How Different Are Swiss Italian and Standard Italian? Southern Italian Tries to Understand

[@TabletopWargamer]

You're the only person I've ever found who gives this level of analysis on the Italian language, in English. Your insight as a native Italian speaker and a linguist is invaluable.

[@Xunu22]

I'm Swiss and I understand why some of us, particularly those aged 50 and above, use the term "Natel" for a phone. "Natel" comes from German and stands for "Nationales Autotelefon," which translates to "National Car Phone" in English. The term originated during the early days of mobile phones (70's) in Switzerland, when the devices were large, costly, and often installed in cars. This term was disseminated across all language regions, as at that time, there was a single government-funded company handling all telecommunications in Switzerland, which used this term across the country for their mobile phone services for several decades.

[@TheRavenir]

Yeah, exactly. Among younger Swiss German speakers, saying "Handy" is far more common than "Natel".

[@cantthinkofabettername7016]

@@TheRavenir I'm Swiss italian (30yo) and I used to say natel as a kid. However with smartphones I (and my friends) tends to use more "tel" (short for "telefono") or those who have it usually just say "iPhone".

[@Siegbert85]

I could tell instantly that it must have something to do with a phone simply because of the "-tel"

[@azarias5666]

As a Swiss French speaker, even the teenagers use the word natel for phone quite often (though I'm from Wallis so maybe it could be the fact that our canton is bilingual and usually more conservative than Geneva for example)

[@hrogarfyrninga3238]

@@cantthinkofabettername7016 I'm German Swiss and "Natel" and "Handy" were used interchangeably before smartphones, now I hardly ever hear the former.

[@Echteseele]

fun fact: I came from northern Italy (born and raised 20Km from Swiss border) and also our lombard dialect is basically the same dialect they speak in Ticino. Since in Lombardy dialect is used less and less and it not usually understood by other italians from the centre or the south, it is really strange to me to go to a foreign country and being able to communicate with my dialect

[@lucainTV]

Da comasco, il dialetto ticinese è molto più rozzo/grezzo

[@matteofazio7845]

​​@@lucainTVda ossolano trovo il dialetto ticinese molto più "bauscia" del nostro. C'è anche da dire che tra le valli ossolane i dialetti sono molto diversi tra loro.

[@lucmanzoni6265]

Same experience here. I (lecchese) used to work with a guy from Bellinzona and we use to speak together in Lombard/Ticinese in Canada.

[@Vins9393]

I live in ticino, swiss italian part, and the half of ticino used to be part of duchy of milan. Of course we speak lombard dialect. But the ticinese dialect is the most common one. It is also called "dialetto della ferrovia" (the rail dialect); a dialect mixed among all the dialects from different valleys in the swiss italian parts, spoken by the workers on the rail back in the past. Thus these people had to find a dialect in common or words in common to understand each others. They hadn't gone to school to learn italian and just spoke dialects. So to understand each others they just mixed dialects to create a common one, the standard ticinese dialect or the dialect of the ferrovia (railway). Of course they also created many mixed words still used in our region as zwieback, rolladen, natel(and many come from german cause the railways was and still is a national public firm, of course controlled by the linguistic swiss majority, swiss germans). So when your boss in the railway speaks german and you are "illitterate", you try to adapt by using his own most related words

[@Vins9393]

​@@lucainTVil dialetto ticinese è inventato. Di base è lombardo, dato che per secoli mezzo ticino era ducato di milano. Poi i ticinesi lo hanno "storpiato", creando un dialetto comune. Comunemente chiamato dialetto ticinese o dialetto della ferrovia. Tutti i lavoratori della ferrovia (spesso illetterati, non essendo scolarizzati non sapevano l'italiano) parlavano diversi dialetti delle valli, pertanto ne hanno creato uno nuovo per comprendersi

[@cantthinkofabettername7016]

Many already did, but as a Swiss Italian I also wanted to give my 2 cents here: The Italian that we speak in Switzerland is basically the same as standard Italian (which we learn at school as our mother tongue). Many of the differences / words that were mentioned in this video, with a few exceptions, are just regional "slang" that are used colloquially between other Swiss Italian people. We know most of the differences and we usually omit them with an Italian speaker from Italy or in formal writing. As Metatron mentioned, the text he read was engineered to include a lot of regional words, but we also know and use the standard Italian word for them as well, for example I use more "Bus" than "Posta" when referring to an autobus, and this is why when I go to Italy, especially in the South, most Italian ask me if I'm from Milano since to them my accent just sounds northern and can't really catch anything "Swiss" about it. There are just a few words that I use consistently and just found out when speaking with Italians that they couldn't understand them or were weird to them, just to mention some: other than "ramina", "nota" and "LA meteo" mentioned by metatron, "classatore" (classifier), "comandare" which exists also in standard Italian, but we also use with the meaning of ordering something at a restaurant, while in Italian it exclusively means to give an order (e.g. in the army), "monitore" as instructor, "manopola" as joystick. Probably the biggest differences are present in the bureaucratic terminology, but again, many of the common ones we also either known or we use the standard Italian word in normal speech. For example driving license is called "Patente di Guida" in Italy and "Licenza di condurre" in Switzerland but we also just call it "Patente" informally. On a funny note: There are many Italians that either forget or don't know that we also speak Italian in Switzerland, and many times they congratulated me for my "perfect Italian" after I mention that I'm Swiss, to which I usually reply that I learned it last night :)

[@afz902k]

I'm a Spanish speaker from Mexico and the funny thing to me is I notice a lot of similarities in word usage with Swiss Italian that I haven't noticed in standard Italian. Like "passegiata" meaning school trip, we'd use "paseo" for the same thing which I think must be a cognate. Also "comanda" is a word used by restaurant staff to refer to the collective order for a table, but when ordering we just use "orden" which (as in English) also has a meaning in the military context, which in my case has led to some funny situations. We also commonly add an article when talking about someone we know (e.g. "El Marco"). Also we use "nota" for marks or grades in school although it's a bit of an old-fashioned or formal term. And while we don't use "bochar" (cognate of bocciare, apparently used in other countries though), we use transitive verbs for that as well.

[@cantthinkofabettername7016]

@@afz902k that's very interesting! I didn't know that even if we are so far away we have so many similarities in our languages. Is it the same in spanish spoken in Spain or are these words only used in Mexico?

[@StefenP]

as a Milanese living in the German part of Switzerland, all sounded clear to me. I know the Zwieback as I also eat them for breakfast, Natel is also common in Swiss german... The Bilux and the few other words you learn somehow from some Tessiner here. I must say as Lombard italian It's always tricky to meet a Swiss Italian, since we speak with almost same accent (especially the ppl from Lugano and Sottoceneri) but there is always something you notice doesn't fully match 😀it could fail to Establish a trust. Many Ticinese words are anyway coming from Swiss German. (EG: if I am not wrong they say "la Mappetta" as the Swiss Mäppli)

[@KibyNykraft]

​@@afz902kNorvegese : We use many loanwords in Norway from late medieval latin but with in some cases changed meanings, such as (in our spelling) "kommandere" (Where italians and spanish will have to spell it cummandére if pronouncing it like we do 😊 ). This is to order someone firmly to do something. Also informere, stabilisere, praktisk, operasjon (military operation or a medical surgery), salutere (to fire off old cannon shots on a royal birthday), spankulere (walk around slowly), volve (witch, truthsayer), etc. The icelandic mostly don't have latin loanwords but a few. From modern-day italian we only have the names of certain coffee drinks, like rest of the world, but most norwegians often mess up pronouncing words from most other languages in comical ways.

[@davidbatthews3811]

It is only a small percentage of Swiss who speak Italian as a first language, though? Maybe 6-8%?

