Italian, as the third Swiss national language, is spoken in Italian-speaking Switzerland (Ticino and the southern part of Grisons).

This happened because they were the pre-existing majority linguistic group and the process started with Spanish immigrants, who had a particular ease in learning Italian, even if with inevitable simplification phenomena.

The presence of calques from French and German means that there are some differences in vocabulary between the standard registers of the Italian language used in Italy and Switzerland.

[12] Radiotelevisione Svizzera di lingua Italiana is the main Swiss public broadcasting network in the Italian speaking regions of Switzerland.

[13] Some examples of Ticinese words that are different from Italian are: There are about 720,000 residents who declare Italian as their main language, partly residing in the Italian-speaking linguistic area located south of the Alps and the rest scattered throughout the rest of the national territory, amounting to around 8.4% of the national population.

By way of example, it should be remembered that Italian, in the Canton of St. Gallen, is chosen as a subject by only 5% of high school students.

In February 2011, the parliament of this German-speaking canton came to have to express itself on the almost total abolition of Italian as a foreign language in high schools.