1.
Bern
–
The city of Bern or Berne is the de facto capital of Switzerland, referred to by the Swiss as their Bundesstadt, or federal city. With a population of 141,762, Bern is the fourth-most populous city in Switzerland, the Bern agglomeration, which includes 36 municipalities, had a population of 406,900 in 2014. The metropolitan area had a population of 660,000 in 2000, Bern is also the capital of the canton of Bern, the second-most populous of Switzerlands cantons. The official language in Bern is German, but the language is an Alemannic Swiss German dialect. In 1983, the old town in the centre of Bern became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Bern is ranked among the top ten cities for the best quality of life. The etymology of the name Bern is uncertain and it has long been considered likely that the city was named after the Italian city of Verona, which at the time was known as Bern in Middle High German. As a result of the find of the Bern zinc tablet in the 1980s, it is now common to assume that the city was named after a pre-existing toponym of Celtic origin. The bear was the animal of the seal and coat of arms of Bern from at least the 1220s. The earliest reference to the keeping of bears in the Bärengraben dates to the 1440s. No archaeological evidence that indicates a settlement on the site of city centre prior to the 12th century has been found so far. In antiquity, a Celtic oppidum stood on the Engehalbinsel north of Bern, fortified since the second century BC, during the Roman era, a Gallo-Roman vicus was on the same site. The Bern zinc tablet has the name Brenodor, in the Early Middle Ages, a settlement in Bümpliz, now a city district of Bern, was some 4 km from the medieval city. The medieval city is a foundation of the Zähringer ruling family, according to 14th-century historiography, Bern was founded in 1191 by Berthold V, Duke of Zähringen. In 1218, after Berthold died without an heir, Bern was made an imperial city by the Goldene Handfeste of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. In 1353, Bern joined the Swiss Confederacy, becoming one of the eight cantons of the period of 1353 to 1481. The city grew out towards the west of the boundaries of the peninsula formed by the river Aare, the Zytglogge tower marked the western boundary of the city from 1191 until 1256, when the Käfigturm took over this role until 1345. It was, in turn, succeeded by the Christoffelturm until 1622, during the time of the Thirty Years War, two new fortifications – the so-called big and small Schanze – were built to protect the whole area of the peninsula
2.
Bonn
–
The Federal City of Bonn is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of 311,287. About 24 km south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region, Germanys largest metropolitan area, the title of Federal City reflects its particular political status within Germany. Founded in the 1st century BC as a Roman settlement, Bonn is one of Germanys oldest cities, from 1597 to 1794, Bonn was the capital of the Electorate of Cologne, and residence of the Archbishops and Prince-electors of Cologne. Composer Ludwig van Beethoven was born here in 1770, from 1949 to 1990, Bonn was the capital of West Germany, and it is here where Germanys present constitution, the Grundgesetz, was declared in 1949. From 1990 to 1999, Bonn served as the seat of government, two DAX-listed corporations, Deutsche Post DHL and Deutsche Telekom, have headquarters in Bonn. The city is the location of the University of Bonn, spanning an area of more 141.2 km2 on both sides of the River Rhine, almost three quarters of the city lie on the rivers left bank. To the south and to the west, Bonn is bordering the Eifel region which encompasses the Rhineland Nature Park, to the north, Bonn borders the Cologne Lowland. Natural borders are constituted by the River Sieg to the north-east, the largest extension of the city in north-south dimensions is 15 km and 12.5 km in west-east dimensions. The city borders have a length of 61 km. The geographical centre of Bonn is the Bundeskanzlerplatz in Bonn-Gronau, the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia is divided into five governmental districts, and Bonn is part of the governmental district of Cologne. Within this governmental district, the city of Bonn is an district in its own right. The urban district of Bonn is then divided into four administrative municipal districts. These are Bonn, Bonn-Bad Godesberg, Bonn-Beuel and Bonn-Hardtberg, in 1969, the independent towns of Bad Godesberg and Beuel as well as several villages were incorporated into Bonn, resulting in a city more than twice as large as before. In the south of the Cologne lowland in the Rhine valley, the history of the city dates back to Roman times. In about 12 BC, the Roman army appears to have stationed a small unit in what is presently the historical centre of the city, even earlier, the army had resettled members of a Germanic tribal group allied with Rome, the Ubii, in Bonn. The Latin name for that settlement, Bonna, may stem from the population of this and many other settlements in the area. The Eburoni were members of a tribal coalition effectively wiped out during the final phase of Caesars War in Gaul. After several decades, the gave up the small camp linked to the Ubii-settlement
3.
