Swiss French

The French-speaking part of Switzerland is shown in green on this map.

Map of the Arpitan language area, historical language spoken in Romandy, with place names in arpitan and historic political divisions.

Swiss French (French: français de Suisse) is the variety of French spoken in the French-speaking area of Switzerland known as Romandy. French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, the others being German, Italian, and Romansch. As of 2015, around 2 million people in the country (24.4% of the population) spoke French as their primary language, and around 29.1% of the population has working knowledge of French.^[1]

The French spoken in Switzerland is very similar to that of France or Belgium and has only minor and mostly-lexical differences. That is in contrast to the differences between Standard German and Swiss German, which are so many that mutual unintelligibility can cause both to be considered different languages.

Swiss French is characterized by some terms adopted from the Arpitan language, which was formerly spoken widely across the alpine communities of Romandy but only by a few today. Also, expressions have been borrowed from both Swiss and Standard German. Although Standard French is taught in schools and used in the government, the media and business, there is no uniform vernacular form of French among the different cantons of Switzerland. For example, some German terms in regions bordering German-speaking communities are completely unused in the area around Geneva near the border with France.^[2]

Differences from French of France

Many differences between Swiss French and the French of France are due to the different administrative and political systems between Switzerland and France. Some of the distinctive lexical features are shared with Belgian French (and some also with Quebec French):

• The use of the word septante for seventy and nonante for ninety as opposed to soixante-dix (literally 'sixty-ten') and quatre-vingt-dix (literally 'four twenties-ten') of the "vigesimal" French counting system.
• The use of the word déjeuner for "breakfast" ("lunch" in France, which uses petit déjeuner for "breakfast"), and of the words le dîner and le souper for "lunch" and "dinner" respectively (in French of France, déjeuner and dîner respectively), much like the varying uses of dinner and supper throughout the English-speaking world.

Other examples which are not shared with other varieties of French:

• The word huitante is sometimes used for eighty instead of quatre-vingts (literally 'four twenties'), especially in the cantons of Vaud, Valais and Fribourg; the term octante (from the Latin octaginta) is now considered defunct.
• The word canton has a different meaning in each country; in Switzerland, a canton is a constituent state of the Confederation, but in France, it is a grouping of communes. In Belgium, it is a group of municipalities, but in Quebec, it is a township municipality.
• In France, a post office box is called a boite postale (BP),^[3] but in Switzerland (as in French Canada), it is called a case postale (CP).^[4]
• In colloquial Swiss French, the word natel is used for "mobile phone": "I didn't take my phone" becomes Je n'ai pas pris mon natel. France uses either portable or téléphone.

Examples of words that differ between Switzerland and France

See also

• Demographics of Switzerland
• Linguistic geography of Switzerland
• Swiss German
• Swiss Italian

Notes and references