Swiss Italian
Italiano svizzero
Spoken in	Switzerland, northern Italy
Total speakers	0.5 million
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Western Italo-Dalmatian Italian Swiss Italian
Official status
Official language in	Switzerland (as Italian)
Regulated by
Language codes
ISO 639-1	None
ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3	–
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Swiss Italian is the name given to the idiom spoken by about 500,000 Swiss in the canton of Ticino and in the southern part of Graubünden.

Despite being very similar to standard Italian, Swiss Italian presents some differences to the Italian spoken in Italy due to the presence of French and German from which it assimilates words. A clear example would be the driving licence. In standard Italian it is called "patente di guida" while in Swiss Italian it becomes "Licenza di condurre", from the French "Permis de conduire". Another example is the interurban bus. In standard Italian it would be "autobus" or "corriera" while in Swiss Italian it is the "Autopostale" (because nearly all interurban lines are run by the Swiss Post).

The Lombard language often predominate in older generations and in rural areas, and unlike in parts of Italy there is no social stigma attached to them. Ticinese is the largest of these. These are further subdivided into local variations, with the northern valleys speaking a dialect more closely aligned with Romansh, Switzerland's fourth official language. There is a certain amount of popular literature (poems, comedies, etc.) in Ticinese, and the national radio and sometimes televisions transmit program in Ticinese (mainly comedies).

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

[edit] See also

• Ticinese
• Swiss German
• Swiss French
• Languages of Switzerland

[edit] External links

• (Italian) Differences between Italian and Swiss Italian