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Archived straw poll + discussion on the Zurich/Zürich Nobbie 12:46, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Please do not vote any longer — this poll has been a dead horse for a long time. Rather, go to Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(use_English)#Proposal to discuss policy. dab 08:54, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
see: Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Conduct a survey "Note that informal straw polls can be held at any time if there are enough participants in the discussion, but publicizing the survey can get more of the community involved and increase the weight given to the results."
To simplifiy things and stop moving it back and forth, let's place it where it's to go according to the votes below. I take the liberty to fill in the one of Wik. -- User:Docu
I thought Zurich was the English spelling. Here on Wikipedia, however, many seem to prefer the local name of a place. The publications I get from my government use Zurich, both from the federal government and the canton (the city doesn't send stuff in English). However, is the spelling up to the government? Kokiri 20:19, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Seems to me there's actually two different things here:
As to (1): I don't care whether it's Zurich or Zürich, as long both exist and one redirects to the other. One should be able to find it either way. As to (2), I prefer "Zurich" (no Umlaut). With the Umlaut, it looks awfully strange, and "Zürich" is pronounced differently. I doubt any English-speaking person would pronounce it in German. Also: what about Milan/Milano? Results dropping the final "o" in a proper English name? If so, why doesn't dropping the Umlaut? Whatever solution is adopted, the articles Canton of Zurich, ETH Zurich, University of Zurich, and Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich) should follow suit. Maybe we should settle on the Swiss German " Tsüri"... (just kidding :-) Lupo 11:21, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Did the discussion stall? I can't see any consensus (yet). Kokiri 18:18, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
If the votes continue this way, we will decide in favour of the local language, against the most common use (Google; governments). This is fine with me (I couldn't care that much about two dots), but how does this affect the naming convention (Milan rather than Milano)? Kokiri 21:32, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)
"Zurich" is nothing more than "Zürich" without the umlaut. It is not a separate "English" name. Otherwise we could do the same for every place name with diacritics - strip the diacritics off, and call it an "English" name, e.g. "São Tomé and Príncipe (English: Sao Tome and Principe)", but that's obviously nonsense. -- Wik 19:06, Sep 6, 2003 (UTC)
Tricky case. The umlaut-free variant is common, but academic publications seem to prefer the correct one. Both Britannica and Columbia Encyc. refer to it as Zürich. Whatever is used, the spelling should be consistent throughout the article, which it presently is not. Take Munich and Lübeck as examples for non-native / native name articles. —Eloquence
the spelling Zürich was virtually unheard of in English 20 years ago, it is now on its way to become standard. This is also reflected by the fact that the search engine collapses "ü" and "ue" now. dab 15:46, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Google probably does "know" that you are in Switzerland. The point of the Google search is that most English speaking people would put in Zurich and the pages returned are a mixture of English and German even without screening by language, but Zürich returns with lots of German pages so most English speaking people who do not speak German would not use it. I think that English version of Wikipedia should follow the convention of what is most common for English speakers and that is Zurich. The page name is not important but the text on the page is. This is an on-line Encyclopaedia and to be of most use to English speaking people, using English keyboards, using the most common search engine, the Wikipedia pages will not show up in the standard search. Even if they do use the German spelling, (which is tricky to do without a German keyboard so is unlikely, the Wikipedia pages would be buried in amongst German ones unless they apply another filter for English only. Why make users use two procedures just to "educate" them into the oddities of German spellings? It is not so bad for the main Zurich page because that has "Zurich" at the top. But what about subsidiary pages like the Second Battle of Zurich which has recently been converted to Zürich for all cases of Zurich in the text? It would not show up on a search of "Zurich". Most English speaking people do not even know that Umlauts exist let alone "ß" (ss)?, So they would not know to do an initial search using them.
Most Brits struggle to pass French at school, (and many other English speaking countries do not learn French) so using French names with the full set of the French language characters ( cedillas "(ç)" and circumflexs) would be beyond them. Being in Switzerland you are probably familiar with the French ones so a better example for you would be Irish. In Irish there are lots of symbols which you will not have easy access to, if an Irish Gaelic place name uses one and is the same name as the English name, should that town be referenced using those symbols (eg "(ċ)") in Wikipedia [6]? What about the Spanish Language? Just how many languages does one have to know the grammar, so that one can search with the correct accent on the word if it has one in the local language when traditionally they are ignored in English? If Zurich is to be referenced as Zürich then presumably the rule would be all of them. What about all those people who use the English Wikipedia who's first language is not a European one? I do not think that including foreign accents on characters is a sensible way to go and so I do not think that Zürich should be used in the English Wikipedia Philip Baird Shearer 15:31, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Apart from the fact that you would like to force dumb down[ed] native English speakers to learn about German grammar and umlouts on words, please state one good reason for using Zürich instead of Zurich. I have stated four of good reasons for not doing so. Philip Baird Shearer 18:12, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This is silly. We had an enormous discussion and vote on this general issue a couple of months ago, and the "local/official name should be used" camp was in a definite minority, and so lost the vote. Zurich is the English name for what is called Zürich by the locals, has exactly the same status as Rome, Kiev and Cologne, and so is the form to be used in Wikipedia. Proteus (Talk) 17:40, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
That the moment English artcle reads:
Why does it no read:
Is this an English encyclopaedia or a German one?
