What Should Be Born in Mind Regarding Swiss French
In Switzerland, French is spoken by 1.5 million people as their native language; they are 20 percent of the population. They live in the officially French-speaking cantons of Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel and Jura, as well as in the francophone parts of the bilingual cantons of Valais, Fribourg and Berne. This region is called Romandy. Some differences from the standard French are noticeable in the pronunciation and in the vocabulary. Because of this, the use of Swiss native speakers is recommended for the purpose of translation.
The differences are particularly apparent in everyday life in the case of numerals: Here instead of soixante-dix (70), quatre-vingts (80) and quatre-vingt-dix (90) they are called septante, huitante and nonante. Some of the terms in Switzerland come from the so-called Patois, a nearly extinct Franco-Provençal tongue that had been diffused in western Switzerland until the 18th century and was superseded by the French. Other words are Germanisms that are heavily used along the language boundaries in particular.
