When Swiss people write Text messages, they use only a few
English expressions. Moreover, a study commissioned by the Swiss National Science
Foundation (SNF) has shown that these anglicisms are more indicative of a
higher education than of declining language standards.
English is becoming more important everywhere, including
Switzerland. Indeed, so much so that purists here are concerned that the number
of anglicisms in our national languages is getting out of hand. It is widely
believed that English expressions are "the in thing", particularly
with young people and especially when they are using new and informal types of
communication such as text messages. That this is not the case has been
demonstrated by a large-scale study (see box) of some 26,000 Text messages
conducted by researchers under the direction of Elisabeth Stark of the Romance
Languages Seminar of the University of Zurich.