BTW what is the #712 tsy #720 r #618 cedilla, placed after the first word Zürich, supposed to be becuase on my screen it comes out as ?tsy?r?ç
The rule can be a simple one "strip the diacritics on forign name unless they are very well known on that word in English." The articles can then start with an Anglo version followed by the local version eg:
I think that it would be nice if the second word linked to the WikipediA version of the word in the sister language encyclopaedias. I only know how to do this as an external link if someone knows a better way please edit the text. -- Philip Baird Shearer 11:59, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Jallan I have qualified English speakers in many cases with the word "most". Please read all above and anything else I write in this section as "most English speakers" even if I write "English speakers". As the native English speaking community is may hundreds of millions to say or imply anything else would be silly. Just as to say that I have asserted the "no such native-born English speakers exist" is silly. You should read what I have written above as a conversational piece so as I have not qualified the phrase with "most" in every case please except my apologies. BTW do you speak German or have you learn about umlauts as an independent exercise?
Jallan do you have any thoughts on the pratical problems of electronically searching on a word in secondary articles which use Zürich. As I mentioned previously now that Second Battle of Zürich has had the link changed to Zürich and for consistency all other occurences Zürich in the article, it will no longer show up in text searches on the word Zurich, which as dab says is the "most frequent" (English language) usage. What happens if there is only one occurance of Zurich in a page should one use the name to the current link or the most common usage? If I use Google and restrict the search to [Zurich site:www.britannica.com] 732 hits are returned, but for [Zürich site:www.britannica.com] 5,370 hists are returned. I do not think that this is a pratical way to go in an on line world.
BTW road maps have to use the local spellings, one would be driving for a long time before finding a sign post to Cologne! But one of the advantages of using a UK road map on the continent of Europe is that it tends to have both words on the map so that a "dumb down[ed] native English speaker can realise that the locals call the town by a diffrent name from the English one. For this reason I do not think that using maps is very useful to this argument.
dab you are at it again your argument for using Zürish is "you would like to force dumb down[ed] native English speakers to learn about German grammar and umlouts on words". Yet Wiki policy is to go with the most common usage, and you state " Zurich is more frequently used". using:
covers both our arguments. The Wiki policy of common usage is covered and you get to educate the "dumb down[ed]" native English speakers which clearly excludes Jallan who is not "dumb down[ed]". Philip Baird Shearer 10:36, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
No you have not insulted me but you have made a valid point about the level of understanding of most English speaking people. One night in the observatory restaurant in central Zurich, when I was working on the computerisation of the SWX (where the question of the spelling of Zurich was pertinent in many documents) and living opposite the restaurant on Oetenbachgasse [15], about a dozen of us ordered a meal in English and the waiter got flustered, as some of us had heavy English accents which he could not understand, although he spoke much better English than most of us spoke high German. A Dutch colleague who was there with us started to laugh. When I enquired why he said "I was here last week with my wife and when I did not understand all of his Schweitzer German, I got flustered (and he spoke very good high German). But when you lot come here he gets flustered! Dutchmen would not sit here and expect the waiter to speak Dutch and the waiter certainly would not get flustered if he did not understand us!" We were living in Zurich, can you imagen the level of knowledge of umlauts on the fringes of the English speaking world! Why make it more difficult than it needs to be for them to use this Encyclopaedia? Philip Baird Shearer 16:31, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
That is about as weak a rule as you will find. Since diacritics are normally retained on such names in English contexts, web searches must take such spellings into account. Diacritics are normally kept in English, not stripped. From a search in Google set to English only:Put the accents and cedillas on French names and words, umlauts on German ones, accents and tildes on Spanish ones, and accents, cedillas and tildes on Portuguese ones: Françoise de Panafieu, Wolfgang Schäuble, Federico Peña. Leave the accents off other foreign names.
Search pattern Count Düsseldorf -Duesseldorf -Dusseldorf 2,190,000 Dusseldorf -Düsseldorf -Duesseldorf 1,130,000 Duesseldorf -Düsseldorf -Dusseldorf 1,110,000
The Economist follows this rule. See The Economist Style Guide: Places. (But note their use of Côte d'Ivoire and Württemberg.) And it seems that the Encyclopædia Britannica did still follow this rule not too long ago, in a strange fashion. A note at WordWizard: Zurich/Zürich states:Zurich is the established English spelling of Zürich and therefore no exception to the typographical rule that umlauts occurring in German proper names are kept in English texts.
Presumably someone was mindlessly combining the rule about Zurich the city with some other rule by which geographical features and cantons should be spelled in native fashion.Increasingly, I am giving cities and countries their proper native spelling in English texts (Nürnberg/Nuremberg, Düsseldorf/Dusseldorf, etc.). Zurich, however, I would generally still write without the umlaut in an English text. I have, however, today found that the Britannica makes a peculiar distinction. They refer to the town "Zurich" as being the capital of the canton "Zürich" on the northwestern end of "Lake Zürich". Can anyone find any substantiation for this distinction in spelling?
what form appears most commonly in Wikipedia (though Google sometimes does inconsistantly match up forms). Using the spelling Zürich in Wikipedia would better indicate the necessity for multiple forms in searches than would using only Zurich in phrases like the battle of Zurich. A Google search using English only on "battle of Zurich" -Wikipedia -encyclopedia" gets 126 hits and "battle of Zürich -Wikipedia -encyclopedia -Zurich" gets only 14 hits. But one still has to use both forms to find all the pages in Google. There is no escaping that for any search involving Zürich/Zurich.
A check in a local bookstore found five travel guides to Switzerland using Zürich throughout and only one using Zurich. Two atlases had Zürich and one had Zurich. But three modern historical books all had Zurich.
