Department of Languages and Literatures

Context:

Equatorial Guinea is a small country in Central Africa with a population of approximately 2 million. It was a Spanish colony until just under 60 years ago (1968) and is today, except for Western Sahara, the only officially Spanish-speaking country in Africa. Since the first dictatorship in the 1970s, there have been large waves of emigration due to political circumstances. Starting in the 1980s and especially in the 1990s, the reasons for emigration became more diverse: politics, studies and continuing education, health, and family reunification. To this day, the primary destination country remains Spain, where there are currently just over 23,000 residents born in Equatorial Guinea (INE, 2022; Schlumpf, 2021, 2022).

In Switzerland, Spanish-speaking communities make up a significant portion of the non-Swiss population. According to data from the Federal Statistical Office, Spain is the country of origin with the largest number of residents (approximately 4% of the population), followed by Colombia and Peru (FSO, 2024). In comparison, the number of people from Equatorial Guinea is extremely small. According to the latest data from the Federal Statistical Office, in 2024 there were 63 people with Equatoguinean citizenship and 165 people born in Equatorial Guinea residing in Switzerland, the majority of whom lived in French-speaking Switzerland. Economic reasons appear to be a key factor in settling in Switzerland: Wages are significantly higher, particularly when compared to Spain, and Geneva in particular offers potential job opportunities in the diplomatic sector (the Equatoguinean Embassy is also located there).

References:

Bundesamt für Statistik (BFS) (2024): «Ständige und nichtständige Wohnbevölkerung nach Kanton, Staatsangehörigkeit, Geburtsstaat, Geschlecht und Zivilstand, 2024», https://www.pxweb.bfs.admin.ch/pxweb/de/px-x-0103010000_424/px-x-0103010000_424/px-x-0103010000_424.px (Access: 24.07.2026).

Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) (2022): «Principales series de población desde 1998», https://www.ine.es/dynt3/inebase/es/index.htm?type=pcaxis&path=/t20/e245/p08/&file=pcaxis&dh=0&capsel=1 (Access: 24.07.2026).

Schlumpf, Sandra (2021): «Spanisch in Afrika/Afrika in Spanien. Sprachliche Charakteristika von Spanischsprecherinnen und Spanischsprechern aus Äquatorialguinea in Madrid», Romanistisches Jahrbuch 72:1, pp. 339-387, https://edoc.unibas.ch/85496/. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/roja-2021-0016.

Schlumpf, Sandra (2022): Voces de una comunidad africana poco visible: los guineoecuatorianos en Madrid. Madrid: Diwan Mayrit.

Research Project:

This research project falls within the field of sociolinguistics and focuses primarily on the following areas of research: Language and Migration, Language Contacts, Language Attitudes, Language Ideologies, and Spanish in Africa. The goal of the project is to obtain a broad overview of the Equatoguinean community in Switzerland: its current distribution within the country (particularly a comparison between French-speaking and German-speaking Switzerland); their migration histories; and their language biographies. Of particular interest are topics such as language contact, linguistic repertoires, language behavior, the functions and values of the languages of Equatorial Guinea and Switzerland (language attitudes and language ideologies), relationships with the country of origin, and transnational migration movements and connections.

Research Methods:

The primary method of data collection is semi-structured guideline interviews (life-story interviews). These are combined with a sociolinguistic questionnaire, a language portrait of the participants, and a narrative task. The research will be conducted with Equatoguineans living in Switzerland (whether they hold Equatoguinean nationality or not; whether they were born in Equatorial Guinea or not) in different parts of the country, divided between French-speaking Switzerland and German-speaking Switzerland.

Connection to Previous Research Projects on Equatorial Guinea:

The project on the Equatoguinean community in Switzerland builds on two previous projects by the same Principal Investigator on Equatorial Guinea:

1.    Habilitation Project S. Schlumpf-Thurnherr (concluded in 2024): Dialect contacts in contexts of migration. The case of the Equatoguinean immigrants in Madrid, Spain (https://universe.unibas.ch/projects-collaborations/7197)

2.    SNSF Project (concluded in 2025): Improving the visibility of Equatorial Guinea as a Spanish-speaking country (https://universe.unibas.ch/projects-collaborations/8215; https://data.snf.ch/grants/grant/192228)

The project will thus provide an ideal opportunity to expand our understanding of Equatorial Guinea’s positioning in terms of language policy and its sociolinguistic context. In addition to describing the linguistic situation in the country of origin and in Spain—the most important destination for migrants from Equatorial Guinea—(see previous research projects), Switzerland offers a complementary perspective. Multilingualism in Switzerland brings Equatoguineans into contact with various languages, one of which is also gaining importance in Equatorial Guinea itself as a second official language and is, moreover, a Romance language related to Spanish: French. German, on the other hand, is generally not part of the linguistic repertoire of Equatoguineans. The role of Spanish in Switzerland is also significantly different from that in Equatorial Guinea and Spain, particularly since it has no official status in the country, even though the Spanish-speaking population in Switzerland is very large.