Swiss French

The Swiss French is an umbrella term of the various dialects of the French language and the written and spoken Regional French in Switzerland.

Species

In western Switzerland, the so-called patois are spoken in addition to the currently prevailing standard French. This is to Gallo-Roman language group belonging dialects that differ greatly from today's standard language. To the latter belongs the Frankoprovenzalische, the Langues d' oïl ( which also includes the Standard French part ) and Occitan. Patois was formerly often spoken, but is today regarded as practically extinct. In particular, the older generations maintain this ( regionally different ) languages ​​by local newspapers such as the Valais "Le Nouvel list " or about worship in this language. Of the younger generations Patois is neither spoken nor understood but in general.

While it was originally spoken Franco-Provençal almost throughout the French-speaking Switzerland, a dialect was the northern canton of Neuchâtel, in the French speaking part of Bern, in the Canton of Jura spoken, which belongs to the group of the Langues d' oïl.

Development

The cantons of the French-speaking Switzerland, have been added to the Swiss Confederation (1803 or 1815) as sovereign units, with the exception of Freiburg ( 1481 ), only relatively late. At this time had different influences, including the reformation, the conquest by Bern and the French Revolution, first in the cities, and later already accommodated in the rural areas of the vernacular dialects ( patois ) to an almost complete disappearance (1990 spoke only 2 % of the Francophone population of Switzerland patois ). The Valais French has still held in some communities as Evolène, Savièse or Nendaz, while the Neuchâtel French considered extinct.

Today's Swiss French

On the whole, the Swiss French is the standard French, so the French and French-speaking Swiss ( Romands ) can communicate easily.

Germanisms and archaisms

Despite the strong normalization knows the French spoken in Romandie some - and regional - peculiarities in pronunciation and vocabulary. In addition to originating from the patois archaisms many Germanisms are known, which are increasingly used in particular along linguistic lines ( vattre et père et mère mouttre instead, poutzer instead nettoyer, bacon instead of lard or joke instead blague, are, for example, in the Bernese and Neuchâtel Jura and in the adjoining county of Gruyere frequently used expressions). If bilingual Freiburg French talk to each other, one can often hear German terms. Conversely, sometimes use German in Freiburg French terms.

In Switzerland - as in Belgium and Quebec - the breakfast déjeuner (instead of petit déjeuner ), lunch as a diner (instead déjeuner ) and dinner called souper (rather than diner ).

For the mobile phone Romands often use the specific Swiss expression Natel - an acronym for " National car phone " - instead of the usual portable.

Number words

The number of words seventy and ninety are as in Belgium, in the cantons of Geneva, Vaud, Fribourg, Valais, Neuchâtel and Jura and the Bernese Jura and in the bilingual city of Biel / Bienne as septante or nonante place designated as in France soixante - dix quatre - vingt- dix and. Instead quatre - vingts ( eighty) huitante is used in the cantons of Vaud, Fribourg and Valais.

Français fédéral

As français fédéral ( " Federal French» ) is in the French-speaking pejoratively referred to a French which, although grammatically and syntactically correct, recognizable by the ( Swiss ) German is marked. The name comes from the fact that this is particularly common apply to official texts of the federal administration, most of which were written in German and then translated into French. The Dictionnaire français fédéral suisse romand defines as "the verdeutschte (or even wrong ) French, which is intrinsically texts that are written by the Central Government or of companies with headquarters in the German-speaking Switzerland; it also derived the verdeutschte or false French of Swiss German ( and ultimately the Romands ) ».

The fédéral français is an expression of linguistic interference in multilingual Switzerland, which occurs similarly in the relationship between Swiss German and standard German. It is often the result of a very literal or little attentive translation from German into French, which has the result that the Germans own sentence structure, argumentation or standing twists are taken into French, which persons of French mother tongue strikes unpleasant. Also false friends belong to the translation difficulties that are reflected in the fédéral français. Thus, about " waiting " sometimes wrong with " attendre sur " (instead of " attendre ") translated, or " Protocol " " protocole " with (instead of " procès -verbal ").

The satirist of Romandie use the fédéral français - pidgin- like and always presented with a strong Swiss German accent - like the caricatures of politicians in the German-speaking Switzerland. Indirectly, they thus exercise also criticism of the federal bureaucracy and the disdain of French by the German -speaking majority.