Without knowing why these differences are occurring it is hard to decide on a choice. It is between a traditional English (and official French) spelling which is currently more common on the web and the official German spelling which is used in at two very prestigeous and careful sources of the exact kind that Wikpedia ought to be looking at and also found in other modern sources.
Jallan 03:51, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Since this has ceased to be about Zürich only a long time ago, I really think this should be discussed on VP. If we can agree that there is a "Cologne" case and a "Württemberg" case (i.e. recognizing that umlauts should not be stripped always, mechanically), we can then return here to argue whether Z*rich is a "Cologne" or a "Württemberg" case (which I agree is indeed open to contention:) dab 12:18, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Agreed GOTO: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Transliteration -- Philip Baird Shearer 14:45, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've discovered that Microsoft Encarta varies the spelling of Zurich/Zürich in different versions by language and nationality as follows:
This suggests a preference for Zürich in North America and for Zurich elsewhere, but is as likely to just indicate different style sheets used by editors which made somewhat arbitrary choices that were not especially linked to any supposed national style.
The London Times uses Zurich as does the Manchester Guardian. But so does the New York Times. However the Chicago Tribune uses Zürich. Google News always has far, far more hits for Zurich then Zürich, currently, 5,950 for Zurich and only 20 for Zürich, looking at English sites only.
The Canadian Encyclopedia: Zurich shows an interesting case. Searching for Zürich finds nothing while Zurich gets 35 hits. But if you check the text in articles found, some of them spell the name as Zurich and some as Zürich. This suggests that the indexer at least chose Zurich. But that conflicts with Encarta's choice of Zürich for Canada. Medcyclopædia has four hits for Zurich [28], all in articles, and 3 hits for Zürich. [29], but all in the introductory material.
I feel that this is a case like Cologne and Köln, as are English Mexico against native México, English Montreal against native Montréal, English Quebec City against native la ville de Québec, English Orleans against native Orléans, English San Jose against native San José. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica used both Orleans and Zurich as spellings. The current Encyclopædia Britannica uses both Orléans and Zürich. But here Encarta uses Orléans throughout. The Canadian Style, a style guide used in some Canadian Government ministries, rules that Montréal and Québec are the forms that should be used even in English text. This is mostly ignored. Tradition is too strong. And the spellings represent different pronunciations. San José has been made the offical name of the Californian city, but purportedly San Jose is still the more common U.S. spelling for that city.
Anglicized names and native names exist in tension with one another, and the triumph of one of them over the other in a particular case has no necessary effect on any other case. And one may be preferred in academic circles and a another by the popular press. I don't care one way or the other in the case of Zürich over Zurich. Both are obviously acceptable in English and either will do. But we still need more evidence on usage, not avodicacy for a unique policy of dropping all diacritics which is not supported by usage.
Jallan 01:53, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The discussion of WP policy on diacritics is now at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(use_English)#Proposal (including a "Zürich case"). dab 08:57, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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There was an election today (5th of december). Johann Schneider Ammann is no longer Federal Council. He was replaced by Karin Keller-Sutter. Doris Leuthard is no longer Federal Council. She was replaced by Viola Amherd. Leandro Zehnder ( talk) 19:18, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Not done for now: per reasons above.
CoolSkittle (
talk)
02:31, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
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Change Doris Leuthard and Johann Schneider Ammann to Karin Keller Sutter and Viola Amherd Leonie Lllll ( talk) 19:29, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Hello, Because of the new year, the composition Federal Council has been changed. However I don't have the privileges to edit the page at the moment, so can someone do it? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:120B:C3EA:3290:1C4B:9FED:CFEC:EBC7 ( talk) 23:49, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
Hello Wikipedia !
On 23 September 2018, Switzerland quietly switched to Permanent DST without public's knowledge, I noticed that when traveling by train and saw that the train was 1-Hour ahead of the clock on my personal device (my device shown 6:18 PM and the train shown 7:18 PM), meaning that personal devices are off by 1-Hour since that day, some stations are still using Winter Time as though big stations (I.e Geneva, Lausanne, etc...) all show Permanent DST (UTC+02:00), this change is noticeable across Switzerland (sometimes the PID (Passenger Information Displays) are turned off so it's unnoticeable).
I suggest that the Wikipedia page be updated and UTC+01:00 be removed off of Switzerland as currently CH is on UTC+02:00 this might be because Switzerland's Capital is directly on the theoretical +02:00 Timezone and not on the theoretical +01:00 Timezone, which is understandable to switch to +02:00 instead of being on +01:00.
We might dive deep more into the hows and whys of this Timezone disparity and discuss it more.
Unfortunately, there hasn't been any news articles, no announcement from the government and you can only see that for yourself, by the way, the SBB CFF FFS (passenger, not Cargo) belongs to the Swiss Government, so they have insight.
Jeremy974 US ( talk) 14:35, 15 January 2019 (UTC)Jeremy974_US
Switzerland has a major issue with drug addiction .Fact. google "swissinfo" (official Swiss tv and online media) and "cocaine use". Cocaine consumption is high by world and european standard (in fact 5 cities in CH are among Europe's top 10)..Sad!..This fact needs to be mentionned in healthcare or crime. Not a word about CRIMINALITY in general either!... 66.87.85.105 ( talk) 04:21, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
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africans be like 198.100.147.118 ( talk) 18:14, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
There are anywhere from 2.3 to 3.4 million privately held arms in Switzerland: https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/switzerland
The number of soldiers in the Swiss military is only 160k: https://www.vbs.admin.ch/fr/ddps/faits-chiffres/armee.html
That means at best, only 160k guns on Switzerland are military-issued. Therefore to claim that most guns in Switzerland have to do with military duty is just wrong.
