Bosco/Gurin

Geschichte

Bosco/Gurin is a municipality in the district of Vallemaggia in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. The village is near the end of the valley of Bosco Gurin, near the Italian border. Despite the overall prominence of Italian in Ticino, the small municipality of Bosco/Gurin is historically German-speaking.HistoryBosco/Gurin is first mentioned in 1244 as als Buscho de Quarinobis. Until 1934, it was known as Bosco-Vallemaggia, and in German as Gurin.The village was started during Walser migration in the 13th century, with the first settlers arriving in 1244. The area was briefly part of the Canton of Lugano, before the canton was unified with Bellinzona to form Ticino. Up until the 20th century, the village was almost completely isolated, and since then much of the population has emigrated. By 2004, there were only 72 inhabitants left, from a peak of 382 in 1850.Bosco/Gurin was settled in the course of the medieval Walser migration. Today the Walser German dialect is being abandoned in favour of the Italian language, and Italian speakers make up the majority in the village, which today has the fifth highest proportion of German speakers. Given the aforementioned, Bosco/Gurin is the only municipality in Ticino where German is a co-official language.