[@paleore3539]

Great video as usual! Btw, being Swiss-italian myself I'd like to clarify just a couple of things: About the first word that you encountered, "zibac", I personally never wrote or pronounced it that way. I've always found it written like "Zwiback" (pronounced as "zvibac"), and it's simply the German word for "fette biscottate" ("Zwi-" means "due/bi-" while "-back" means "-cotto", so literally "biscotto/cotto due volte"). We obviously were and still are subject to the German and French influence, and being Swiss-italian an informal dialect, its spelling rules can vary, especially with "foreign" words. Then, about the word "ghette", I must admit that the thought that it wasn't part of the standard Italian vocabulary never crossed my mind. I mean, ghette is an Italian word, but it doesn't mean what we do. To us it refers to "leggings" (I think the proper Italian word would be "collant"), so your first guessing was correct! Moving on, with "posta" or "la posta" we refer to the postal bus (I think in standard Italian could be best translated with "corriera"), which is a special kind of transportation. In fact, while a normal bus will travel through the city and the main districts, the route of a "posta" usually stretches between cities and the countryside/mountains. That's why the kid in the letter went on a "posta", probably because she lives up in the mountains and needed to go to school (in the city). Finally, I just wanted to say that a lot of these words are not used much (usually only by older people), like "natel" or "bilux", so a normal conversation between a Swiss-italian and an Italian would be perfectly clear and comprehensible between the parts! We literally speak standard Italian with just a couple of different words, but that's it.

[@TheRavenir]

So do Swiss Italians also say "telefonino" nowadays rather than "natel"? Because there was a similar shift in Swiss German where we went from saying "Natel" to almost always saying "Handy", which is the word that Germans and Austrians also use.

[@paleore3539]

@@TheRavenir Yes indeed, we also had a shift towards a more standard-Italian way of saying "natel". Although you could hear or use the word "telefonino", I think that the most used terms would rather be "cellulare" (like cell-phone in English) or simply "telefono" (phone). And then you'll also often hear the more slangy terms between teenagers, like "cell" (pronounced as "tschell" for a German-speaker), "tel" or just "iPhone" since it's the majorly used phone brand.

[@PaoloBelloli]

"Corriera" si usa ormai poco e soprattutto in alcune zone della Lombardia (soprattutto tra gli anziani)... Non so se venga usato anche nel resto del nord Italia. Io sono bergamasco e ho sempre usato "autobus" o "pullman"; c'è da dire che, quando andavo a scuola a Bergamo, l'autobus era quello urbano, mentre il mezzo con il quale andavo a Bergamo dal mio paese lo chiamavano il pullman.

[@davidbatthews3811]

So what would you use for a bus that say ran from the edge (periferia) of Lugano to the city centre? I have also heard autopostale for posta.

[@melinda6921]

@@PaoloBelloli Anche io sono lombarda e noi usiamo la parola corriera per i pullman che viaggiano fuori città e radiale per gli autobus cittadini.

[@AlexandruBurda]

In Romanian we have "gheată" (singular) and "ghete" (plural - pronounced exactly like gette from suiss Italian) for a kind of shoes (usually for colder time). So I supposed from the first moment that gette had to be shoes. We also use the word "nota" ("notă") for grade at school (besides musical note and writing in a notebook). And meteo (short for "meteorologie" - the science of wheather) is also a feminine. Very interesting. 🙂

[@esti-od1mz]

Also "ghette" in italian

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

Note that it's spelled "ghette" in Italian, Romanian took ch/gh spelling from Italian

[@Musou_Black]

I wanted to say the same

[@TheZapan99]

Crazy how close it is from the Medieval French "guêtres" meaning gaiters, shoe and leg covers.

[@gioice6323]

"ghette" is still used in italian, although the item Is nowadays not so common, it's more an alpin item to seal the leg above the boots from the high snow....

[@davideborroni3875]

"Posta" is the intercity bus for the mail, which allows passengers onboard, as well. The full name would be "autopostale" or "corriera postale"

[@jozef_chocholacek]

If I am not mistaken, the Swiss Post is running the regular bus service in many places, too, without carrying any mail.

[@latronemastrucato7288]

In Sardinia we have a similar thing which happend, we have 'il postalino' which used to be the post bus, but they carry people. The large bus is called either (auto)bus or pullman

[@andreapolert7180]

Nel Sud Italia parecchi anni fa (e in alcune parti, ancor oggi) “il Postale” era l’unico mezzo pubblico che collegava i vari paesetti, magari arroccati sui monti. Questo autobus trasportava persone e cose e, ovviamente, anche la posta. Molti si scambiavano merci tramite “il pacco” del Postale.

[@LightNeko91]

I am Swiss-Italian and I would like to give my point of view on the words used in this video. First of all, for some reason, Swiss-Italians love to identify some items by their brands. For example, we have seen the words posta, bilux and natel. Posta is a bus, however it is not any kind of bus, busses in some regions in Switzerland are owned and managed by our national mail service called "La Posta" from which they get the name. They are easy to recognise, because they are tellow busses. Bilux was originally a brand producing lights for the car. Natel as well was originally linked to the Swiss phone network, which is not called like that anymore, but the word remained to refer to cellphones (it is not used for regular phones for which we use the regular Italian word "telefono") In this category we also use several other words that don't appear in the video, like "tipp-ex" which is a brand that prosuces correction fluid (in Italian "bianchetto"). Other words or grammar differences, come straight from our dialect. As explained in the video, many people put an article before people names, such as "il Marco" or "la Paola", and as Metatron correctly said, this is not only a Swiss thing, but rather a northern Italian thing. Swiss italian dialects are all variants of the Lombard dialect (spoken in Lombardia), so naturally our expressions share many similarities with this specific region. Finally I would like to talk about the use of the word "ghette" which I felt it was not clearly explained in this video. For me "ghette" generally means a long kind of socks (socks that cover the whole legs, or at least the lower legs uo to the knee), however in the specific exemple from this video it probably means pantyhoses, or "collant" in proper italian.

[@Ninja-Alinja]

The “Natel” term isn’t unique to Ticino, the Swiss-German speakers use the same term, which comes more specifically from the old name of the mobile cell network of Swisscom.

[@DoraEmon-xf8br]

@@Ninja-Alinja Swiss-French speakers also use it.

[@EliaNoris]

I've always heard (and used) Bilux as the act of "blinking the headlights twice" and not as the headlights themselves.

[@rafaelinhos]

Posta as bus is used also in Sardinia,we call it il postale or postalino. 😉

[@akoskaracs]

Interestingly, I also heard the word "bilux" in Hungarian with a similar meaning (blinking the lights), though it's a completely different language family. For sure car headlights are with us only for a single century, so language origin doesn't really matter here. 😊

[@ariannaguerra8370]

Great video, mate! There's a very well-made dictionary called "Lo Svizzionario" which compares typically swiss-italian words to standard-italian. It's great! I highly recommend it. Also, in the book, it is explained why some expressions make perfect sense in Switzerland, but not in Italy. For example, in Ticino when something goes smooth you can say: "Va come una lettera alla Posta" (= "It goes like a letter to the Mail); the Swiss mail service is great and trustworthy, so it's normal to say that something works just as good as the mail service. In Italy... well... let's just say that Poste Italiane is not that great. This means that the expression would have a totally different meaning in Italy. Just an example. 😊 Thank you for the video. Great work, as always!😊

[@ebe07]

Ti consiglio di leggere “Lo svizzionario “ scritto da Sergio Savoia, giornalista e conduttore radiofonico, il quale spiega molto bene la diversità di molte parole usate qui da noi in Ticino 😉. Complimenti per il video ! p.s. le ghette sono i collant e gli zwieback le fette biscottate 😊

[@allisonwade]

I'm from Northern Italy and I was as confused as you on some of the words. The article before the person's name is a thing we do too, but weirdly where I grew up we only did it for female names. The word "nota" in a school context, back in my days (20+ years ago), was a negative remark the teacher wrote down to show to your parents if you did something wrong in class. That was very interesting, I've never been to Canton Ticino and had no idea of those differences in speaking :D

[@melinda6921]

I work in a school and even today "nota" has the meaning of a negative note on school behavior that pupils must deliver to their parents and return to the teachers signed. The fact that Metraton doesn't know this amazes me, maybe in southern Italy there is another term?

