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Swiss Italian

The Italian language in the Italian Switzerland or Swiss Italian (Italian: italiano svizzero, Italian: [itaˈljano ˈzvittsero]) is the variety of the Italian language taught in the Italian-speaking area of Switzerland. While this variety is mainly spoken in the canton of Ticino and in the southern part of Grisons (about 270,000 native speakers), Italian is spoken natively in the whole country by about 700,000 people: Swiss Italians, Italian immigrants and Swiss citizens with Italian citizenship.[3][4]

This article is about the language. For the Swiss Italian people, see Swiss people.

Swiss Italian

720,000 (2019 census)[1]
L2: 2 million[2]

None

The Swiss variety of Italian is distinct from the traditional vernaculars of the Italian-speaking area, which are classified as varieties of the Gallo-Italic Lombard language.

Status and usage[edit]

Italian, as the third Swiss national language, is spoken in Italian-speaking Switzerland (Ticino and the southern part of Grisons). It is an official language both at the federal level and in the two cantons mentioned.


Italian is also one of the most spoken languages in German-speaking Switzerland and is in fact used as an idiom by Italian immigrants and their children, or as a lingua franca between foreign workers of different nationalities, including Portuguese, Spanish, etc.[5]


At the time of post-World War II Italian immigration to Switzerland, Italian was transmitted as a lingua franca in the factory and on construction sites to ethnic groups of foreign workers who subsequently settled in Switzerland. This happened because they were the pre-existing majority linguistic group and the process started with Spanish immigrants, who had a particular ease in learning Italian, even if with inevitable simplification phenomena.[6] Later, Italian was also acquired by populations of other ethnic groups, for example by Greek speakers or from Yugoslavia, encouraged by the greater ease of learning in informal contexts[7] and also by the fact that the knowledge of Italian by German-Swiss and French-Swiss is generally much higher than in Germany or France. Nowadays, the use of Italian as a lingua franca among workers in Switzerland is in decline.[8]


It is not always the same Italian spoken in Italy. If on the one hand it is taken for granted that the use of local minority languages and above all of dialects leads to differences between the various areas, it must be said that in the Swiss Confederation Italian shows such striking peculiarities as to leave clear traces even in the language written and in any case in formal contexts. Moreover, some Helvetisms have recently been included in the dictionaries of the Italian language.[9] Misunderstandings between Italians and Swiss Italians, if due to different meanings of a word, are quite rare, but possible.

Characteristics[edit]

The presence of calques from French and German means that there are some differences in vocabulary between the standard registers of the Italian language used in Italy and Switzerland. An example would be the words for driving licence: in Italy, it is called a patente di guida but in Swiss Italian, it becomes licenza di condurre, from the French permis de conduire. Another example is the interurban bus: in Italy it would be autobus or corriera but in Switzerland, it is the Autopostale or posta.


Another notable difference is the use of the word germanico to refer to German people, instead of tedesco.[10] However, as in Italy, the word tedesco is used to refer to the German language.[11] In Italy, the word germanico is used in the same sense as the word "Germanic" in English, referring, for example, to Germanic languages in general.[12]


Radiotelevisione Svizzera di lingua Italiana is the main Swiss public broadcasting network in the Italian speaking regions of Switzerland. The University of Lugano is the major university of the Italian speaking part of Switzerland.


There are almost no differences in the vowels of Swiss Italian and mainland Italian.

Languages of Switzerland

Italian immigration to Switzerland

Italy–Switzerland relations

Swiss French

Swiss German

Swiss Standard German

Ticinese dialect

(in Italian)

Dizionario dell'italiano ticinese, grigionese e "federale"