Swiss French

French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, the others being German, Italian, and Romansch.

The differences between the French of Switzerland and of France are mostly lexical, influenced by local substrate 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/.

Swiss French is characterized by some terms adopted from Arpitan, which was formerly spoken widely across the alpine communities of Romandy, but has far fewer speakers today.

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 different cantons of Switzerland.