[@thewhiteknight806]

@@melinda6921 No, we still use "nota"

[@blogbalkanstories4805]

Interesting. I'm Austrian and we use articles before someone's name as well. Germans don't.

[@Yep6803]

Sì, ma "ghette"... daaiiii

[@StefenP]

Nota is the SwissGerman word for Voto, I live in ZH and my daughter talks about her "Note" on daily basis. Same for Natel, Zwieback, Mappetta (here Mäppli) all Swiss German words.

[@grawman67]

Nice Maiden shirt, Raph! This looks like another great video. Thanks for all the great content. I really enjoyed how you covered the alien news as well

[@SoundNoob-ob6lf]

From my experience, Swiss Italian is a mix of High Italian, with some load words from Swiss German and from the Lombard dialect. Ticino dialect is more or less Lombard dialect. BTW: Posta is not post truck but post bus, which is an interregional line bus.

[@karstenschuhmann8334]

"Postauto" in Swiss German, it would be "Postbus" in German.

[@Rnbw16]

@@karstenschuhmann8334 In South Tyrol where we speak Italian AND German side by side, the older generation tends to call the bus "Postauto" as well. Wouldn’t call it posta in Italian though. (autobus or if it’s a smaller vehicle it can be navetta) Interestingly in Austria which is very close to our variety of German, they call it Postbus. This is because in the old days, the mail was transported to rural communities via public bus. In Germany I don‘t think they use that word at all.

[@LouisMcK]

man these all these recent videos are bangers

[@ArmandoBellagio]

I actually grew up in Frankfurt, Germany but also worked for Swiss German customer support once. With some callers I sometimes understood less than 10%, had to guess from context lol. Funny thing they also used the word "Natel" for mobile in Swiss-German. I heard because it was the first company selling mobile phones in Switzerland or something like this being the reason they use this word. And Zibac is like the German "Zwieback" I guess.

[@toffonardi7037]

Swiss italian is basically the same ad italian from italy (expecially. Northern part) german is much more different from swiss german

[@romainsavioz5466]

Yes it's from the german side from Nationales Autotelefonnetz of the PTT Postal Telegraph and Telephone

[@oxydator]

@@romainsavioz5466 Back in the 80s, an uncle of mine had one of the "Natel A" phones, basically a 12kg suitcase with a large battery, a black bakelite handset with spiral cord, a dial and not much more.

[@TearOfficialYoutube]

In Swiss Romandie we also say Natel

[@shadowllght]

Was not expecting to see this as a Swiss but was a pleasent surprise and a good watch! For context Zibac (Zwieback in German) and Natel both come from Swiss German, but I don't know about the other words. Theres not much I can think of (if there is anything) that we use from Italian besides Lido haha. Good to know though that the Italian is for the most part mutually intelligible (as it also is for the French part). The Germans on the other hand barely understand us at all if we don't speak high german, find it quite funny how only the German part is so distinctively different compared to our neighbours.

[@felixtheswiss]

NATEL Nationales Autotelefon but today most say Handy to the Cellphone. Posta is Postauto its a rural Busservice, original used to deliver the mail too. Comes from the Stagecoach.

[@EVPaddy]

@revilo178No, Zwieback is not a Brand, it means literally baked twice, a dry, hard type of bread we often ate when sick.

[@PAWfessionalTennis]

Yeah as a German I immediately thought zibak might be Zwiebak

[@hansmustermann5371]

Yeah me 2 Zwieback

[@allo3573]

@@EVPaddy kinda cool, biscotto (cookie/biscouit) in italy means 'baked twice'

[@DeannaSt]

Amazing! In Romanian “ghete” means boots (gheata - sing.; ghete - plur.) and school mark is “nota” that also stands for musical note (nota - sing.; note - plur.) Which means to me that older forms of Italian are even closer to Romanian than the more contemporary Italian.

[@JarlOfSwot]

Looks like zibac is a version of the word "Zwieback". According to Wiki: Zwieback is a form of rusk eaten in Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Scandinavia, Serbia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Turkey. It is a type of crisp, sweetened bread, made with eggs and baked twice. It originated in East Prussia.

[@kp4911]

Yes. I knew what she was referring to immediately. It was the only thing I understood. My mother is from Eastern Prussia.

[@maricallo6143]

In South Slavic languages zweiback is called "dvopek", literally meaning "baked twice", not sure about the sweetened part though. Normally it's on the neutral or salty side. Also, for the longest time the conversational word for toothpaste was Kalodont in parts of former Yugoslavia, after a brand that was probably the main one on the market in those days.

[@Exgrmbl]

@@maricallo6143 its the same in german, twice-bake literally.

[@martinger.becker1614]

Yes, indeed,you are right!

[@ilanarhian]

I live in Germany and my guess was Zwieback too

[@RicardinioGo96]

As a person from Ticino, I thought that "passeggiata" was used in that way in Standard Italian too (same for "nota"). For the rest, I knew it was basically "Swiss Italian". It would have been nice if you went a little deeper, showing how there are some borrowings from the German and French sides of Switzerland, like "classeur" for "classificatore" (lever arch file), or "rolladen" for "tapparelle" (roller shutters), or "azione" (in french: "action" and german: "aktion") for "promozione" (a sale at the supermarket). For the rest nice video as always!

[@giulianopisciottano8302]

Passeggiata esiste, vuol dire andiamo a camminare/a fare un giro. Es. Andiamo a fare una passeggiata

[@RicardinioGo96]

​@@giulianopisciottano8302 Si so che esiste, ma intendevo dire che il significato di "passeggiata" come "gita scolastica", fosse presente anche nel italiano standard (ma cosi non è).

[@latronemastrucato7288]

My expectations were subverted by the context of that sentence as I founded eerily similar to 'andare a ferie' which we say in Sardinia when kids skip class.

[@PartiallyGeorge]

Also 'riservazione' instead of 'prenotazione' (for 'booking' (of a ticket, hotel room etc.). And 'valevole' instead of 'valido' (ticket etc.).

[@alicetwain]

@@latronemastrucato7288 Bigiare!

[@MarcoGuenzi]

Posta --> autobus postale: in Svizzera, come in tanti altri Paesi, la posta e le persone viaggiavano spesso insieme, sulle diligenze. Poi, con l'avvento dei mezzi a motore, semplicemente, la posta svizzera ha continuato a trasportare anche persone. In Svizzera esistono, infatti, autobus gialli e bianchi della posta adibiti al trasporto di linea di passeggeri, i cosiddetti postali. Ramina: la recinzione a rete metallica. Si usa anche dalle mie parti, i miei nonni la chiamavano così (sponda piemontese del Lago Maggiore, provincia di Novara). Grazie per il video, superinteressante!

[@mnk9073]

Ticinese is essentially an old branch of Lombard Italian with some loan words from Swiss German.

[@jamesconnolly5164]

Been studying German for more than a decade. Decently conversant if the topic isn't too complicated. Swiss German is sooooo different though. It's essentially a separate language from standard high German.

[@mnk9073]

Swiss German and High German are more like Scots and English. Related but they got divorced a couple of centuries ago.

[@felixtheswiss]

It is!

[@stefanodadamo6809]

Schwytzerduutsch is as impenetrable as the Sargans fortress!

[@fab006]

It’s a genuinely distinct dialect. (Also spoken in parts of Southern Germany and Western Austria.) From what I understand, current-day Swiss French and Swiss Italian are more like regional varieties with a different accent and some peculiarities in vocabulary etc., but basically another version of the standard language. Swiss German is German alright, but an entirely distinct branch from the “Hochdeutsch” Standard German.

