8 ms·

Why is this not written in German, I'm afraid to ask?

by shlewis 5mo ago

dackdel 5mo ago
because the brits won the language wars.
- gib444 5mo ago
  And the other wars ;)
dirasieb 5mo ago
english is the lingua franca
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
kuerbel 5mo ago
Why is it not written in French? Or Italian? Or Romansh? Because Switzerland has four official languages and English makes it easier for everyone
- ale42 5mo ago
  Not really. It's because the target audience is more academic/scientific rather than the Swiss population at large. In the latter case, it would be in the local languages. The law is relatively clear for this. English is not accepted in Switzerland as a replacement language for the "local" ones, although many people can speak or at least understand some English.
  - kuerbel 5mo ago
    heavy sigh I'm Swiss. I know. What I meant to say is that German is not the default language in Switzerland.
j7ake 5mo ago
Most researchers in Switzerland are non-Swiss, and many institutes have English as language of business
- lynguist 5mo ago
  Staff nationality of Swiss higher education institutions: - Universities: 55% Swiss, 45% foreign - Universities of applied sciences: 75% Swiss, 25% foreign - Universities of teacher education: 87% Swiss, 13% foreign - Professors: 49% Swiss, 51% foreign - PhDs/scientific collaborators: 30% Swiss, 70% foreign - Professors of ETH Zurich: 31% Swiss, 69% foreign
backscratches 5mo ago
It's a university in a French speaking region for one.
- PetitPrince 5mo ago
  Not quite: it's a collab between both ETHZ (Zürich, German speaking) and EPFL (Lausanne, French speaking). According to the website, the actual hardware is distributed all over the country (including in the Italian part).
arh5451 5mo ago
Because german is hard.
rrgok 5mo ago
Why it has to be german?
- leoh 5mo ago
  What if I told you there’s this thing in 2026 called an LLM that can translate between any two languages with high fidelity for free, and you just clicked a single button in your browser to use it

Why is this not written in German, I'm afraid to ask?

by shlewis 5mo ago

Why is this not written in German, I'm afraid to ask?

dackdel 5mo ago

because the brits won the language wars.

gib444 5mo ago
And the other wars ;)

dirasieb 5mo ago

english is the lingua franca

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

kuerbel 5mo ago

Why is it not written in French? Or Italian? Or Romansh? Because Switzerland has four official languages and English makes it easier for everyone

ale42 5mo ago
Not really. It's because the target audience is more academic/scientific rather than the Swiss population at large. In the latter case, it would be in the local languages. The law is relatively clear for this. English is not accepted in Switzerland as a replacement language for the "local" ones, although many people can speak or at least understand some English.
- kuerbel 5mo ago
  heavy sigh I'm Swiss. I know. What I meant to say is that German is not the default language in Switzerland.

j7ake 5mo ago

Most researchers in Switzerland are non-Swiss, and many institutes have English as language of business

lynguist 5mo ago
Staff nationality of Swiss higher education institutions: - Universities: 55% Swiss, 45% foreign - Universities of applied sciences: 75% Swiss, 25% foreign - Universities of teacher education: 87% Swiss, 13% foreign - Professors: 49% Swiss, 51% foreign - PhDs/scientific collaborators: 30% Swiss, 70% foreign - Professors of ETH Zurich: 31% Swiss, 69% foreign

backscratches 5mo ago

It's a university in a French speaking region for one.

PetitPrince 5mo ago
Not quite: it's a collab between both ETHZ (Zürich, German speaking) and EPFL (Lausanne, French speaking). According to the website, the actual hardware is distributed all over the country (including in the Italian part).

arh5451 5mo ago

Because german is hard.

rrgok 5mo ago

Why it has to be german?

leoh 5mo ago
What if I told you there’s this thing in 2026 called an LLM that can translate between any two languages with high fidelity for free, and you just clicked a single button in your browser to use it