Confœderatio Helvetica William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 6-3-20

The Swiss use the abbreviation “CH” on their coins and license plates and such. It stands for Confœderatio Helvetica in Latin. The Helvetii is what the Romans called the tribes that lived in what is now Switzerland. The Swiss have German, French, Italian and Romansh as official languages and they reference the nation as Schwiz, Suisse, Svizzera and Svizra respectively. Picking a lable based on one of those terms would have set most noses out of joint there

Confœderatio Helvetica William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 6-3-20
Confœderatio Helvetica William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 6-3-20

One thought on “Confœderatio Helvetica William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 6-3-20”

  1. “Picking a lable (sic) based on one of those terms would have set most noses out of joint there.”
    Though it must have been a Suisse who came up with it, because “CH” is also the abbreviation in French: “Confederation Helvetique”.

    A linguistic tangent….a historical German name for Switzerland is “die Schweizer Eidgenossenschaft,” “the Swiss confederation.” Literally “Eidgenossenschaft” means “comrades” or “companions of an oath”-“Eid” (“ei” is a long I in German). The Huguenots get their name from the French attempt to pronounce the German name.

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