Editing Languages of Switzerland (section)

===French===
[[File:Arpitan francoprovencal map.jpg|right|thumb|300 px|[[Arpitan]] language area map with place names in Arpitan and historic political divisions]]
{{Main article|Swiss French|Suisse romande}}

[[Romandy]] ({{langx|fr|Romandie, la Suisse romande}}, {{langx|de|Romandie, Welschland, Welschschweiz, or in some contexts: Westschweiz}},{{efn|name=Welsch|"[[Walha|Welsch]]" is an old German word for "Foreign" and is the same word the [[Anglo-Saxons]] used for the original British inhabitants which today are the [[Welsh people]].{{Citation needed|date=January 2009}}}} {{langx|it|Svizzera romanda}}) is the French-speaking part of [[Switzerland]]. It covers the area of the [[cantons of Switzerland|cantons]] of [[Canton of Geneva|Geneva]], [[Canton of Vaud|Vaud]], [[Canton of Neuchâtel|Neuchâtel]], and [[Canton of Jura|Jura]] as well as the French-speaking parts of the cantons of [[Canton of Bern|Bern]] (German-speaking majority), [[Canton of Valais|Valais]] (French-speaking majority), and [[Canton of Fribourg|Fribourg]] (French-speaking majority). 1.9 million people (or 24.4% of the Swiss population) live in Romandy.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/themen/01/02/blank/data/01.Document.67224.xls |format=XLS |title=Bilan de la population résidante permanente (total) selon les districts et les communes |date=2 January 2015 |publisher=Swiss Federal Statistical Office |location=Neuchâtel, Switzerland |access-date=24 October 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110806213408/http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/themen/01/02/blank/data/01.Document.67224.xls |archive-date= 6 August 2011 }}</ref>

Standard [[Swiss French]] and the [[Standard French|French]] of [[France]] are highly mutually intelligible, though some differences exist. For example, like most Francophone Belgians, speakers of Swiss French use ''septante'' (seventy) instead of ''soixante-dix'' (literally, "sixty ten") and ''nonante'' (ninety) instead of "quatre-vingt-dix" ("four twenty ten"). In the cantons of [[Vaud]], [[Valais]] and [[Canton of Fribourg|Fribourg]], speakers use ''huitante'' (eighty) instead of "quatre-vingts" (four twenties) used in most of the rest of the [[Francophonie|French-speaking world]]; the cantons of Geneva, Bern and Jura use "quatre-vingts".<ref>{{cite web |author=Dominique Didier |url=http://monsu.desiderio.free.fr/curiosites/septante.html |title=Septante, octante ou huitante, nonante |publisher=Monsu.desiderio.free.fr |access-date=22 October 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|first=Mathieu|last=Avanzi|url=https://francaisdenosregions.com/2017/03/26/comment-dit-on-80-en-belgique-et-en-suisse/|title=Comment dit-on 80 en Belgique et en Suisse ?|website=francaisdenosregions.com|date=26 March 2017|access-date=12 October 2021}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Thibault|first=André|title=Dictionnaire suisse romand : particularités lexicales du français contemporain|publisher=Zoé|others=Pierre Knecht|year=2004|isbn=978-2-88182-870-6|edition=Nouvelle éd. revue et augmentée|location=Carouge (Geneva)|pages=457|language=French|trans-title=Swiss French Dictionary: lexical particularities of contemporary French|chapter=huitante|oclc=828226325|quote=Local. VD, VS, FR ; les autres cantons emploient ''quatre-vingt(s)'', comme en français de référence.|trans-quote=Local. VD, VS, FR; the other cantons use {{lang|fr|quatre-vingt(s)}} like in Standard French.}}</ref> "[[Sou (coin)|Sou]]" is used throughout Romandy for a [[Coins of the Swiss franc|5-centime coin]], as is "tune" (or "thune") when referring to a 5-Swiss-franc piece. Swiss French also uses "déjeuner, dîner, souper" for breakfast, lunch and dinner instead of "petit-déjeuner, déjeuner, dîner" used in France.

Historically, the vernacular language used by inhabitants of most parts of Romandy was [[Franco-Provençal language|Franco-Provençal]]. Franco-Provençal (also called Arpitan) is a language sometimes considered to be halfway between the [[langue d'oïl]] (the historical language of northern France and ancestor of French) and Occitan (the [[langue d'oc]], spoken in southern France). Standard French and Franco-Provençal/Arpitan, linguistically, are distinct and mutual intelligibility is limited. Increasingly, Franco-Provençal/Arpitan is used only by members of the older generations.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Meune|first= Manuel |date= 18 December 2018|title= From Little Fatherlands to Imagined Protonation: The Discourse on Francoprovençal in the Journal de Genève and the Gazette de Lausanne (1826–1998)
|url= https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/64815|journal= Advances in Discourse Analysis|pages= |doi= 10.5772/intechopen.81502|access-date=7 March 2024|doi-access= free|isbn= 978-1-78985-757-3 }}
</ref> In parts of Jura [[Franc-Comtois]] dialects are also spoken; these belong to the same [[Oïl]] bloc as Standard French.

The term ''Romandy'' does not formally exist in the political system, but is used to distinguish and unify the French-speaking population of Switzerland. The [[television]] channel [[Télévision Suisse Romande]] (TSR) served the ''Romande'' community across Switzerland and worldwide through [[TV5Monde]] until it was merged with the [[Radio Suisse Romande]] (RSR) and renamed [[Radio Télévision Suisse|RTS]] (Radio Télévision Suisse) in 2010.