Only militia-issued ammo is banned from private possession. To acquire ammo from a gun shop to keep at home only requires a criminal records extract not older than 3 months, or a weapons acquistion permit not older than 2 years IF asked by the seller. See the article on Swiss gun laws on the wiki for more information.
Gun ownership is a statutory right under article 3 of the 1997 Weapons act: http://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/19983208/index.html
I quote: "Art. 3 Recht auf Waffenerwerb, Waffenbesitz und Waffentragen: Das Recht auf Waffenerwerb, Waffenbesitz und Waffentragen ist im Rahmen dieses Gesetzes gewährleistet." (The right to acquire, possess and carry arms is guaranteed in the framework of this law.)
It being a statutory right can be seen in the laws in the sense that you do not need to provide a reason or any sort of justification to obtain a waffenerwerbsschein. You also do not need to go through training, any sort of tests, evaluations, interviews, or any inspections to obtain the permit. The waffenerwerbsschein is shall-issue, meaning that if you have a clean criminal record, the police is obligated to issue the permit. It cannot use discretion, and thus all these circumstances make it much different than gun laws elsewhere in Europe. Abatementyogin ( talk) 22:05, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
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Emmentaler is the cheese, Emmental is the place (valley). 93.62.207.138 ( talk) 08:32, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Currently the article contains the sentence
Swiss neutrality has been questioned at times
this is a clear violation of WP:WEASEL and it does not even make any sense, please expand what this is supposed to mean and read up on what Swiss neutrality really means, namely not entering wars on either side: "Switzerland is not to be involved in armed conflicts between other states". So first, if there is criticism, I suggest to first include this into the corresponding article and expand there. I will remove the above sentence unless there is a good argument for keeping it and somebody can expand it to make sense for the reader. -- hroest 17:50, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Regards, Swiss romulus ( talk) 02:31, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
Switzerland is ranked as having one of the most powerful economies in the world
That sentence meets WP:Weasel IMO and should be tagged as such. Switzerland is not even among the top 20 countries by GDP size (see G-20) but it certainly punches above its weight (I heard it is the ninth "financial power" however, whatever that means)?
Best. Swiss romulus ( talk) 02:31, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
RedObviouseWeLikeOurApplesLikeInSnowWhiteOriginalMostOscarizedAutorVersion — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.218.29.202 ( talk) 01:59, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
And why is not Rod Laver the most successful tennis player. He won the Grand Slam two times, Roger Federer 0 times He won the Davis Cup 5 times, Roger Federer 1 time Really, this statement about Roger Federer is clearly POV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nulli ( talk) 02:13, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Given what happened afterwards, invoking an old October 2019 estimate as a meaningful update for the 2020 GDP is a nonsense. Sapphorain ( talk) 15:50, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
Given what happened afterwards, invoking an old October 2019 estimate as a meaningful update for the 2020 GDP is a nonsense. Sapphorain ( talk) 15:50, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
It seems 2 editors have a problem with my edits. Unfortunately, user:ZH8000 has added NEW edits while undoing mine. So i had no choice but to revert the WHOLE thing...I have not looked at the seriousness of his other edits (so I did not mean to revert it ALL at once).
Regarding the source of disputed edit (by ZH8000 only), it is stated in both articles cited (one is Russia Today and the other is a local Swiss newspaper) that London-based Tax Justice Network is the PRIMARY source of this report. I don't know about HIS agenda but ours is CLEAR ( WP:fact and WP:Verifiabilty). Swiss romulus ( talk) 04:09, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
Swiss banks have served as safe havens for the wealth of dictators, despots, mobsters, arms dealers, corrupt officials, and tax cheats of all kinds. [1] [2] [3] [4]
As of 2019, key criminal probes involving Swiss banks were the Petrobras bribery case, the Mozambique "tuna bonds", Credit Suisse "spygate" affair, Raiffeisen insider trading and UBS tax evasion in France. [5]
If you prefer, I can replace it with above quotes. Up to you. Swiss romulus ( talk) 05:05, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
@ Swiss Romulus: To answer one of your first points, ZH8000 is a self appointed arbiter of what may or may not appear in any article on Switzerland. In particular he will not allow anything that is remotely critical of anything Swiss to stand. He is also a self appointed arbiter of the English used in such articles (even though he has severe competancy issues on that subject), hammering in his idea of English rather than the actual language's grammatical rules (in fact: many of his edits and posts are an obvious machine translation).
Finally, ZH8000 will use Wikipedia policy to hammer any other editor attempting to alter hi preferred version of an article while completely ignoring all policy himself (notably WP:OWNERSHIP. His claim that "According the WP:BRD rule, the reverted editor has to justify his disputed change on the talk page without reverting", is nonsense. WP:BRD is neither a rule nor Wikipedia editing policy. It is only an essay which states clearly at the top "This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community". In other words: you cannot be sanctioned for ignoring it (though you can be if you violate WP:3RR). 86.130.28.42 ( talk) 13:37, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
References
@ Hannes Rost: Editor DonSpencer1 is rolling back all info about connection to illegal activities in banking in Switzerland. It's all well sourced info.
