Category talk:Swiss-German people

This category was nominated for deletion on 17 August 2022. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

Switzerland Category‑class

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Swiss German people are not ethnic German[edit]

Please do not add Category:Ethnic German people to this page, even though HotCat may suggest it.

Swiss German people do not identify themselves as ethnic German. In fact, most would strongly object to being indentified as ethnic German. Being identified as ethnic German feels as wrong to us as being identified as ethnic English would feel to English-speaking U.S. citizens.

This self-perception of Swiss German people is corroborated by the article Germans and the sources quoted therein, for instance Jeffrey E. Cole (ed.): Ethnic Groups of Europe. An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California, 2011. Of course, the prove of burden is really the other way round: If someone wanted to make the claim that Swiss German people are ethnic German, they would have to find WP:SOURCES for such a preposterous claim. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 21:11, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

These are subjective expressions. Swiss is not an ethnicity. If you do not accept the name of this category it should be renamed to something like "Category:Swedish-speaking Finns". Regards. --Esc2003 (talk) 14:35, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is not a subjective expression because I have provided WP:SOURCES, even though the burden of proof is really on your side.

The thing is that, while Swiss is not an ethnicity, German is not an ethnicity either. It can either refer to the language or to Germany. With regard to the language, speaking of ethnicity makes no sense at all. With regard to Germany, you might perhaps want to speak of ethnicity, though I guess most Germans would object to that. Swiss German very clearly refers to German in the former sense with regard to the language. It is definitly not the intersection of Swiss people and ethnic German people. There is indeed already another category for that intersection, if you will, namely Category:Swiss people of German descent. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 15:14, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]