More people speak Albanian in Switzerland than Romansch (there are 350k Kosovars in Switzerland, almost 5% of the population)

https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/infografik...

BTW, the Swiss government has several amazing infographics about the country, extremely well designed an informative:

https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/infografik...

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It's funny you should mention Portugese, there was a report in Schweiz aktuell once where they said a lot of Portugese speakers would better integrate in Rumansch speaking parts because Rumansch and Portugese are similar.

Yes, indeed, or at least in the Italian part. French wouldn't help much.

Sure it would, as many of us learn it as third foreign language.

As former resident in the French cantons, it is quite easy to bump daily into Portuguese.

Amusingly, my family was on a vacation, and were on a hiking trail above Zermatt. There was a hand written sign offering a fancy meal at a nearby restaurant, in four languages:

German, French, English, and Japanese

"Watched too much anime" is common nowadays.

For tourists?

Yes. It was an area where tourists probably outnumbered locals. Probably the most tourist-y town I've been in. We stayed in a town further down the valley, which was substantially cheaper and more pleasant, but the hikes above Zermatt are still spectacular.

Another interesting fact:

Over 1/3rd of the of the starters of the Swiss Soccer National team are Albanian. (Shaqiri, Xhaka, Berhami, Dzemaili).

They have scored 60% of the Swiss goals in the world cup tournament so far

Actually, they are all Swiss because otherwise they would not be eligible to play for Switzerland.

Also, Dzemaili's roots are Macedonian, not Albanian.

Yes, they all have Swiss 'Citizenship', but they are ethnically Albanians.

I live in the US, and this country recognizes both the differences of citizenship and ethnicities (at it actually celebrates it). Eg. If you immigrated from Italy to the US, you are still italian. Your ethnicity doesn't just disappear. If you get the citizenship, you become Italian-American, and you are free to claim both.

Also, Blerim Dzemaili, is Albanian. (btw, about 30% of Macedonians are ethnic albanians). If he wanted he could get the Albanian citizenship, and actually be eligible to play for Albania as many other ethnical albanians have done. (G. Xhaka's older brother, Taulant actually plays for Albania).

Džemaili was born to Fekredin and Shemije Džemaili,[4] an Albanian family from Bogovinje, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blerim_D%C5%BEemaili#Childhood...

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