We agreed to keep details in sub-articles as long as it doesn't get deleted there, 99.203.25.117 ( talk) 23:02, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
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Archived straw poll + discussion on the Zurich/Zürich Nobbie 12:46, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Please do not vote any longer — this poll has been a dead horse for a long time. Rather, go to Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(use_English)#Proposal to discuss policy. dab 08:54, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
see: Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Conduct a survey "Note that informal straw polls can be held at any time if there are enough participants in the discussion, but publicizing the survey can get more of the community involved and increase the weight given to the results."
To simplifiy things and stop moving it back and forth, let's place it where it's to go according to the votes below. I take the liberty to fill in the one of Wik. -- User:Docu
I thought Zurich was the English spelling. Here on Wikipedia, however, many seem to prefer the local name of a place. The publications I get from my government use Zurich, both from the federal government and the canton (the city doesn't send stuff in English). However, is the spelling up to the government? Kokiri 20:19, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Seems to me there's actually two different things here:
As to (1): I don't care whether it's Zurich or Zürich, as long both exist and one redirects to the other. One should be able to find it either way. As to (2), I prefer "Zurich" (no Umlaut). With the Umlaut, it looks awfully strange, and "Zürich" is pronounced differently. I doubt any English-speaking person would pronounce it in German. Also: what about Milan/Milano? Results dropping the final "o" in a proper English name? If so, why doesn't dropping the Umlaut? Whatever solution is adopted, the articles Canton of Zurich, ETH Zurich, University of Zurich, and Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich) should follow suit. Maybe we should settle on the Swiss German " Tsüri"... (just kidding :-) Lupo 11:21, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Did the discussion stall? I can't see any consensus (yet). Kokiri 18:18, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
If the votes continue this way, we will decide in favour of the local language, against the most common use (Google; governments). This is fine with me (I couldn't care that much about two dots), but how does this affect the naming convention (Milan rather than Milano)? Kokiri 21:32, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)
"Zurich" is nothing more than "Zürich" without the umlaut. It is not a separate "English" name. Otherwise we could do the same for every place name with diacritics - strip the diacritics off, and call it an "English" name, e.g. "São Tomé and Príncipe (English: Sao Tome and Principe)", but that's obviously nonsense. -- Wik 19:06, Sep 6, 2003 (UTC)
Tricky case. The umlaut-free variant is common, but academic publications seem to prefer the correct one. Both Britannica and Columbia Encyc. refer to it as Zürich. Whatever is used, the spelling should be consistent throughout the article, which it presently is not. Take Munich and Lübeck as examples for non-native / native name articles. —Eloquence
the spelling Zürich was virtually unheard of in English 20 years ago, it is now on its way to become standard. This is also reflected by the fact that the search engine collapses "ü" and "ue" now. dab 15:46, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Google probably does "know" that you are in Switzerland. The point of the Google search is that most English speaking people would put in Zurich and the pages returned are a mixture of English and German even without screening by language, but Zürich returns with lots of German pages so most English speaking people who do not speak German would not use it. I think that English version of Wikipedia should follow the convention of what is most common for English speakers and that is Zurich. The page name is not important but the text on the page is. This is an on-line Encyclopaedia and to be of most use to English speaking people, using English keyboards, using the most common search engine, the Wikipedia pages will not show up in the standard search. Even if they do use the German spelling, (which is tricky to do without a German keyboard so is unlikely, the Wikipedia pages would be buried in amongst German ones unless they apply another filter for English only. Why make users use two procedures just to "educate" them into the oddities of German spellings? It is not so bad for the main Zurich page because that has "Zurich" at the top. But what about subsidiary pages like the Second Battle of Zurich which has recently been converted to Zürich for all cases of Zurich in the text? It would not show up on a search of "Zurich". Most English speaking people do not even know that Umlauts exist let alone "ß" (ss)?, So they would not know to do an initial search using them.
Most Brits struggle to pass French at school, (and many other English speaking countries do not learn French) so using French names with the full set of the French language characters ( cedillas "(ç)" and circumflexs) would be beyond them. Being in Switzerland you are probably familiar with the French ones so a better example for you would be Irish. In Irish there are lots of symbols which you will not have easy access to, if an Irish Gaelic place name uses one and is the same name as the English name, should that town be referenced using those symbols (eg "(ċ)") in Wikipedia [6]? What about the Spanish Language? Just how many languages does one have to know the grammar, so that one can search with the correct accent on the word if it has one in the local language when traditionally they are ignored in English? If Zurich is to be referenced as Zürich then presumably the rule would be all of them. What about all those people who use the English Wikipedia who's first language is not a European one? I do not think that including foreign accents on characters is a sensible way to go and so I do not think that Zürich should be used in the English Wikipedia Philip Baird Shearer 15:31, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Apart from the fact that you would like to force dumb down[ed] native English speakers to learn about German grammar and umlouts on words, please state one good reason for using Zürich instead of Zurich. I have stated four of good reasons for not doing so. Philip Baird Shearer 18:12, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This is silly. We had an enormous discussion and vote on this general issue a couple of months ago, and the "local/official name should be used" camp was in a definite minority, and so lost the vote. Zurich is the English name for what is called Zürich by the locals, has exactly the same status as Rome, Kiev and Cologne, and so is the form to be used in Wikipedia. Proteus (Talk) 17:40, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
That the moment English artcle reads:
Why does it no read:
Is this an English encyclopaedia or a German one?
