Switzerland hopes to have yodelling recognised by the United Nations this month to help protect the ancestral sing-song tradition of the Alpine nation's herders and shepherds.

As bound up with the myth of the Swiss mountain idyll as chocolate, Heidi and William Tell, yodelling will be examined for inclusion on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list when the UN culture body convenes from December 8 to 13.

Switzerland currently counts some 12,000 keen yodellers lilting their way through the style's distinctive topsy-turvy up-and-down melodies across 780 yodelling clubs.

Keen yodellers can also be found in the mountains of neighbouring Austria and Germany.

But unlike in 2020, when Switzerland teamed up with France to seek recognition for the Jura region's history of watchmaking, the S

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