Basel: Language, Border and Identity

Language, Border and Identity — a part of the book Basel as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos.

Language, Border and Identity

Part J turns from institutions and markets to a subject that rarely appears in the statistics of a financial centre, although it shapes almost every transaction that takes place in it. A financial centre lives on trust, which is created, expressed and tested in language. Clients choose an adviser whose language they understand in every nuance. Contracts are drafted in a language whose legal terms carry the weight of a particular legal order, while employers recruit from a labour market whose boundaries are drawn as much by language as by borders. Basel occupies an unusual position in this respect. This German-speaking city on the border of France and Germany speaks a dialect that differs from those of the rest of German-speaking Switzerland. At the same time, it hosts institutions whose daily working language is English.¹

Language also contributes to what political scientists call soft power, meaning the capacity of a place to attract people, capital and ideas by the appeal of its culture and its institutions. Discretion, the virtue that Part C traced back to the patrician families of the Daig, has a linguistic dimension: the understatement of Basel speech and the code of what may be said in public belong to the same culture as the modest façades of the patrician houses. A city whose elites speak a dialect that outsiders understand only with effort also possesses, whether it wishes to or not, an instrument of social distinction. The chapters of this part examine how these linguistic and cultural factors support, and sometimes hinder, the role of Basel as an international financial centre.²

The five chapters of Part J follow the languages of the region from the inside outwards. Chapter I examines German in its three Basel forms: Swiss Standard German, the Swiss German dialects and the city dialect Baseldytsch, together with the legal framework of language use and the consequences for courts, contracts and the labour market. Chapter II turns to French and to the Alsatian neighbour, whose own Alemannic dialect is retreating before French. Chapter III describes English as the working language of the pharmaceutical groups, the Bank for International Settlements and the international academic life of the city. Chapter IV draws practical conclusions for multilingual contract drafting, a field in which the author, who works in German, English, French and Greek, has long practised. Chapter V closes the part with culture as soft power, from the museums and foundations of Basel to the tradition of patronage that has made the city a magnet for collectors.

Notes

On language as a factor of trust and transaction costs in international finance, see the economic literature on language and trade, e.g. Melitz, "Language and Foreign Trade", European Economic Review 52 (2008), and the literature on the role of cultural proximity in cross-border banking. To be verified. ↩
On the concept of soft power, see Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, New York 2004. On the culture of discretion of the Basel patriciate, see Part C, Chapter II. ↩

About the book

This part belongs to Basel as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos, published here in full, section by section.