BTW what is the #712 tsy #720 r #618 cedilla, placed after the first word Zürich, supposed to be becuase on my screen it comes out as ?tsy?r?ç
The rule can be a simple one "strip the diacritics on forign name unless they are very well known on that word in English." The articles can then start with an Anglo version followed by the local version eg:
I think that it would be nice if the second word linked to the WikipediA version of the word in the sister language encyclopaedias. I only know how to do this as an external link if someone knows a better way please edit the text. -- Philip Baird Shearer 11:59, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Jallan I have qualified English speakers in many cases with the word "most". Please read all above and anything else I write in this section as "most English speakers" even if I write "English speakers". As the native English speaking community is may hundreds of millions to say or imply anything else would be silly. Just as to say that I have asserted the "no such native-born English speakers exist" is silly. You should read what I have written above as a conversational piece so as I have not qualified the phrase with "most" in every case please except my apologies. BTW do you speak German or have you learn about umlauts as an independent exercise?
Jallan do you have any thoughts on the pratical problems of electronically searching on a word in secondary articles which use Zürich. As I mentioned previously now that Second Battle of Zürich has had the link changed to Zürich and for consistency all other occurences Zürich in the article, it will no longer show up in text searches on the word Zurich, which as dab says is the "most frequent" (English language) usage. What happens if there is only one occurance of Zurich in a page should one use the name to the current link or the most common usage? If I use Google and restrict the search to [Zurich site:www.britannica.com] 732 hits are returned, but for [Zürich site:www.britannica.com] 5,370 hists are returned. I do not think that this is a pratical way to go in an on line world.
BTW road maps have to use the local spellings, one would be driving for a long time before finding a sign post to Cologne! But one of the advantages of using a UK road map on the continent of Europe is that it tends to have both words on the map so that a "dumb down[ed] native English speaker can realise that the locals call the town by a diffrent name from the English one. For this reason I do not think that using maps is very useful to this argument.
dab you are at it again your argument for using Zürish is "you would like to force dumb down[ed] native English speakers to learn about German grammar and umlouts on words". Yet Wiki policy is to go with the most common usage, and you state " Zurich is more frequently used". using:
covers both our arguments. The Wiki policy of common usage is covered and you get to educate the "dumb down[ed]" native English speakers which clearly excludes Jallan who is not "dumb down[ed]". Philip Baird Shearer 10:36, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
No you have not insulted me but you have made a valid point about the level of understanding of most English speaking people. One night in the observatory restaurant in central Zurich, when I was working on the computerisation of the SWX (where the question of the spelling of Zurich was pertinent in many documents) and living opposite the restaurant on Oetenbachgasse [15], about a dozen of us ordered a meal in English and the waiter got flustered, as some of us had heavy English accents which he could not understand, although he spoke much better English than most of us spoke high German. A Dutch colleague who was there with us started to laugh. When I enquired why he said "I was here last week with my wife and when I did not understand all of his Schweitzer German, I got flustered (and he spoke very good high German). But when you lot come here he gets flustered! Dutchmen would not sit here and expect the waiter to speak Dutch and the waiter certainly would not get flustered if he did not understand us!" We were living in Zurich, can you imagen the level of knowledge of umlauts on the fringes of the English speaking world! Why make it more difficult than it needs to be for them to use this Encyclopaedia? Philip Baird Shearer 16:31, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
That is about as weak a rule as you will find. Since diacritics are normally retained on such names in English contexts, web searches must take such spellings into account. Diacritics are normally kept in English, not stripped. From a search in Google set to English only:Put the accents and cedillas on French names and words, umlauts on German ones, accents and tildes on Spanish ones, and accents, cedillas and tildes on Portuguese ones: Françoise de Panafieu, Wolfgang Schäuble, Federico Peña. Leave the accents off other foreign names.
Search pattern Count Düsseldorf -Duesseldorf -Dusseldorf 2,190,000 Dusseldorf -Düsseldorf -Duesseldorf 1,130,000 Duesseldorf -Düsseldorf -Dusseldorf 1,110,000
The Economist follows this rule. See The Economist Style Guide: Places. (But note their use of Côte d'Ivoire and Württemberg.) And it seems that the Encyclopædia Britannica did still follow this rule not too long ago, in a strange fashion. A note at WordWizard: Zurich/Zürich states:Zurich is the established English spelling of Zürich and therefore no exception to the typographical rule that umlauts occurring in German proper names are kept in English texts.
Presumably someone was mindlessly combining the rule about Zurich the city with some other rule by which geographical features and cantons should be spelled in native fashion.Increasingly, I am giving cities and countries their proper native spelling in English texts (Nürnberg/Nuremberg, Düsseldorf/Dusseldorf, etc.). Zurich, however, I would generally still write without the umlaut in an English text. I have, however, today found that the Britannica makes a peculiar distinction. They refer to the town "Zurich" as being the capital of the canton "Zürich" on the northwestern end of "Lake Zürich". Can anyone find any substantiation for this distinction in spelling?
what form appears most commonly in Wikipedia (though Google sometimes does inconsistantly match up forms). Using the spelling Zürich in Wikipedia would better indicate the necessity for multiple forms in searches than would using only Zurich in phrases like the battle of Zurich. A Google search using English only on "battle of Zurich" -Wikipedia -encyclopedia" gets 126 hits and "battle of Zürich -Wikipedia -encyclopedia -Zurich" gets only 14 hits. But one still has to use both forms to find all the pages in Google. There is no escaping that for any search involving Zürich/Zurich.
A check in a local bookstore found five travel guides to Switzerland using Zürich throughout and only one using Zurich. Two atlases had Zürich and one had Zurich. But three modern historical books all had Zurich.
