An interview with a Swiss German speaker, when shown on television in Germany, will require subtitles.

[8] There are a few settings where speaking Standard German is demanded or polite, e.g., in education (but not during breaks in school lessons, where the teachers will speak with students in Swiss German), in multilingual parliaments (the federal parliaments and a few cantonal and municipal ones), in the main news broadcast or in the presence of non-Alemannic speakers.

In the rare cases that Swiss German is heard on TV in Germany and Austria, the speaker is most likely to be dubbed or subtitled.

The main linguistic divisions within Swiss German are those of Low, High and Highest Alemannic, and mutual intelligibility across those groups is almost fully seamless, despite some differences in vocabulary.

In the more urban areas of the Swiss plateau, regional differences are fading due to increasing mobility and to a growing population of non-Alemannic background.

The Walser migration, which took place in the 12th and 13th centuries, spread varieties from upper Valais to the east and south, into Grisons and to modern western Austria and northern Italy.

Informally, a distinction is made between the German-speaking people living in Valais, the Walliser, and those who have migrated, the Walsers.

The latter can mainly be found in Grisons and Ticino in Switzerland, Vorarlberg in Austria, south of the Monte Rosa mountain chain in Italy (e.g. in Issime in Valle d'Aosta), South Tyrol in northern Italy, and the Allgäu in Bavaria).

Generally, the Walser communities were situated on higher alpine regions, so were able to stay independent of the ruling forces of those days, who did not or were not able to oversee them all the time in these hostile environments.

Traditionally, it has been described as a distinction of fortis and lenis in the original sense, that is, distinguished by articulatory strength or tenseness.

In many varieties of Bernese German and adjacent dialects, an /l/ at the syllable coda and intervocalic /lː/ are pronounced as a [w] or [wː] respectively.

[25] Reduplication effects are weaker in the verbs laa 'to let' and afaa 'to start, to begin' than they are in gaa 'to go' and choo 'to come'.

This means that while reduplication is mandatory for laa in declarative main clauses almost everywhere in the country, this is the case for fewer varieties of Swiss German with afaa.

[26] The reason for this is unknown, but it has been hypothesized that the fact that afaa has a separable prefix (a-) might weaken its doubling capacity.

/ I know that she starts eating now.In order to achieve grammaticality in both instances, the reduced doubling part afa would have to be taken out.

While afaa 'to start, to begin' is quite restricted when it comes to reduplication effects, the phenomenon is more permissive, but not mandatory in the verb laa 'to let'.

When the latter two verbs are used in other utterances other than a declarative main clause, where the finite verb traditionally is in second position, their use might not be mandatory; however, it is correct and grammatical to double them both in the past tense and in subordinate clauses: Past tense example with gaa and choo: ErHeischisgogoässeeat-INF(g'gange)(gone)Er isch go ässe (g'gange)He is go eat-INF (gone)He has gone to eat.

Subordinate clause examples for gaa and choo: IchIweissknow-1SGdassthatsieshegaatgoesgogoässeeat-INFIch weiss dass sie gaat go ässeI know-1SG that she goes go eat-INFI know that she'll go eat.

/ I know that she's coming to eat.In subordinate clauses, the reduplicated part is needed as the sentence would otherwise be ungrammatical in both gaa and choo.

Since there is only one past tense in Swiss German and since this is formed using an auxiliary verb – sii 'to be' or haa 'to have', depending on the main verb – reduplication seems to be affected and therefore, less strictly enforced for gaa and choo, while it is completely ungrammatical for afaa and optional for laa respectively.

Questions behave a lot like their declarative counterparts, and reduplication is therefore mandatory for both motion verbs gaa 'to go' and choo 'to come', while laa 'to let' and afaa 'to start, to begin' show weaker doubling effects and more optionality.

/ When is he starting to eat?Just like in declarative forms, afaa could be reduced to a- and thus be considered the detachable prefix.

/ When is he letting her eat?Choo and especially gaa, however, do not allow for their reduced doubling part to be left out in questions, irrespective of the fact whether they are open or close: Choo in open and close questions: ChunntComeserhechocomeässeeat-INFChunnt er cho ässeComes he come eat-INFDoes he come to eat?

/ He's coming to eat.Declarative main clause past tense ErHeischischo/gocome/goässeeat-INFchocome-PTCPEr isch cho/go ässe choHe is come/go eat-INF come-PTCPHe came to eat.

In some analyses, this is described as a multiple reduplication phenomenon in that the reduced infinitives go or cho part is repeated as ge, providing the forms goge and choge.

Glace (ice cream) for example is pronounced /ɡlas/ in French but [ˈɡ̊lasːeː] or [ˈɡ̊lasːə] in many Swiss German dialects.

The dishes müesli, and rösti have become English words, as did loess (fine grain), flysch (sandstone formation), kepi, landammann, kilch, schiffli, and putsch in a political sense.

Certain dialectal words are accepted regionalisms in Swiss Standard German and are also sanctioned by the Duden, e.g., Zvieri (afternoon snack).

The so-called Schwyzertütschi Dialäktschrift was developed by Eugen Dieth, but knowledge of these guidelines is limited mostly to language experts.

Furthermore, the spellings originally proposed by Dieth included some special signs not found on a normal keyboard, such as ⟨ʃ⟩ instead of ⟨sch⟩ for [ʃ] or ⟨ǜ⟩ instead of ⟨ü⟩ for [ʏ].