Swiss French (French:français de Suisse orsuisse romand) is the variety of French spoken in the French-speaking area ofSwitzerland known asRomandy. French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, the others beingGerman,Italian, andRomansch. In 2020 around 2 million people, or 22.8% of the population, in Switzerland spoke French as their primary language, and 28% of the population used French most often at work.^[1]

The French spoken in Switzerland is very similar to that ofFrance orBelgium. The differences between the French of Switzerland and of France are mostly lexical, influenced by localsubstrate languages. While substantial phonological differences exist, as the French of Switzerland preserves many distinctions lost elsewhere, the phonetic qualities are often quite close, such as with the existence of long vowels or the distinction between /ɛ̃/ and /œ̃/. This contrasts with the differences betweenStandard German andSwiss German, which are largelymutually unintelligible.

Swiss French is characterized by some terms adopted fromArpitan, which was formerly spoken widely across the alpine communities of Romandy, but has far fewer speakers today. In addition, some expressions have been borrowed from both Swiss and Standard German. Although a standard form of French is taught in schools and used in the government, the media and business, there is no uniform vernacular form of French among the differentcantons of Switzerland. For example, some German terms in regions bordering German-speaking communities are completely unused in the area aroundGeneva, a city by France's border with Switzerland.^[2]

• The nasal vowels are pronounced like in France./ɑ̃/ →[ɒ̃],/ɛ̃/ →[æ̃],/ɔ̃/ →[õ]. Conversely, the nasal vowels/ɛ̃/ and/œ̃/ are kept separate in much Swiss French speech, where muchspeech in France has merged them. For example,brin (stalk) andbrun (brown) are still pronounced differently, like in Quebec andBelgium, unlike in Paris.^[3]
• As in Belgium, the distinction between the vowels/ɛ/ and/ɛː/ is maintained in Switzerland, but they have merged in France. For example,mettre (put) andmaître (master) are still pronounced differently, unlike in France.
• The distinction between mid vowels/o/ and/ɔ/ has also been maintained in final open syllables, as well as that between/e/ and/ɛ/. For example,peau (skin) andpot (jar) are still pronounced differently, unlike in France and Quebec. For that reason,entré (entered; past participle of the verbentrer) andentrait (third-person singular ofentrer in the imperfect indicative) are differentiated, just like in Standard French.^[3]
• There is a stronger distinction between long and short vowels in Switzerland:
  • Long vowels are allowed in open syllables, even at the end of a word:⟨ée⟩,⟨aie⟩[eː],⟨ue⟩[yː],⟨ie⟩[iː],⟨oue⟩[uː] and⟨eue⟩[øː]. As a result, almost all feminine adjectives are still phonetically distinct from their masculine counterparts, unlike in France and Quebec.^[3]
  • Speakers also differentiate masculine from feminine adjectives phonetically, including in final closed syllables, although the spelling only partially bears out this occurrence, e.g.mental is pronounced/mɑ̃.tal/, whilst the femininementale is pronounced/mɑ̃.tɑːl/. Otherminimal pairs are similarly differentiated, likeamen andamène (third-person singular in thepresent indicative ofamener, to lead).^[3]
  • The marginal phoneme/ɑ/ is usually pronounced[ɑː], meaningpattes (paws) andpâtes (pasta) are differentiated. Similar to the process described above, thecircumflex also affects vowel length when used above a vowel, meaning⟨î⟩ is pronounced[iː],⟨ê⟩ as[ɛː],⟨û⟩ as[yː],⟨oû⟩ as[uː] and⟨eû⟩[øː].^[3]

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

• French (Swiss) DoReCo corpus compiled by Mathieu Avanzi,Marie-José Béguelin, Gilles Corminboeuf, Federica Diémoz and Laure Anne Johnsen. Audio recordings of narrative texts with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level, translations, and time-aligned morphological annotations.