Without knowing why these differences are occurring it is hard to decide on a choice. It is between a traditional English (and official French) spelling which is currently more common on the web and the official German spelling which is used in at two very prestigeous and careful sources of the exact kind that Wikpedia ought to be looking at and also found in other modern sources.
Jallan 03:51, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Since this has ceased to be about Zürich only a long time ago, I really think this should be discussed on VP. If we can agree that there is a "Cologne" case and a "Württemberg" case (i.e. recognizing that umlauts should not be stripped always, mechanically), we can then return here to argue whether Z*rich is a "Cologne" or a "Württemberg" case (which I agree is indeed open to contention:) dab 12:18, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Agreed GOTO: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Transliteration -- Philip Baird Shearer 14:45, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've discovered that Microsoft Encarta varies the spelling of Zurich/Zürich in different versions by language and nationality as follows:
This suggests a preference for Zürich in North America and for Zurich elsewhere, but is as likely to just indicate different style sheets used by editors which made somewhat arbitrary choices that were not especially linked to any supposed national style.
The London Times uses Zurich as does the Manchester Guardian. But so does the New York Times. However the Chicago Tribune uses Zürich. Google News always has far, far more hits for Zurich then Zürich, currently, 5,950 for Zurich and only 20 for Zürich, looking at English sites only.
The Canadian Encyclopedia: Zurich shows an interesting case. Searching for Zürich finds nothing while Zurich gets 35 hits. But if you check the text in articles found, some of them spell the name as Zurich and some as Zürich. This suggests that the indexer at least chose Zurich. But that conflicts with Encarta's choice of Zürich for Canada. Medcyclopædia has four hits for Zurich [28], all in articles, and 3 hits for Zürich. [29], but all in the introductory material.
I feel that this is a case like Cologne and Köln, as are English Mexico against native México, English Montreal against native Montréal, English Quebec City against native la ville de Québec, English Orleans against native Orléans, English San Jose against native San José. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica used both Orleans and Zurich as spellings. The current Encyclopædia Britannica uses both Orléans and Zürich. But here Encarta uses Orléans throughout. The Canadian Style, a style guide used in some Canadian Government ministries, rules that Montréal and Québec are the forms that should be used even in English text. This is mostly ignored. Tradition is too strong. And the spellings represent different pronunciations. San José has been made the offical name of the Californian city, but purportedly San Jose is still the more common U.S. spelling for that city.
Anglicized names and native names exist in tension with one another, and the triumph of one of them over the other in a particular case has no necessary effect on any other case. And one may be preferred in academic circles and a another by the popular press. I don't care one way or the other in the case of Zürich over Zurich. Both are obviously acceptable in English and either will do. But we still need more evidence on usage, not avodicacy for a unique policy of dropping all diacritics which is not supported by usage.
Jallan 01:53, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The discussion of WP policy on diacritics is now at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(use_English)#Proposal (including a "Zürich case"). dab 08:57, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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There was an election today (5th of december). Johann Schneider Ammann is no longer Federal Council. He was replaced by Karin Keller-Sutter. Doris Leuthard is no longer Federal Council. She was replaced by Viola Amherd. Leandro Zehnder ( talk) 19:18, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Not done for now: per reasons above.
CoolSkittle (
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02:31, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
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Change Doris Leuthard and Johann Schneider Ammann to Karin Keller Sutter and Viola Amherd Leonie Lllll ( talk) 19:29, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Hello, Because of the new year, the composition Federal Council has been changed. However I don't have the privileges to edit the page at the moment, so can someone do it? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:120B:C3EA:3290:1C4B:9FED:CFEC:EBC7 ( talk) 23:49, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
Hello Wikipedia !
On 23 September 2018, Switzerland quietly switched to Permanent DST without public's knowledge, I noticed that when traveling by train and saw that the train was 1-Hour ahead of the clock on my personal device (my device shown 6:18 PM and the train shown 7:18 PM), meaning that personal devices are off by 1-Hour since that day, some stations are still using Winter Time as though big stations (I.e Geneva, Lausanne, etc...) all show Permanent DST (UTC+02:00), this change is noticeable across Switzerland (sometimes the PID (Passenger Information Displays) are turned off so it's unnoticeable).
I suggest that the Wikipedia page be updated and UTC+01:00 be removed off of Switzerland as currently CH is on UTC+02:00 this might be because Switzerland's Capital is directly on the theoretical +02:00 Timezone and not on the theoretical +01:00 Timezone, which is understandable to switch to +02:00 instead of being on +01:00.
We might dive deep more into the hows and whys of this Timezone disparity and discuss it more.
Unfortunately, there hasn't been any news articles, no announcement from the government and you can only see that for yourself, by the way, the SBB CFF FFS (passenger, not Cargo) belongs to the Swiss Government, so they have insight.
Jeremy974 US ( talk) 14:35, 15 January 2019 (UTC)Jeremy974_US
Switzerland has a major issue with drug addiction .Fact. google "swissinfo" (official Swiss tv and online media) and "cocaine use". Cocaine consumption is high by world and european standard (in fact 5 cities in CH are among Europe's top 10)..Sad!..This fact needs to be mentionned in healthcare or crime. Not a word about CRIMINALITY in general either!... 66.87.85.105 ( talk) 04:21, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
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africans be like 198.100.147.118 ( talk) 18:14, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
There are anywhere from 2.3 to 3.4 million privately held arms in Switzerland: https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/switzerland
The number of soldiers in the Swiss military is only 160k: https://www.vbs.admin.ch/fr/ddps/faits-chiffres/armee.html
That means at best, only 160k guns on Switzerland are military-issued. Therefore to claim that most guns in Switzerland have to do with military duty is just wrong.