[@magyarbondi]

Studying German be like - you're conversational and confident, then you go to Austria, Switzerland or regions in Germany and you go: Dafuq? 😂

[@BakerVS]

Zibak is a corruption of 'Zwieback' (fetta biscottata), literally translated from Latin 'twice baked' : 'bis coctis'. Natel is a funny one, in Germany it's 'ein Handy', in France 'un portable', and in Italy 'un telefonino', but all Swiss call it a 'natel'. Its origins are from when our national telephone company introduced car phones back in the 80s or 90s, and it was called 'Nationales Auto TELefonie'. When mobile phones came along, they initially used the same phone plan as cars, and the name stuck. The 'postauto' is our national local bus service. You can recognise them by their yellow colour. Originally they transported the mail, but also passengers. The other thing to not forget is that you looked at an example of standard Italian, but with the occasional odd Swiss word. Like in Italy, there is also the local dialect (dialetto ticinese), which is very different, and which you'd likely struggle with a bit as a Sicilian speaker (but your knowledge of Friulian might help). In Western Switzerland we speak standard French, but with out own local accent, and funny words like 'natel', and logical words for the numbers (septante, huitante, nonante for 70, 80 and 90). No trouble at all speaking to French, with the exception of occasional words. We used to also have local dialects, but they have almost died out, except in the Val d'Hérens. German speaking Switzerland is weird: everyone speaks dialect (which varies hugely) to everyone else, almost regardless of social context. You would only speak High German to another Swiss when doing an official presentation, or as a teacher in school (and even then it depends). However, most adult Swiss will write to each other in (almost) standard High German. (It's almost as if Italians spoke Italian, but wrote in Latin.) The Swiss version of High German is interesting: when written, it's basically the same, but with some Swiss words (like Natel), and with 'ss' instead of German 'ß'. When spoken, it has the singing melody of whichever dialect the person uses, and an overly precise pronunciation that is almost comical. Most Swiss aren't used to speaking High German, so they speak the way they write, pronouncing letters that are usually silent in Germany.

[@TheRavenir]

So is "natel" still regularly used in the Romandie? Because in Swiss German and Swiss Italian regions, it seems to have been mostly replaced by the word used in Italy (telefonino) or Germany (Handy) respectively.

[@BakerVS]

@@TheRavenir 'un portable' certainly exists, but it'd say that natel is by far the dominant word. In Swiss German parts it depends where you go. In Oberwallis, for example, no one will call it a handy.

[@TheRavenir]

@@BakerVS Wallis German is all kinds of weird, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

[@2storycory2]

Just now finding out you are an Iron Maiden fan has elevated my love for your channel 1000x!

[@hugocast]

4:04 We do that in European Spanish as well (at least in informal contexts) and add the article before the person’s name like “El Hugo” o “La Gaby”. Very cool to learn that happens in some parts of Italy as well.

[@HansGrob]

Could stem from Swiss-German language(s) or Swiss-Germans living in the Ticino, because contrary to standard German, the article is mentioned: DE NAPOLEON.

Portuguese does this as well (a Ana and o André), especially in Portugal. Maybe less common in Brazil, but it is used there too.

[@jvmt8719]

I am an American living in Mexico, and I don't think it's so common here. However, I notice something similar with demonstrative articles, particularly in children's speech ("Teacher, ¡ese Iker me está molestando!")

[@marcellopinti8981]

@@HansGrob no, it is because in the local Ticinese dialect, which is basically Lombard, the article is always present in front of the names, and this use was adopted when people started to speak Italian. This phenomenon is widespread in Lombardy (I'm from Como, and in my hometown use of "il/la" in front of names is extremely common) where no German influence is present. It's likely that the opposite occurs: people speaking the local Ticinese language incorrectly use the article in front of personal names when speaking German, because of their substrate.

[@HansGrob]

@@marcellopinti8981 D'accordo, ma non c'è bastante influenza al dialetto del norte della Svizzera per questo cambiamento.

[@nexxogen]

Here's something even more interesting - in Montenegrin Serbian, we use the word "gete" (pronounced similar to your "ghette", but with no emphasis on the T) to describe those tall socks that football players wear to hold their shin guards, but the term is also used for various types of such tall socks. This word must have come from Italian.

[@lorenzopeverelli7819]

Probably from the Venetian dialect

[@ahoana]

​@@lorenzopeverelli7819The Treccani Encyclopedia says that "ghétta" probably comes from the Germanic.

[@theChaosKe]

I would be really interested in seeing your reaction to romansh, the 4th language of switzerland. Its a romanic language thats said to be pretty close to latin, with a few bits of german. I wonder if an italian can understand it to a degree.

[@oneirdaathnaram1376]

Depends also upon which Rumantsch dialect you'd pick for the test. People from the Valtellina, for example, should not have so many difficulties with Vallader (the Rumantsch dialect from upper Engadin) whereas with Sursilvan (from the upper Vorderrheintal) they'll probably remain clueless. Beware that even Rumantsch speaking people rather do not understand each other across the most remote idioms: someone who speaks Surmeiran won't understand much of someone who speaks Jaun and vice versa.

[@spuvenk]

Of course: Romanche is spoken in Italy as well. I am Italian and I understand it as well as Occitan ( Langue d’Oc ).

[@koantao8321]

Having lived in Ticino most of my life, but with education in central Italy and Canada, I learned many of these "weird" local expressions. One that hits many Italians, even from the North, is the word "Azione" meant to signal a discount at a supermarket. Azione means action, but in Ticino it's a discount.

[@wwe395]

A clear German influence, as one meaning of Aktion is discount special.

[@AgenderBee]

@@wwe395 *A Swiss German influence, or a so called Helvetism, in Germany “Aktion” is called “Rabatt”.

[@TheAndyLP24]

@@AgenderBeenot everywhere though. In Bavaria, price displays in supermarkets are often labeled „Aktion“ when they are discounted

[@demeburtini]

​​@@wwe395 in the German speaking part of Switzerland they also say "rabatt". The difference is that rabatt it's used in clothes shops or other types of shops while aktion is used ONLY in the supermarkets and some technology shop. In Swiss Italian it's the same: ribasso/saldo in the normal shops while azione in the supermarkets/technology shops only. (In Italy it's the same except that in the supermarkets it's used "offerta/sconto" instead of "azione")

[@mestefanofontana]

When Looking for Posta you said mail truck and Corriera. Corriera is used in northern Italy to say the Bus. the writer got on a bus, not a lorry.

[@LuisBrito-ly1ko]

I live in Ticino. When the text talked about “salire sulla posta” it was referring to the Bus owned by the Swiss Post. The Swiss Post manages Bus Lines alongside other regional companies such as Ferrovie e Autolinee Regionali Ticinesi ( FART ). - As for the “Ghette”, it was actually referring to Leggings, not the shoes. I like the video though.

[@gazlator]

Fascinating stuff, thanks! Drawing parallels between British English and American English helps to imagine the kind of linguistic differences there (as someone whose familiarity with Italian is sadly limited).

[@johnbon4272]

This was awesome! No one ever talks about Swiss Italian!! Grazie mille!! Alla prossima!

[@LaVidayElTristeFinal]

I just learned from you that Italians use the word "bocciare" to mean "fail a course". Interestingly, in Argentina we say "bochar" which sounds almost identical and means the same. I now realize it comes from Italian. I go to Italy once a year and I keep finding many words that are Italian and were adopted in Argentine Spanish due to the millions of Italian immigrants we received.

[@grafinvonhohenembs]

Zibac al posto di Zwieback (tedesco). Che carino! :D Grazie mille per questo video! Questo argomento mi interessa tantissimo!

[@hannofranz7973]

That was interesting to watch. It reminds me of the differences between Spanish Spanish and the different varieties of Latin American Spanish. Either you know the meaning of the respective word (carro y coche) or you sort of can derive it from some sort of historical meaning (anteojos/lentes y gafas) or you can guess it from context or you just shrug your shoulders saying "I don't have a clue". But it gets tricky when all these words come together and you finally get the impression that you missed out the crucial words.

