Name of Switzerland

The English name of ''Switzerland'' is a compound containing ''Switzer'', an obsolete term for the Swiss, which was in use during the 16th to 19th centuries. The English adjective ''Swiss'' is a loan from French ', also in use since the 16th century.

The name ''Switzer'' is from the Alemannic ', in origin an inhabitant of ''Schwyz'' and its associated territory, one of the Waldstätten cantons which formed the nucleus of the Old Swiss Confederacy. The name originates as an exonym, applied ''pars pro toto'' to the troops of the Confederacy. The Swiss themselves began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for "Confederates", '' Eidgenossen'' ("oath-fellows"), used
since the 14th century.

The Swiss German name of the country is homophonous to that of the canton and the settlement, but distinguished by the use of the definite article (' for the Confederation, but simply ' for the canton and the town).

Schwyz

The toponym ''Schwyz'' itself is first attested in 972, as ''villa Suittes''. Its etymology is uncertain, it may be either derived from a Germanic name in ''*swiþ-'' ‘strength’ or from either a Germanic (''*swint-'') or Celtic (''*sveit-'') word for "clearing".A summary of the history of suggestions until 1970 is given in Viktor Weibel, “Suittes - Schwyz - Schweiz: Geschichte und Deutung des Namens Schwyz”, ''Mitteilungen des historischen Vereins des Kantons Schwyz'' 65 (1972). See also ''Lexikon der schweizerischen Gemeindenamen'', Frauenfeld 2005, 819-20. The name is recorded as ''Schwitz'' in the 13th century, and in the 17th to 18th century often as ''Schweitz''. The spelling of ''y'' for originates as a ligature '' ij'' in 15th-century handwriting.

The Swiss chroniclers of the 15th and 16th centuries present a legendary eponymous founder, one ''Suit'' (''Swit, Schwyt, Switer''), leader of a population migrating from Sweden due to a famine. Suit is said to have defeated his brother ''Scheijo'' (or ''Scheyg'') in single combat in a dispute over leadership of the new settlement.
Petermann Etterlin (fl. 1470s, printed 1507).Etterlin's account is supposedly based on a "common Swiss chronicle" (''Gesta Suitensium'', ''gemeine Schwyzerchronik'' also reflected in the White Book of Sarnen and later by Aegidius Tschudi (''Die Geschichte der Ostfriesen, Swedier und andre, so mit jnen gereisset, vnd wie Switer dem Lande den Namen Swiz gegeben''). Etterlin presents the three Waldstätte as representing three different stocks or races, the people of Schwyz as the most recent immigrants (from Sweden), the people of Uri representing the original "Goths and Huns", and the people of Unterwalden representing " the Romans".
Vetter, ''Ueber die Sage von der Herkunft der Schwyzer und Oberhasler aus Schweden und Friesland'', 1877
p. 10

Use of ''Switzer, Switenses, Swicenses'' for troops raised by the Confederacy as a whole, as it were pars pro toto because of the prominence of Schwyz in the early history of the Confederacy, is in use as an exonym from the later 14th century.
The development of the Standard German diphthong ''ei'' reflects this early adoption. 16th-century French spelling was variously ''Soisses, Suysses, Souyces'', adopted as ''Swiss'' in English. Early Italian spellings include ''Sviceri, Suyzeri''; the modern Italian form ''Svizzeri'' is already used by Niccolò Machiavelli in 1515. Use of ''Schwytzerland'' for the territory of the Confederacy (as opposed to just the territory of Schwyz) develops in the early 16th century, but ''Schweiz'' as an endonym enters wider usage only in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, and then in competition with ''Helvetia''.
Johan Jakob Leu in his ''Allgemeine Helvetische Eydgenössische oder Schweitzerische Lexicon'' (20 vols., 1747–1765; viz. using the three alternative names alongside one another in the title of his work) criticized the use of "Schweiz" for the Confederacy as confusing, arguing it should properly only be used to refer to the territory of Schwyz.
Only in the second half of the 19th century did ''Schweiz'' become the dominant or unmarked name for the country only after the formation of the federal state in 1848, and from this time was increasingly also used to refer to the state (officially called ''Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft'' in the constitution of 1848).

Eidgenossenschaft

The original name for the Old Swiss Confederacy was ''Eidgenossenschaft'' "oath-fellowship", ''Schwyz'' being just one of the participating Lieus or ''Orte'' (see ''Waldstätte''). The term has never fallen out of use when referring to the Swiss Confederacy (as opposed to the territory). ''Eidgenossen'' translates the Latin ''conspirati'' of the Federal Charter of 1291, and the German term ''Eidgenossen'' is used in the pact of 1351 between Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden and the cities of Lucerne and Zürich.

Attestation of the abstract noun ''Eidgenossenschaft'' is somewhat younger, recorded in the ''Pfaffenbrief'' of 1370 (as ''unser Eydgnosschaft'' "our oath-fellowship"). In the Holy Roman Empire, emperor Charles IV outlawed any such ''conjurationes, confederationes,'' and ''conspirationes'' in his Golden Bull of 1356.

Albrecht von Bonstetten (1479) called the Swiss Confederacy ''Superioris Germaniae Confoederatio'', i.e. "Confederation of Upper Germany". This was translated into German in 1480 as ''Obertütscheit Eidgnosschaft''.

In Early New High German, the word ''eidgnoßschaft'' was often simplified to ''eidgnoschaft''. In early modern Swiss usage, ''Eidgenossenschaft'' was used without geographic qualifier, but in the 16th century it was often the epithet ''loblich'' "praiseworthy", as ''lobliche eidgnoschaft''.

Helvetia

The Old Swiss Confederacy of the early modern period was often called ''Helvetia'' or ''Republica Helvetiorum'' ("Republic of the Helvetians") in learned humanist Latin. The Latin name is ultimately derived from the name of the ''Helvetii'', the Gaulish tribe living on the Swiss plateau in the Roman era.
The allegory ''Helvetia'' makes her appearance in 1672.

The official Latin name ''Confoederatio Helvetica'' was introduced gradually after the formation of the federal state in 1848.
It appears on coins of the Swiss franc from 1879, and was inscribed on the Federal Palace in 1902. It was used in the official seal from 1948. The abbreviation ''CH'' was first introduced in 1909, as international vehicle registration code, and in 1974, it was assigned as ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code for Switzerland.

Notes

References

See also

* Languages of Switzerland#Latin
* .ch

{{Portal bar, Language, Switzerland
Name
Switzerland