Swiss German
What it is, why you cannot follow it even though you read German — and which dialect is spoken where.
Spoken, not written
Swiss German is the spoken language of everyday life — and the written one between people who know each other: texts, WhatsApp, notes. Anything official is written in Swiss Standard German. Both are part of it, and somebody who has only one of them eventually sends a dialect message to their insurance company.
No correct spelling
There is no official orthography. Two people write the same word differently and both are right. That is why Heidi never tells you your spelling is wrong — only how we write it.
Not one language
Swiss German is not a single dialect but many. The differences are obvious to a local and completely invisible to a learner. Heidi teaches you Zurich German and says so, rather than pretending there is only one.
Where is this message from?
Paste a message you received — from your boss, a neighbour, the class group chat. Heidi shows which forms come from where, and what the words mean.
Why so many?
Switzerland kept its dialects where Germany largely lost its own. That is neither an accident nor a matter of mountains: it has to do with how a state was built, with school, and with broadcasting.
The whole story →The dialects
Dialect boundaries do not follow cantonal ones — hence points rather than areas. The cantons are listed because you know which one you are in.
The Alemannic dialects fall into three groups. The boundaries are not cantonal: they are sound changes that stopped in different places.
Low Alemannic
The north — in Switzerland, essentially Basel alone. Here initial k stayed k; everywhere else in German-speaking Switzerland it became ch. You hear it on your first day.
High Alemannic
The Mittelland and the east: Zurich, Bern, Aargau, Solothurn, St. Gallen. The largest group — and the one people mean when they say “Swiss German”.
Highest Alemannic
The alpine valleys: Valais, Glarus, Uri and Unterwalden, the Walser settlements. The most conservative and the hardest for an outsider, because old forms survive here that vanished from the Mittelland long ago.
On both sides of the line
This area sits on both sides of the line and belongs to no single branch. So we name none, rather than pick one that would look tidy.