[@Zestieee]

it's so interesting that many of these words come from a brand name that got more popular than the thing itself. i feel like they're gonna be specifically different to understand to speakers from Italy because Switzerland will have its own different brands or likely more prevalence of German brands. really interesting!!

[@lellab.8179]

Actually "ghette" is used in standard Italian too. I immediately understood what they meant. They are often used in winter, especially if you walk on snow in the mountains. "Passeggiata" instead of "gita" as a school trip is sometimes used, at least here in the north of Italy, in elementary school when you go in the vicinity of your school, for instance in the nearby park or on a hill where you can probably get on foot. "Nota" was clearly used instead of "voto" (mark), but in a school context in standard Italian it can mean, other than musical note, any written communication between the teacher and the parents when you did something you shouldn't have or when you did something particularly good. Both are written on your school diary and your parents have to sign it, to prove that you showed it to them.

[@federicocatelli8785]

Yep but it's kind of archaic

[@cantthinkofabettername7016]

Yeah "ghette" exists in standard italian too, but in Switzerland it doesn't mean the shoe cover, it means "collant" or "calzamaglia"

[@lellab.8179]

@@cantthinkofabettername7016 Thak you. I was sidetrecked by Metatron talking about boots.

[@kaloarepo288]

There is an English word for leggings - gaiters - and I suppose it's related to the word "ghette?"

[@marcellopinti8981]

"andare in passeggiata" is quite common, I even read it in official communications from the school of my son ("Si avvisa che domani la classe uscirà in passeggiata nel quartiere")

[@PropagandalfderWeiße]

As a german, I know that swiss "german" is absolutely incomprehensible. With subtitles, I sometimes get what they were trying to say, but me and my friends sometimes use it as a drinking game. We open swiss television, and if you can't repeat the sentence in normal german, you have to drink

[@ReaperCH90]

Very interesting video as a swiss german who is learning italian on the side. Zwieback is a german word btw, which means double baked. NATEL was an means mobile phone, it means "National Car TELphone network" (Car = Auto). Natel as a brand name isn't used anymore, but people still use it as a word for cell phone. In Switzerland, there are buses operated by the Swiss Post. generally the different Swiss languages use words from each others which the other countries of this language wouldn't, like Velo in Swiss german.

[@MadNumForce]

Oh, so Zwieback/zibac is etymologically the same as the French word "biscuit" (bi->two/twice; cuit -> cooked/baked). Does it refer to toasted bread or to biscuits proper?

[@chzinch]

@@MadNumForce It is a flour-based dough that is indeed baked twice. The result is a very hard biscuit.

[@didonegiuliano3547]

@@MadNumForce In Italian is the same, "biscotto", twice cooked

[@Mad9977]

cool t-shirt noble one, greetings from Switzerland 😎👍 Natel = Smartphone, Zibac comes from the german word Zwieback

[@BigNews2021]

Curiously, "nota" is also used in Spanish (at least some varieties) to mean grades/marks. Such as "saqué una buena nota en el examen de historia".

[@yccmzimmy]

I'm Italian, living in south Switzerland... honestly I never heard Zibac too, probably is derived from a commercial name, as Natel is. Natel is the original telecommunication Switzerland network for mobile phones. Ghette is the "calzamaglia", a sort of trouser that also cover the feet. The ramina is the metal border that can be used to define the border of a property. The Post in Switzerland also manage busses in many regions, and people refer to the busses managed by the Post as "the Post" (la Posta, in this case). Ma ci hai preso molto bene ;) it is easy to be a foreign here, being an Italian :)

[@soniak2865]

Is ZIBAC a name brand? I also didn't know the same words as you. Italo-Canadese from Northern/Fruili parents, so putting IL or LA infront of a person's name, when talking about them, was not a problem. Bilux is a Brand name. They also use Scotty's for tissues or paper towels, where we may use Kleenex. Very interesting little exercise.

[@joaquimdantas63]

No, it is explained above: it is from the German twice ('zweite') baked ('backet'). A toast twice baked from a specific kind of bread.

[@mariachionni272]

Complimenti per l'ottimo livello di inglese

[@mariachionni272]

Ho imparato abbastanza facilmente lingue neolatine come spagnolo e.francese, ma con l'inglese non c'è verso. Lo sento innaturale e troppo diverso specie nella fonetica , mi arrendo

[@MicheleClabassi]

I think "nota" is a meaning they loaned from "Note" in German which means both musical note and school grade. I also think I remember some friends from Ticino using "il postale" to mean coach bus

[@nickvickers3486]

Cool! 'Nota' means school grade in Spanish as well

[@HweolRidda]

And that is a meaning of "note" in French too. Since "note" descends from Latin the loan may go to German not from German.

[@LadyMaireSD]

La parola 'posta' per corriera mi ha sbloccato un ricordo: mia cugina che ha sempre vissuto in paese (Oliena, vicino a Nuoro, in Sardegna) e quindi parlava più sardo che italiano, chiamava 'postalinu' o 'postale' la corriera che doveva prendere per andare a scuola a Nuoro. Grazie per questo inaspettato tuffo nel passato!

[@dinosilone7613]

I’m Italian-American from New York, but am fluent in Standard Italian. I found the same words unfamiliar that you did. The dialect we spoke when I was growing up in New York in the 1950s was MUCH more different from Standard Italian than this Swiss Italian was. (I’ve heard what we spoke called “Broccolino”, from “Brooklyn”, and it was basically meridionalese with some words borrowed in from English). This Swiss Italian is basically Standard Italian with a few regional vocabulary words.

[@siriokds]

How you doin'? 😁 I love the NY accent since it drops the R like the Brit English does. One of the best american accents IMHO.

[@simoneforgia]

I'm from the Italian part of Switzerland and we don't consider our Italian a different language as it happens with German and Swiss German; we just have some regional words that are different. However, each small city or village can have it's own dialect which can be very different from Italian.

[@ltubabbo529]

​@@simoneforgiaIl lombardo, di cui il ticinese e il poschiavese(?) sono dialetti, è una lingua ben distinta dall'italiano tanto che appartiene ad un gruppo linguistico diverso, quello gallo-italico. L'italiano invece rientra nel gruppo italo-dalmatico assieme alle lingue del centro-sud

[@luigibolognesi9559]

L'accademia della Crusca ha accettato anche la versione svizzero-italiana per il meteo. Quindi si può dire "il meteo" oppure "la meteo". Sebbene in Italia sia più in uso "il meteo", poiché ci si riferisce al "bollettino meteorologico", per la Crusca non è scorretto dire "la meteo" poiché ci si riferisce alla "meteorologia".

[@johnc.elgreco6777]

Metatron, you are simply amazing! I love your videos and your linguistic abilities. Your understanding of history is fantastic, also. I live in Canada but I am originally from Southern Greece. I noticed that your pronunciation of Greek words is impressive. Do you speak some Greek, also?

[@MrPolluxxxx]

Fun fact. In swiss french (particularly in the Juras and in Neuchâtel cantons) it is common to put an article before a person's name.

[@baumgrt]

In most of the German speaking area in Switzerland as well as in parts of southern Germany this is done as well. This phenomenon seems to spread over a geographic area rather than just being confined to one language

[@Ryan_Winter]

Just keep in mind that Swiss German is an umbrella term for all the local Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland, to which the Swiss refer as "Mundart". When we write we usually do it in Schriftdeutsch = written German. There are exceptions though, for instance when the Swiss write a private SMS ( a private message on the mobile phone) they usually do it in Mundart, which doesn't have a standardized form at all. You do it "by ear", write it as how it would sound in spoken Mundart and when you receive a text you would read it out in your head and derive the meaning from how it would sound if it were spoken. I have been told that the NSA would have a hard time monitoring Swiss German mobile phone communication, due to the eclectic and non-standardized use of language.