Only militia-issued ammo is banned from private possession. To acquire ammo from a gun shop to keep at home only requires a criminal records extract not older than 3 months, or a weapons acquistion permit not older than 2 years IF asked by the seller. See the article on Swiss gun laws on the wiki for more information.
Gun ownership is a statutory right under article 3 of the 1997 Weapons act: http://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/19983208/index.html
I quote: "Art. 3 Recht auf Waffenerwerb, Waffenbesitz und Waffentragen: Das Recht auf Waffenerwerb, Waffenbesitz und Waffentragen ist im Rahmen dieses Gesetzes gewährleistet." (The right to acquire, possess and carry arms is guaranteed in the framework of this law.)
It being a statutory right can be seen in the laws in the sense that you do not need to provide a reason or any sort of justification to obtain a waffenerwerbsschein. You also do not need to go through training, any sort of tests, evaluations, interviews, or any inspections to obtain the permit. The waffenerwerbsschein is shall-issue, meaning that if you have a clean criminal record, the police is obligated to issue the permit. It cannot use discretion, and thus all these circumstances make it much different than gun laws elsewhere in Europe. Abatementyogin ( talk) 22:05, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
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Emmentaler is the cheese, Emmental is the place (valley). 93.62.207.138 ( talk) 08:32, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Currently the article contains the sentence
Swiss neutrality has been questioned at times
this is a clear violation of WP:WEASEL and it does not even make any sense, please expand what this is supposed to mean and read up on what Swiss neutrality really means, namely not entering wars on either side: "Switzerland is not to be involved in armed conflicts between other states". So first, if there is criticism, I suggest to first include this into the corresponding article and expand there. I will remove the above sentence unless there is a good argument for keeping it and somebody can expand it to make sense for the reader. -- hroest 17:50, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Regards, Swiss romulus ( talk) 02:31, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
Switzerland is ranked as having one of the most powerful economies in the world
That sentence meets WP:Weasel IMO and should be tagged as such. Switzerland is not even among the top 20 countries by GDP size (see G-20) but it certainly punches above its weight (I heard it is the ninth "financial power" however, whatever that means)?
Best. Swiss romulus ( talk) 02:31, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
RedObviouseWeLikeOurApplesLikeInSnowWhiteOriginalMostOscarizedAutorVersion — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.218.29.202 ( talk) 01:59, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
And why is not Rod Laver the most successful tennis player. He won the Grand Slam two times, Roger Federer 0 times He won the Davis Cup 5 times, Roger Federer 1 time Really, this statement about Roger Federer is clearly POV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nulli ( talk) 02:13, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Given what happened afterwards, invoking an old October 2019 estimate as a meaningful update for the 2020 GDP is a nonsense. Sapphorain ( talk) 15:50, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
Given what happened afterwards, invoking an old October 2019 estimate as a meaningful update for the 2020 GDP is a nonsense. Sapphorain ( talk) 15:50, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
It seems 2 editors have a problem with my edits. Unfortunately, user:ZH8000 has added NEW edits while undoing mine. So i had no choice but to revert the WHOLE thing...I have not looked at the seriousness of his other edits (so I did not mean to revert it ALL at once).
Regarding the source of disputed edit (by ZH8000 only), it is stated in both articles cited (one is Russia Today and the other is a local Swiss newspaper) that London-based Tax Justice Network is the PRIMARY source of this report. I don't know about HIS agenda but ours is CLEAR ( WP:fact and WP:Verifiabilty). Swiss romulus ( talk) 04:09, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
Swiss banks have served as safe havens for the wealth of dictators, despots, mobsters, arms dealers, corrupt officials, and tax cheats of all kinds. [1] [2] [3] [4]
As of 2019, key criminal probes involving Swiss banks were the Petrobras bribery case, the Mozambique "tuna bonds", Credit Suisse "spygate" affair, Raiffeisen insider trading and UBS tax evasion in France. [5]
If you prefer, I can replace it with above quotes. Up to you. Swiss romulus ( talk) 05:05, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
@ Swiss Romulus: To answer one of your first points, ZH8000 is a self appointed arbiter of what may or may not appear in any article on Switzerland. In particular he will not allow anything that is remotely critical of anything Swiss to stand. He is also a self appointed arbiter of the English used in such articles (even though he has severe competancy issues on that subject), hammering in his idea of English rather than the actual language's grammatical rules (in fact: many of his edits and posts are an obvious machine translation).
Finally, ZH8000 will use Wikipedia policy to hammer any other editor attempting to alter hi preferred version of an article while completely ignoring all policy himself (notably WP:OWNERSHIP. His claim that "According the WP:BRD rule, the reverted editor has to justify his disputed change on the talk page without reverting", is nonsense. WP:BRD is neither a rule nor Wikipedia editing policy. It is only an essay which states clearly at the top "This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community". In other words: you cannot be sanctioned for ignoring it (though you can be if you violate WP:3RR). 86.130.28.42 ( talk) 13:37, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
References
@ Hannes Rost: Editor DonSpencer1 is rolling back all info about connection to illegal activities in banking in Switzerland. It's all well sourced info.
We agreed to keep details in sub-articles as long as it doesn't get deleted there, 99.203.25.117 ( talk) 23:02, 23 April 2020 (UTC)