Map of Ticino districts. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The southernmost canton of Switzerland is Ticino. It has 8 districts and borders the Canton of Uri (to the north), Valais (to the west), Graubünden (to the northeast) and Italy’s regions of Piedmont and Lombardy to the south (and it has a small Italian exclave, Campione d’Italia).

In Ticino, named after the Ticino river, which flows through it from the Nufenen Pass to Lago Maggiore. Italian is the official language (like in southern sections of Graubünden).

Tisino is split geographically in two parts by the Monte Ceneri pass. The Sopraceneri – in the north – is formed by two major Swiss valleys around Lago aggiore: Valle del Ticino and Valle Maggia. The region around the Lago di Lugano is the southern part, also called Sottoceneri.

Its nickname “Sonnenstube der Schweiz” comes from the 2,300 sunshine hours the canton receives every year, compared to 1,700 for Zurich. But Ticino is also “prone to fierce storms and has the highest level of lightning discharge in the whole of Europe”.

If you are interested in hiking in Ticino, Ti-Sentieri is a very good site to plan your journey.

You can choose to start by one of the valleys, choose an intinerary and check the huts (capanne). On the site Capanneti.ch you can have a look at the different huts available.

Make sure that before your first hike you gather all the information you need, by visiting Ticino-Sentieri , where you can find emergency numbers, the kind of roadsigns you’ll find on your path (segnaletica), the rules of conduct (regole comportamentali), and what to do before you start your hike.

In Ticino you can find about 3,000 kilometres of marked paths and trails. It is a real “playground for outdoor activities” from spring until autumn.

“The choice ranges from relaxing walks along lakeshores to challenging alpine tours, and from artistic and cultural itineraries to gastronomic excursions among vineyards and alpine pastures. The main local tourist offices of Ticino organize as well guided tours of their region. Some of them are free of charge.”

There are hiking itineraries in Bellinzona and upper valleys, the Lago Maggiore and valleys, routes around Lago di Lugano and valleys here, but you can also find very interesting biking itineraries, mountain bike itineraries and, if you prefer, guided excursions. But there are also itineraries for nordic walking,

View of the upper lake from above Brissago, Switzerland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you’re looking for playgrounds for kids, have a look at parchi giochi in Ticino.

On the Ticino/Switzerland site, you can even find a map where to plan and trace your personal itinerary.

But Ticino is not only sports during summer: there is the Film Festival  in Locarno and many more cultural events.

And about the region called “Sottoceneri” (South of the Ceneri), I can recommend the blog expatwithkids. A more general blog about life in Switzerland with also a part about Ticino is  Swissinfo.

You can find some culinary tips here. You can also plan to visit a cheese dairy or a chocolate factory. If you travel with children, there are plenty of family destinations, trips, outings here.

Related articles

• Enjoying Southern Switzerland: Ticino (mw093082.wordpress.com)
• Explore Ticino with Whole Journeys (wholefoodsmarket.com)

Italian in Ticino

Ticino is one of the 26 Swiss cantons and borders the canton of Uri in the north, Valais to the west and Grisons to the northeast. In the south it shares the border with  Italy’s regions of Piedmont and Lombardy. Campione d’Italia is a small Italian exclave in Ticino on the Lago di Lugano (lake Lugano). This region is named after the Ticino river, the largest river in the canton.

(© Wikipedia: Tschubbi)

The Italian spoken in this part of Switzerland is very similar to the standard Italian. But aside from the intonation, there are several differences from the Italian spoken in Italy, due the assimilation of French and German words and expressions. The Canton Ticino is part of Switzerland since the XVI th century but Lugano and Bellinzona became officially the „canton Ticino“ that joined the Swiss Confederation as a full member only in 1803. German and French have highly influenced the language in this territory.

The Italian in Switzerland has for example many words ending in –zione where the Italian would have –mento: isolazione (Swiss Italian), isolamento (Italian). For a sale, Swiss Italian adopts the German word of action, whereas in Italy you would call it “offerta speciale” (special offer).
However, the influence from Swiss German and French can be noticed at several levels of the language. You can find Grazie per non fumare (“Thank you for not smoking”) a direct translation from the French Merci pour ne pas fumer or franchetto, where the –etto is used analogically to the –li (diminutive) of the Swiss German Fränkli („Swiss Frank“). If you book a table in a restaurant, you will use the word riservare and not prenotare like in Italy. If you are standing in a queue or line, you will say that you are in a colonna and not a coda (Italian). And if you order a coffee you would say comandare and not ordinare (Italian), following the French commander; chifer  derives from the Swiss German Gipfeli (Italian: cornetto, French: croissant) and the change would be called ritorno, not resto like in Italian. Also, you would bring your car to a garage (like in French), whereas in Italy you would bring it to the concessionario.