[@2712animefreak]

Schriftdeutsch is still quite different from the standard in Germany (and Austria), though. As a person from Croatia that studied German in elementary school, and whose dialect has a lot of German loanwords, I've experienced a rather sharp decline in how much I could passively understand once I've crossed the border from Austria into Liechtenstein (which uses the Swiss standard) and then Switzerland. Also, I've once found a website of a cafe in a small Swiss town that was written in local dialect, including the menu, the opening hours and everything else. Is this, like, a thing some businesses choose to do?

[@cehaem2]

@@2712animefreak No, written Swiss "Standard" German is very similar to Standard German. The only difference is the basic for of some weak verbs (grillieren vs. grillen) and some specific Helvetic terms like Spital for Krankenhaus, Pneu for Reifen. They have slightly different abbreviations. HB vs. Hbf for Central Train Station. And, yes, there no sz in Swiss German. There was no space for it on multilingual typewriters - no joke.

[@Ryan_Winter]

@@2712animefreak There are quite a few Helvetisms of which we Swiss think as being German, but people from northern Germany are puzzled by them, and we commonly use French words in place of the German word that would be used north of the Rhine. For instance, if you talk about your Fahrrad everyone knows what you mean, but nobody who grew up in German speaking Switzerland would use that word. We use the word Velo in its place, which is Helvetism. It appears to be French, but it originated from the French speaking part of Switzerland, the French people actually use the word bicyclette. Another example would be the "Gehsteig" or "Bürgersteig", I obvious understand to what it refers, but I would never use it myself. I grew up in Zurich and everybody I know who grew up in German speaking Switzerland uses the word Trottoir in its place, which is obviously French. All kinds of businesses use Mundart or pseudo simulacrums of it for psychological reasons. A lot of advertisement/commercials use it, as it's meant to be endearing, sometimes it's done by companies who are not Swiss by any plausible definition and they do it to "demonstrate" "how much they want to blend in".

[@Zimionz]

Swiss Italian has adopted many expressions from French and German. For example French words like "trotinette" (monopattino/scooter), classeur (raccoglitore/folder) or "öf" (uovo/egg). Also German words like Föhn (favonio/warm Alpine wind), rolladen (tapparelle/shutter) or schlafsack (sacco a pelo/sleeping bag)... and then there are so called "Helvetisms" that only exist in Switzerland, but nowhere else, like natel (cellulare/mobile phone), azione (offerta speciale/special offer) or la posta/il postale (autobus/bus). It gets really interesting when one word exists in both Italian and Swiss Italian, but has completely different meanings. Like fuoco, which means "fire" in Italian, but "household" (nucleo familiare) in Swiss Italian. Or ladro, which means "thief" in Italy, but "multi-plug" in Switzerland. I love these little differences 😉 If you're interested, you should also have a listen at Romansh, the fourth official language of Switzerland. It sounds like a mixture of Latin and Italian with a heavy German accent 😁

[@backslash68]

also "gommaio" instead of "gommista" and "imbarcatoio" instead of "imbarcadero"

[@nikolakrastev8880]

Respect for the Iron Maiden shirt.

[@spuvenk]

I liked when you hit: “Post”….. I worked in SwitZerland around 4 times in my school summer holidays when I was at a school in England and the Post was the bus….. if you wanted to go to the valley from the mountains you needed the Post that was the local bus that also carried the post. Like the corriera in Italy 🇮🇹. I only ever worked in German speaking parts of Switzerland but Post is used everywhere. Ps: my home town in Italy is in the mountains and the post was loaded onto the local bus every morning….. and some older folk used the word Post……..

[@SimonDubois52]

I would love to see Québec vs Metropolitan french! Great video as always metatron!!

[@HweolRidda]

Québecois from Lac St Jean versus a village in Normandie? I assume you mean standard québecois vs parisienne?

[@FrancescoAlois]

"Ramina" is used in the North of Campania, in that geografical region called "Alto Casertano". It's referred to everything is a metal sheet, expecially those used to fence construction sites or used as a roof for huts

[@negy2570]

This Is so funny! As a Lombard staying in Ticino for a while I can mostly understand when they speak strict dialect, much more common here than in Milan where very few speak dialect, because it's basically a Lombard language with local variation. I also put the article before personal names, more with female names, so that's nothing new for me. The funny moment for me Is when they speak Italian because they use many different terms for common objects, like "pezzi duri" and "imbarcatoio" and the derogative terms Badino/Badilandia. I also noticed that the public communication Is more conservative in the syntax which I appreciate. For fun I suggest watching the old series Frontaliers by RSI on YT 😂😂😂 Unfortunately, people from sourthern Italy told me that they cannot understand the jokes and the differences. When you make jokes about the Swiss everyone grabs It in Milan/Como/Varese but not in Rome. I Guess there Is an ancient connection and a bit of reciprocal sense of humour between fellow Lombards of different nationalities.

[@MikeEnx]

nice video! I'm a Spaniard who can speak southern-Italian (I was living in Bari) and now I live in Switzerland so I totally can relate to what you say. The fun fact is that French-speaking and German-speaking Swiss people also have the same problem when they travel to France or Germany.

[@isakaldazwulfazizsunus7564]

I studied Italian at Uni and went to Friuli Venezia Giulia for my Erasmus trip. Now, I get to work with Ticino a lot and accent-wise, it's often not too different from usual Northern Italian, sometimes I do get "la R moscia" and the odd alpine dialects I don't understand, but it's otherwise almost indistinguishable from "standard" Italian. Swiss-French is also surprisingly close to other European variants of French, especially Belgian French, even in terms of vocabulary. The biggest difference is with Swiss-German... Which German people often need subtitles to even understand in the first place. I got exposed to it a lot because of my job but it's otherwise very markedly different from other variants. German in general tends to vary a lot from one region to the next. From Switzerland to Austria, and from Austria to Germany. Even within Germany, differences are sometimes noticeable.

[@danield.7359]

Zibac is derived from the German word Zwieback which is derived from Zwei (two) back (baked). Zwieback = Two-baked. And indeed that Zwieback is baked two times. First as an ordinary sort of toast-loaf and then cut into slices and finally grilled. Natel: In German "Mobiltelefon" or English "mobile phone". Natel was a brand introduced by the Swisscom I believe in the late 80s or early 90s. As far as I can remember there was the NATEL-C first which was an analogue network, and then later on superseded by a digital network called NATEL-D. And so still today many Swiss people would use the word "Natel" when they are referring to their mobile phone.

[@ilariomichelini4616]

One of the words I find italians struggling more about, is the term "MAPPETTA", which in italian literally would mean "small map", but we use it with a completely different meaning! Our "MAPPETTA" is a plastic sheet holder (like where you put a resume or an important document).

[@K120-25H]

Pensa che nel palermitano per mappetta o mappina si intende lo straccio per asciugare i piatti e le posate

[@ilariomichelini4616]

@@K120-25H mappina... pensa te! Ah qua chiamiamo "mappe" anche le cartine per girare le sigarette ;)

[@ManuTheDeath]

Nice retrogame collection mate!

[@verone272]

In Quebec, Swiss and Belgium we still use old french words that are no longer in use in french 😄 i.e We say supper (souper) instead of dinner (dîner) and we say dinner for lunch ☺ and many more exemples!

[@Slithermotion]

Swiss germans also has a lot of archaic french insults still in use. But I have no clue how to write them in french I think most don‘t even think that they are french origin. Like gloshar, pajas ect. The Italian, french and german parts somehow use foreign words without even knowing it.

[@verone272]

@@Slithermotion the Gloshar one i'm pretty sure it's Clochard it's like dirty homeless but in a mean way right? :) This is so interesting! And could the pajas be paillasse? An old slur for prostitute that literally means bed of straw or something like that 🤣 Love that ahahah do you have more?? 😇

[@Slithermotion]

@@verone272 yep, gloshar is basicly that meaning. I would use pajas more like “clown“ or “fool“ not really in a prostitute context.

