Bivio – Europe's greatest linguistic curiosity

Italian on Tuesday, Surmiran on Thursday



Bivio's population barely scrapes 200, not counting the handful of foreigners who live there. Yet the inhabitants speak three languages and several dialects of each. A quarter speak the official language, Italian, one fifth speak Romansch, while the majority speak some variety of German. Amazingly, they all seem to understand one another. At the grocer's, everyone speaks their mother tongue, and everyone gets the right change.


Bivio means bifurcation or parting of the ways. It was here that Roman legions rested their horses between two great alpine passes, the Julier and the Septimer. At an altitude of 1,932m, Bivio has always been a meeting place, and it has always been isolated. That could explain why it's a relic of a multilingualism that linguists consider was the norm for most of human history. But its days of relichood may be numbered. The proportion of Swiss German speakers in the village is creeping up, and starting in 2012, English will be taught in the primary school. So if you're curious about how we used to be, now's the time to go. Just leave your Globish at home.