World Translation Center offers professional Swiss German translation services for English to Swiss German and Swiss German to English. We can also translate Swiss German to and from over 130 other languages, including all the principal languages of Europe, Asia, South America, the Middle East and a variety of African languages, at competitive rates.
Our Swiss German experts have the ability to provide translation for virtually any project you might have, including marketing materials, technical, financial, legal and medical documents, websites and software. Our skilled project managers will match your project with a translator team most appropriate for the area of expertise needed. Each individual linguist works exclusively in his or her own mother tongue and within his or her field of expertise guaranteeing not only quality translation, but proper localization at the same time. After each document is translated, it will be edited and proofread by a second professional translator to assure highest possible quality.
We also render transcription, video recording and subtitling services. Should you need to have an existing video dubbed, a commercial narrated or a telephone system recorded, our native Swiss German speakers are available to provide you with expert voiceover services.
We pride ourselves in furnishing quality cost-effective services, whether your project is small or large, simple or highly complex.
Swiss German Information
German is one of the world's major languages and the official language of Germany, Austria, Lichtenstein and Luxembourg, and one of the official languages in Switzerland. German is related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. German is the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union and is generally considered as a global language. Outside of Europe, the largest German-speaking communities can be found in the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and Argentina.
Swiss German Language Facts
Martin Luther's translation of the Bible, which he completed in 1534, marks the beginning of High German. The first dictionary of the Brothers Grimm, the 16 parts that were issued between 1852 and 1860, remains the most comprehensive guide to the words of the German language. In 1860, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the “Duden” Handbook. In 1901, this was declared the standard definition of the German language. Official revisions of some of these rules were not issued until 1998, when the German spelling reform of 1996 was officially promulgated by governmental representatives of all German-speaking countries. Since this reform, German spelling has been in an eight-year transitional period where the reformed spelling is taught in most schools, while traditional and reformed spellings co-exist in the media. Some major newspapers and magazines, as well as several known writers, still refuse to adopt this reform.
The German spelling reform of 1996 led to public controversy. Some state parliaments did not accept it. The dispute landed at one point in the highest court which made a short issue of it, claiming that the states had to decide for themselves and that only in schools could the reform be made the official rule - everybody else could continue writing as they had learned it. After 10 years, without any intervention by the federal parliament, a major yet incomplete revision was installed in 2006. The only sure and easily recognizable symptom of a text being in compliance with the reform is to see -ss at the end of words, like in dass and muss. Classic spelling forbade this ending, instead using daß and muß. The cause of the controversy evolved around the question whether a language is part of the culture which must be preserved or a means of communicating information which has to allow for growth.
The new orthography is only obligatory in schools. According to the decision of July 14, 1998, of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, outside the schools everybody can write as before, because there is no law ruling orthography. The majority of Germans use the traditional German orthography. Therefore it is necessary to differentiate between the new and the traditional orthography when requesting a translation. For example "traditional": Schloßstraße, "new": Schlossstraße, but wrong: Schlossstrasse or Schloßstrasse.
Writing Swiss German
German uses the Latin font with Umlauts plus the letter ß which represents "ss".
The old Sütterlin font was created by the Berlin graphic artist L. Sütterlin (1865-1917), who modeled it on the style of handwriting used in the old German Chancery. It was taught in German schools from 1915 to 1941. Documents written in Sütterlin can be transcribed by World Translation Center.
Sütterlin font