[@nehylen5738]

For your example, it actually depends: souper is still common in Southern France (at least anywhere between Montpellier and the Italian border, I've little knowledge of the Western part!), while we Northerners would virtually never use it. But it's very understandable. Personally, and being a Frenchman, I would rather we go for «septante», «huitante», «nonante», and find «natel» to be a nice word. Yet I'm convinced most of my countrymen would disagree. :)

[@verone272]

@@nehylen5738 I discovered septante, huiptante nonante last year and I was shocked? Why the hell we say soixante et dix when there is a better way out there?

[@rogeriopenna9014]

Ok, you are an iron Maiden fan. Now i like your channel even more. I should have guessed because of your long metalhead hair. Make a video about their song on Alexander the Great 😊

[@saskiadany]

Hi! I'm Romanian, and I'm astonished to find out we have words in common with Swiss Italian - nota and ghette ( the only difference being that in Romanian is spells ghete but pronounced the same)

[@rirrina]

Romanian is a neo-latin language, too 😉

[@elle-iza]

"Zibac" comes from German "Zwieback" (=baked twice). It's made from loafs of white wheat bread, (looks like toast but is smaller, softer and sweet, and is called "Einback" = "baked once"), that is cut into slices and then baked again until completely dry and crispy. Zwieback is sweet-ish and hard, and in Germany we traditionally eat it when we feel under the weather or recover from a stomach bug. It was always given to small children, before rice waffles became a thing. For a long time you could buy bags of tiny Zwieback slices, that were covered in sweet coconut shreds, or different types of chocolate,... but now that I think about it I notice, that I haven't seen those in stores for years.

[@ClearLight369]

Zibac and natel sound like they might be brand names of products. Great idea for a video!

[@Gvg4358]

The Italian spoken in Switzerland is influenced by the local dialect: Ticino dialect, that is a dialect of Lombard language, not of Italian.

[@Glegionar]

A curiosity about "posta": in my italian dialect (Matera), to refer to the bus in dialect we say "u postal' ", "u" being the article and "postal" being, in fact, the bus. So I believe that the usage of "Posta" in Switzerland must come from older times when even in standard italian the bus was called like this.

[@bastiwen]

Zibac probably comes from Zwieback, which are rusks. Posta is probably the big busses owned by the postal service here, they often transport passengers in the mountains or between cities, in French we call them "car postal". I also wonder if meteo is feminine in Swiss Italian because of the proximity with French and the word being feminine in French.

[@alexj9603]

​@revilo178The word "meteo" is not used in German - neither in Germany nor in Switzerland. This one clearly comes from French "la météo".

[@alexj9603]

@revilo178 It's a completely different word, through. Whereas the French word is exactly the same.

[@newtonwhatevs]

Whatever the regional accent, you all sound like beautiful music to my ears.

[@aleidius192]

I don't know, but I did have a German tell me that all Swiss people sound like the Swedish Chef.

[@jamesconnolly5164]

Swiss German is largely unintelligible to a northern German who learned only the standard variety.

[@bastiwen]

@@jamesconnolly5164 Yep, and even among Swiss Germans there's some dialects, like Walliserdeutsch, that are difficult to understand

[@pennypiper7382]

I’m always learning something new. Great video😊

[@THomasHH]

Putting an article in front of people’s names is also common in southern Germany. Not so much here in North Germany. Swiss German is related to Alemannic which is spoken in south western Germany (Baden-Württemberg), similar to lower German (Plattdütsch) from East Frisia which is related to Dutch and North Frisia to Danish. Zibac sounds a lot like the German Zwieback. According to Wikipedia it’s quote: >> Rusk (in the 15th century lehn translated from Italian biscotto from Latin to coctus [panis] (twice-baked bread)) is a bread-like pastry that is sliced and roasted until dry and crumbly to preserve it

[@MrRabiddogg]

Ecolinguist's channel had an interesting one a while back. It was with Luke from the Polimathy speaking Latin and like 3-4 dialects of Italian. Swiss Italain wasn't one of them but Sicilian was and a few others.

[@davidcervantes9336]

Funny, I figured out many of those words just by context although I don’t speak any form of Italian. 😅 Moreover, It would be an interesting topic of investigation where this tendency of putting articles in front of proper nouns come from. I’m from northern Mexico and we use it a lot in informal situations (with family, friends, people we trust, etc.), contrary to the Spanish speakers in the south who dropped it almost completely. It looks like it might be something old or archaic. Let me know if any other of you Spanish speaking brethren have it as well. 😄

[@nickvickers3486]

¡Hola David! I noticed you're from Mexico, can I ask a quick question about something that came up in my Spanish lesson yesterday? We were talking about bullfighting (I live in Spain) and I thought a 'bullfighter' was 'matador' in Spanish but apparently in Spain it's much more common to say 'torero'. I know la corrida de toros can be controversial for some but I'm interested in the language. What do people use more in Mexico, 'torero' or 'matador'?

[@davidcervantes9336]

@@nickvickers3486 Hey Nick. Ah, yes... bullfights. We've been trying to get rid of those for a while now. About your question, ''torero'' (bullfighter) is the most common word, but you'll also hear ''matador'' (killer, murderer or assassin) from maybe the commentators. ''Matador'' only works for bullfighters though, it's like a poetic or archaic version of ''torero''. For people killing other people it's just ''asesino''. Hope I helped a bit. 😁

[@allyourcode]

In Switzerland, Post also provides bus service. They also provide banking. Not just mail.

[@serra_edoardo]

Ghette è un termine italiano dell'italiano corrente, sebbene tecnico e quindi poco conosciuto. Indicano una sorta di gambale in stoffa rigida che si attacca allo scarpone e al pantalone, e previene ad esempio che la neve passi attraverso il pantalone e arrivi al calzettone per poi arrivare dentro lo scarpone! Sono molto utilizzate ad esempio dai cacciatori in certi periodi dell'anno. Se poi sia utilizzato con un significato diverso in questo estratto di testo non saprei dire.

[@sandroderrini2936]

e si ...ma Gennaro Vito Catozzo che ne sa...

[@clementeperez2870]

The zibac must be what is called Zwieback in a German. It is a kind of toast. The name means "baked twice".

[@ImaginatorJoren]

This is why I feel like Italian dictionaries should include regional dialectal usages of words. If they don’t already exist then what is stopping people from making them?

[@bryanfongo327]

Way too many dialects way too many words way too little incentive or practicality

[@ImaginatorJoren]

@@bryanfongo327 it doesn’t have to be from scratch

[@sebozz2046]

Thanks, i'am swiss but from the french part, i speak neither italian nor deutsch so i found it very interesting

[@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115]

Swiss German and "standard" German are so different they should be considerate seperate languages imho.

[@moover123]

Swiss German is actually Hochalemannisch

[@bastiwen]

@@moover123 There's many variations of Swiss German too

[@moover123]

@@bastiwen but all of them are some type of Alemannisch. Mostly Hochalemannisch. In the south it's Höchstalemannisch and in Basel it's Niederalemannisch.

[@davidbraun6209]

There was a time my dad had a subscription to a satellite dish company that gave him (among other TV networks) Deutsche Welle (DW) TV. Its programming was mostly in standard German, though I had heard the occasional program in somewhat Bavarian-accented standard German, oddly closer to what he had known as standard rather than the version thereof spoken in the north and central parts. Anyway, there was one program where there were Swiss people speaking in Schwyzertütsch (Swiss German), and DW had to add subtitles in standard German.

[@fab006]

I think many people just aren’t used to how different a dialect can be. A dialect is not just an accent with a few local bits of vocabulary :D But Swiss German is very clearly a dialect, not a language.

[@wetterfrosch1984]

Very interesting video! I have a (female) friend in (German speaking) Switzerland since 2006, Natel is one of the first Swiss words I learned, as it also in the German part means "mobile phone"!

