We've heard quite a lot about how Swiss-Germans are different from the Germans. How about the Swiss-French? Are they very similar to the French or not so - and in what ways? And how are the Swiss-Italians different from or similar to the Italians?

I'm curious and hope to be enlightened. (Or at least entertained.)

My personal experience of the French is that they are much more direct than the Suisse Romand, bordering on rudeness sometimes. Then again, who didn't know that anyway?

I do not think the term "Swiss-Italian" exists in Italian. They are Swiss. (they have working infrastructure and only evade other people's taxes)

as for the swiss-italians vs italians, i don't see a lot of difference, other than the swiss-italians are far more likely to speak passable german (if not very good swiss german) and/or french. culturally they seem to identify with italy to a far greater extent than the swiss-germans do with germany (not that the latter should in any case)

I'm not sure if that's true for all Ticinese, one of our friends is from Lugano and can't stand Italians.

In what ways does your friend think he or she is different from Italians?

Have you ever driven through Ticino to Italy? Did you not see and feel a huge difference? I do every time. From obvious things as road maintenance to pretty much every Italian stereotype. From the cleanliness of a restaurant to business partners' understand of "being on time".

As a Swiss I don't really consider the Genevans very Swiss in many ways, but the Fribourgeois, the Vaudois etc. are as Swiss as it gets in my opinion, and the fact that they speak another language doesn't change anything at all, as they speak French in a very similar way the Bernese speak Swiss-German - slow and with a funny vocabulary & pronunciation.

I noticed the crazy driving on the Italian side and the faded pedestrian crossings.

They are not faded, those are blood stains.

The term indeed DOES exist, even officially. The Broadcasting Corporation in Lugano is the RTSI RadioTelevisione della Svizzera Italiana. The Ticinesi are very similar to those folks in Lombardia, Piemonte and Liguria. They however believe to be better than those in the Italian Republic

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On the other hand, listen to the church tower bells, which have the same distinct sound. Eat out and find out about the commonalities. Look at the architectural styles in villages and towns alike. The other way round, people in places like Bergamo, Como, Varese, Milano and Torino tend to be fairly punctual and the restaurants in these areas tend to be clean. This, even if possibly to a lesser extent also applies to the Emilia Romagna and the Toscana.

The Italian road-network, particularily its highways, generally are fairly well kept, and look at the speed limits in tunnels on the autostrade in Ticino, which are similar to the ones in Italy (20kms higher than north of the San Gottardo.

I am always again amazed how immune you are towards any form of irony.

i have a neuchatelois (?) father in law, most of his family are romandie.
very different from swiss germans. More similar to the french except the french they speak is slower and not as pronounced (as compared to parisians?)

the rostigraben exists, as we travel more to their side than vice versa.
to them the swiss german side resembles some eastern bloc country (no good wine, no good cheese, no good tarte au citron, the last being very true!)

i always think of "Swiss" as mostly the Swiss germans.
Swiss Italians, i know of one. He is 100% italian except he hates pizza!
Swiss Romansch are great, they are again totally separate from all the other swiss. I like the language and their culture, having spent my first few winters in a chalet up in Laax immersed only with romansch folk - they were friendly and very welcoming to me.

i thought i'd post this before wollishofener comes in with his 3 page thesis (edit: gopf! he beat me to it again!)

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be the glitch you want to see in the matrix

Let's not forget that Vaud, Fribourg and Neuchâtel are culturally linked to the Burgundy / Bourgogne, while Geneva is culturally part of the Savoy/Savoie region

And what are the differences between the regions in your view?

a food related anecdote for argus:

so my grandfather in law (neuchatelois via obwalden, married to a montecarlan??)
he had a way to test whether the potential daughter-in-law would be a keeper (he had 4 sons)
bring out the cheese plate, observe her cut a slice of cheese for him, if she cut alot off the rind (along with the cheese) she was deemed not frugal enough and would hence waste all her husband's money! So a bad choice of bride!

not sure if this is a Swiss Romande practice, but to this day i cut very close to the rind

Bourguignons don't steal our jobs whereas Savoyards do.

Not really many, but the Burgundy region has a different language sound from the Savoy and is part of "Middle France" while the Savoy one already is close to the Alpes Maritimes and the Provence. The differences are very slight ones indeed. In case of Neuchâtel and Vaud, important is that Vaud for times was a colony of Berne, and Neuenburg was a Prussian principality, and so, the two had a German influence for a long time. And Fribourg/Freiburg is 35 to 40 % German language.

häääää ? :d

At first I thought about how straight or thin she'd cut it.
(I'd eat the rind whenever possible. Perhaps the Cantonese are thrifty in that way. Or maybe I was dreaming of Peking duck.)