Terminology planning in a context of constitutional multilingualism

Switzerland, somewhat in contrast to its small size, prides itself on having no less than four official national languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh. The country’s territorial, constitutional and institutional multilingualism has not only given rise to organisational structures and tools for terminology both in the public and the private sector, but also greatly influenced planning and implementation. Within the Federal Administration, terminology work is set up to take into account and cover all four national languages and English, and terminology planning increasingly tends to include not only the actual production and management of terminological data but also its dissemination; interoperability is key to properly transporting terminology to where it is needed and can have a real impact.