Multilingual Switzerland is a product of the early nineteenth century

Evidence

Part of the answer lies in the youth of the Swiss state, which, Hughes drily observes, is difficult to trace back beyond 1813-15 ‘without the aid of some prevarication.’ He reminds us that the first real Swiss citizenship, the introduction of direct (male) suffrage, and the ending of ‘internal’ tolls and customs areas were achievements of the Helvetic Republic forcibly brought into being by the French occupation of 1798. Only in 1803 did the state include significant numbers of Italian-speakers, with the acquisition of Ticino. Only in 1815 did it gain the populous French-speaking areas of Valais, Geneva, and Neuchâtel from a vengefully anti-French Holy Alliance - in exchange for neutrality and a highly conservative constitution. In effect, today’s multilingual Switzerland is a product of the early nineteenth century. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 481

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Swiss language politics replaced religious segmentation after 1848 — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 483; Late print-capitalism made Swiss multilingualism persist through a bilingual ruling class — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 484; Languages came to be seen as the property of specific national communities — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 345 (+1 more)

Related

• Swiss language politics replaced religious segmentation after 1848 (similarity 0.86)
• Late print-capitalism made Swiss multilingualism persist through a bilingual ruling class (similarity 0.85)
• Old Switzerland endured through oligarchic unity against peasant rebellion (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Languages came to be seen as the property of specific national communities #expands (0.82) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 345
• Old Switzerland endured through oligarchic unity against peasant rebellion #contradicts (0.75) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 482