There are also analogies with the North Italian varieties. For example mica is used for negation in sentences like Questo è mica vero  („This is not true“; note the post-verbal position and the absence of „non“). There are also some words, known in the adjacent italian regions, like gabola for guaio (trouble).

Ticinese

The dialect spoken in Ticino is generally called Ticinese. It is the name for the dialects of Westen Lombard spoken in this region.

Compared to the Western Lombard varieties spoken in Italy, the Ticinese is more vital and has a significant number of young speakers and some radio and television programms are in Ticinese.

You can find some examples in these resources:

• The Centro di dialettologia e di etnografia, a cantonal research institution, publishes a dictionary and studies about the Ticinese varieties.

• The Lessico dialettale della Svizzera italiana is a famous dictionary.

• Here and here you can find a few audio samples of some italian dialects of Ticino and some examples of the variety of Luganese.

Italian and Swiss Italian in the Grisons

Italian is spoken also in another region of Switzerland, the Canton Grigioni, Grisons.

Grisons is the only canton of Switzerland with three official languages: German in the northwest (68%), Rumantsch in the Engadin and around Disentis/Mustér (15%), and Italian in the Italian Grisons (10%) with the remaining 7% speaking another language.

(  © wikipedia, Marco Zanoli)

In the Grigione italiano, Western Lombard is spoken in the Valle Mesolcina, Calanca, Bregaglia and Poschiavo (and the village of Maloggia by Sankt Moritz, Pontresina and Bivio).

Here is an example of a poem translated in several Swiss dialects on this site, in Swiss Standard German (1) and in the dialect of Poschiavo (2):

Swiss Italian in Australia

Italian speaking Swiss and Italians setteled in Australia during the 1850s and 1860s in the area around Daylesford and Victoria. These Swiss settlers were from the canton Ticino and the southern part of Graubünden whereas the Italian settlers were mainly from the northern Italian Regions of Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia Romagna, Liguria and Piemonte.

Related articles

• The Swiss German (expatsincebirth.com)
• Multilingual Switzerland (expatsincebirth.com)
• SWISS highlights Canton Grisons customs and cuisine. (linkybird.com)
• The “Suisse romand” (expatsincebirth.com)
• Why “Switzerland”? (expatsincebirth.com)

(© wikipedia, Marco Zanoli)

Switzerland is a multilingual country with four national languages: German, French, Italian and Rumantsch (you can find it transcribed also as Romansh, Romansch, Rhaeto-Romanic or Rhaeto-Romance etc.). But only German, French and Italian maintain equal status as official languages at the national level within the Federal Administration of the Swiss Confederation.

According to the federal census of 2000, 63.7% of the Swiss population speaks German, 20.4% French, 6.5% Italian, 0.5% Rumantsch and 9.0% speaks other languages.

People talk German in the German Region (Deutschschweiz) that would be northern, central and eastern Switzerland. In the Romandie (French Region), in western Switzerland, people speak mainly French, whereas Italian is spoken in the Svizzera Italiana, the Italian Region in southern Switzerland. Rumantsch is the native language of the population in Graubünden (Grisons) in southeastern Switzerland.

The cantons of Fribourg, Bern and Valais are officially bilingual (French-German), whereas Graubünden is officially trilingual (Rumantsch-German-Italian).

Why is Switzerland multilingual?

The Swiss do not form a single ethnic group, they are a confederation (Confoederatio Helvetica: CH).

Historically, the Swiss derive from an amalgamation of Gaulish or Gallo-Roman, Alemannic and Raetic stock.

In the German speaking region (Deutschschweiz) we find the Alemannic German, historically amalgamated from the Gallo-Roman population and the Alemannii and Burgundii, including subgroups like the Walser. The term „Swiss“ from the 16th and 18th centuries referred to this group exclusively and only with the expansion of the Swiss confederation following the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) the term was applied to non-Alemannic territories. Closely related German speaking people are the inhabitants of Alsace, Vorarlberg and the Swabians.

In the French speaking region (Romandie) people speak Franco-Provençal dialects. Today these dialects are assimilated to the standard Swiss French and amalgamated from the Gallo-Roman population and Burgundians (the historical Upper Burgundy). These dialects are closely related to the French (especially those of Franche-Comté).

In the Svizzera Italiana, people speak a variety of the Lombard language,Ticinese, partly assimilated to the standard Swiss Italian language, amalgamated from Raetians and Lombards. They are closely related to the Italian regions of Lombardy and Piedmont.

Related articles

• Why “Switzerland”? (expatsincebirth.com)