[@Spartan10k]

Metatron, you keep saying the difference between American and British English, but there’s a huge variety within the US too. I know you did a video on how Italian differs inside Italy. It would be cool if you would do one on English in the US too. Your outsider perspective would be interesting to me

[@carolinlinden7795]

In Germany, there is also the Zwieback. "Zwie" comes from "Zwei", meaning "two". "Back" comes from "backen" and means "to bake". It is a kind of double-baked white bread, first the whole bread, then it is cut into slices and baked again until it is completely dry. This protects it from mould and keeps it for a very long time. As far as I know, this is why it was often carried on ships as provisions.

[@larabukers]

As a French learner 🇫🇷, I'd like to see one on the differences between France French and Swiss French 😊

[@Siegbert85]

Afaik they're pretty much the same because France had done a very solid job standardizing their language.

[@scratchy996]

@@Siegbert85 They standardized their language, but there still are dialects. I speak French and I found out that I can understand Africans better than people from France. Africans speak standard French, while the French speak dialects and slang. There are articles online the about differences between standard and Swiss French.

[@deboras.2093]

French : Mobile - SwissFrench : Natel (mobile phone), F : Serpillère - SF : Panosse (mop), F : Sopalin or essuie-tout - SF : Papier ménage (paper towels), F : Crayon papier - SF : Crayon gris (pencil), F : Carte bleue - SF : Carte bancaire (debit card), F : Distributeur de billets - SF : Bancomat (cash dispenser), F : Un sèche-cheveux - SF : Un foehn (hair dryer), F : Une nounou - SF : Une maman de jour (nanny), F : Le désordre - SF : Le cheni (mess, chaos), F : Trébucher - SF : S'encoubler (to stumble on), F : Rond point - SF : Giratoire (roundabout), F : Un clignotant - SF : Un signofile (indicator), F : Idiot - SF : Bobet (idiot), F : 70 = soixante-dix - SF : 70 = septante (seventy) F : 80 = quatre- vingt - SF : 80 = huitante (especially in the canton of Vaud), F : 90 = quatre-vingt-dix / SF : 90 = nonante, F : 99 = quatre-vingt-dix-neuf / SF : 99 = nonante-neuf, etc,.....

[@larabukers]

@@deboras.2093 merci 🙂

[@henningbartels6245]

In Switzerland in some remote area you can use the post / mail vehicle which serves as a bus replacement and it has a time table. In German TV Swiss German speakers are constantly subtitled because their version of German and dialects are so hard to grasp.

[@Biodelic]

From my personal experience, the Swiss-Italian I learned at school, in the German part of Switzerland, is an excellent way to put a living nightmare into your average Italian. 😂 Btw, zibac (Zwieback in German) is rusk in English. Simply a twice baked bread. Natel, originally, referred to the first car telephone service available in Switzerland. It later became the synonym for mobile phones, while also still describing the service technology. It's by lengths a better synonym than what the Germans use. They call it a "Handy".

[@aleisterlavey9716]

2:44 Zibac could be from the German word Zwieback (two baked), that meant double baked slices of bread, kinda ,like the little sister of hard tack.

[@aleisterlavey9716]

4:40 Natel is the old term for cell phone, it stands for nationales auto telephon (national car telephone)

[@aleisterlavey9716]

7:50 the Swiss Post also does public transport with Busses

[@watching7650]

You should start by mentioning that "Standard Italian" is very rarely used anywhere in Italy; generally one speaks (and writes) one's regional standard except when communicating between North and South. What is used is one's respective regional standard. The local Lombard dialect is of course completely different from the local standard.

[@metatronacademy]

I have a dedicated video to that already

[@didonegiuliano3547]

That's quite a wrong assumption, this one of yours

[@giulianopisciottano8302]

Speaks yes we use dialect, write no dialects don't have a written form

[@watching7650]

@@giulianopisciottano8302 Va raccontare questo al Carlin Porta, al Pino Bernasconi e a tutti gli scrittori e poeti in tutti i dialetti d'Italia e Svizzera...

[@tyreesetranh4074]

@@giulianopisciottano8302 Com a dis ël vej proverbi, "L'asnarìa a va a l'ancant!"

[@Barbaralatrevisana]

You would know “ghette” if you did any hiking especially in the snow…it’s an italian word, meaning those items that you zip up over your boots and lower pant legs to keep the snow out.

[@waterwatereverywhere3574]

Boh io vivo a Lugano e effettivamente i due tipi di italiano sono praticamente indistinguibili.

[@nachomagallanico]

The postal car is also used as a public transport in remote parts of Switzerland

[@andreasmetzger7619]

Funny that even in Italian the swiss put an article in front of a name. In the southern regions of Germany all the way up to Frankfurt, this is very common, but to hear this in italian is very interesting. I’m from a small town in the south bordering Switzerland so I do this article thing too haha

[@TheRavenir]

It's extremely common in Swiss German as well, so I wonder if this is somehow due to German influence on Northern Italian dialects.

[@giulianopisciottano8302]

It's common in some regions of northern Italy too but it's technically grammatically incorrect, in the south and center or isn't used

[@fab006]

@@TheRavenir In fact, in Swiss German it’s obligatory. Not using an article with a name is a very typical sign of a non-native speaker (to the point that it’s stereotypical “foreigner” speech).

[@TheRavenir]

@@fab006 Yeah, it's obligatory in the dialect itself, though even in Swiss Standard German it's still quite common.

[@rodjones117]

That's right - they also do it in Austria.

[@EVPaddy]

Posta is Postauto surely, a public bus operated by the Post.

[@moover123]

0:33 DO NOT GO TO SWITZERLAND TO STUDY GERMAN. And also, studying italian and french is much cheaper anywhere else.

[@metatronacademy]

If you want to study German German or high German sure go to Germany, but if you like Switzerland then I don't see anything wrong with learning Swiss German. It's not wrong, it's a different variety.

[@moover123]

@@metatronacademy Sure, but who would want to learn swissgerman except if you absolutely have to or if you're an absolute language nut maybe, but even then there are probably more interesting languages But the point is, do not go to Switzerland thinking you can learn german there.

[@mgplayzxd3062]

@@metatronacademy Sure, but I from what I heard from others is that the Swiss German (High Alemannic) is highly divergent from standard to point that many Germans would find it not understandable unless they're Swabians in the Southwest of Germany on the border of Switzerland.

[@BakerVS]

@@metatronacademy True, but if learning German is your goal, doing it in Switzerland makes it harder: - Because Swiss-Germans ONLY use dialect when speaking to each other, you'll get much less exposure to the spoken language you're learning in class, and far fewer opportunities to practice oral comprehension. - People obviously will speak to you in High German if they see you don't understand dialect, but it's such a strange way of speaking High German that you'll get laughed at if you speak like that in Germany. - If you want to learn the dialect (which is a cool project), you have two problems: First, is that it is incomprehensible to a German (like speaking Palermo dialect in Milan). Second, is that you face the difficulty that every Swiss region has its own unique variant of Swiss-German which is HIGHLY divergent from the others. If you learn to only understand Zurich dialect, for example, you will struggle a little bit the first time you hear Bernese until you get used to it, and Walliser German will sound as foreign to you as Dutch to a German speaker.

[@mattc9875]

Congratulations on the overall teaching style you adopted, it's very classy yet unpretentious and humble despite delivering great knowledge and honest passion. By the way, as someone from Milan..I think we can say that "Il Marco" is a Milanese typical form to address people.

[@GeraldM_inNC]

Greetings from the Montagna family of Caltanissetta. I enjoyed this video and look forward to seeing more of your channel. BTW, in America "blinkers" is only used in certain regions and it means different things in different regions . In the Northeast blinkers mean your hazard warning signal, if used at all.

[@awedelen1]

In the southern US blinkers are your turn signals and flashers are your hazard lights.

[@angiewegenerdjmetalamazon4468]

When I visited Switzerland some years ago, we took public transport busses that were called "Postbus", maybe that is why she used Poste?

[@mr.h3737]

Zibac from Zwieback German for backed-twiced. It’s that hard toast you mentioned. Love your videos