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Concept
Schwyz
Summary
The town of Schwyz (ʃviːts; Schwytz; Svitto) is the capital of the canton of Schwyz in Switzerland.
The Federal Charter of 1291 or Bundesbrief, the charter that eventually led to the foundation of Switzerland, can be seen at the Bundesbriefmuseum.
The official language of Schwyz is (the Swiss variety of) German, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the Alemannic Swiss German dialect.
The earliest certain record of the name dates to 972, recorded in Medieval Latin as villa Suittes. There are a number of uncertain records dated between 924 and 960, in the form Swites (Suuites) and Switz. The name is recorded as Schwitz in the 13th century, and in the 17th to 18th century often as Schweitz.
The name's etymology is uncertain. It was long presented as derived from the name of an eponymous founder in Swiss legend, one Suito or Switer, an explanation found in Swiss school textbooks until the first half of the 20th century. There is currently no consensus on the name's derivation. Isaac Wake, diplomat of King James VI and I in Bern, suggested in 1625 that the name originated in Sweden, among the Suecia, "who in the time of king [sic] Sigebert made a transmigration out of Suecia and planted themselves in this country". A Germanic etymology was suggested by Gatschet (1867), deriving the name from an Old High German verb suedan "to burn" (referring to slash-and-burn clearing of woodland for habitation). Brandstetter (1871) is critical of Gatschet's suggestion and prefers derivation from an Alemannic personal name in Svid- as it were presenting a scholarly defense of the Suito of the founding legend.
The etymology proposed for the Schweizerisches Idiotikon by Hubschmied (1929) derives the name from a Gallo-Roman *(alpes) suētas, from the Gaulish or Latin word for "pig", via a Romance *suēdes "(mountain, pasture) of pigs" yielding an Alemannic Swītes. Hubschmied distanced himself from this opinion in 1961, preferring an unspecified pre-Roman (or "Etruscan") source.
Official source
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