Swiss Italian | |
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Italiano svizzero (Italian) | |
![]() An old sign in Faido printed in Italian text | |
Native to | Switzerland |
Ethnicity | Swiss |
Native speakers | 720,000 (2019 census)[1] L2: 2 million[2] |
Official status | |
Official language in | Switzerland |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
Glottolog | None |
![]() A map showing the Italian-speaking areas of Switzerland: the two different shades of blue denote the two cantons where Italian is an official language; dark blue shows areas where Italian is spoken by the majority of the population. |
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The Italian language in 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]
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.
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was invoked but never defined (see the help page).