Switzerland
–
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
4.
Historian
–
A historian is a person who researches, studies, and writes about the past, and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race, if the individual is concerned with events preceding written history, the individual is an historian of prehistory. Although historian can be used to describe amateur and professional historians alike, some historians, though, are recognized by publications or training and experience. Historian became an occupation in the late nineteenth century as research universities were emerging in Germany. Modern historical analysis usually draws upon other social sciences, including economics, sociology, politics, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, while ancient writers do not normally share modern historical practices, their work remains valuable for its insights within the cultural context of the times. Understanding the past appears to be a human need. What constitutes history is a philosophical question, the earliest chronologies date back to Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, though no historical writers in these early civilizations were known by name. Systematic historical thought emerged in ancient Greece, a development that became an important influence on the writing of history elsewhere around the Mediterranean region, the earliest known critical historical works were The Histories, composed by Herodotus of Halicarnassus who later became known as the father of history. Herodotus attempted to distinguish between more and less reliable accounts, and personally conducted research by travelling extensively, giving accounts of various Mediterranean cultures. Although Herodotus overall emphasis lay on the actions and characters of men and he was also the first to distinguish between cause and immediate origins of an event, while his successor Xenophon introduced autobiographical elements and character studies in his Anabasis. The Romans adopted the Greek tradition, while early Roman works were still written in Greek, the Origines, composed by the Roman statesman Cato the Elder, was written in Latin, in a conscious effort to counteract Greek cultural influence. Strabo was an important exponent of the Greco-Roman tradition of combining geography with history, livy records the rise of Rome from city-state to empire. His speculation about what would have happened if Alexander the Great had marched against Rome represents the first known instance of alternate history, in Chinese historiography, the Classic of History is one of the Five Classics of Chinese classic texts and one of the earliest narratives of China. Sima Qian was the first in China to lay the groundwork for professional historical writing and his written work was the Shiji, a monumental lifelong achievement in literature. Christian historiography began early, perhaps as early as Luke-Acts, which is the source for the Apostolic Age. Writing history was popular among Christian monks and clergy in the Middle Ages and they wrote about the history of Jesus Christ, that of the Church and that of their patrons, the dynastic history of the local rulers. In the Early Middle Ages historical writing often took the form of annals or chronicles recording events year by year, muslim historical writings first began to develop in the 7th century, with the reconstruction of the Prophet Muhammads life in the centuries following his death. With numerous conflicting narratives regarding Muhammad and his companions from various sources, to evaluate these sources, they developed various methodologies, such as the science of biography, science of hadith and Isnad
5.
Lausanne
–
Lausanne is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and the capital and biggest city of the canton of Vaud. The city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva and it faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura Mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located 62 kilometres northeast of Geneva, Lausanne has a population of 146,372, making it the fourth largest city in Switzerland, with the entire agglomeration area having 420,000 inhabitants. The metropolitan area of Lausanne-Geneva was over 1.2 million inhabitants in 2000, Lausanne is a focus of international sport, hosting the International Olympic Committee, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and some 55 international sport associations. It lies in a noted wine-growing region, the city has a 28-station metro system, making it the smallest city in the world to have a rapid transit system. Lausanne will host the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics, by the 2nd century AD it was known as vikanor Lousonnensium and in 280 as lacu Lausonio. By 400 it was civitas Lausanna and in 990 it was mentioned as Losanna, after the fall of the Roman Empire, insecurity forced the transfer of Lausanne to its current centre, a hilly site that is easier to defend. The city which emerged from the camp was ruled by the Dukes of Savoy, then it came under Bern from 1536 to 1798 and a number of its cultural treasures, including the hanging tapestries in the Cathedral, were permanently removed. Lausanne has made a number of requests to recover them, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Lausanne became a place of refuge for French Huguenots. In 1729 a seminary was opened by Antoine Court and Benjamin Duplan, by 1750 ninety pastors had been sent back to France to work clandestinely, this number would rise to four hundred. Official persecution ended in 1787, a faculty of Protestant theology was established at Montauban in 1808, during the Napoleonic Wars, the citys status changed. In 1803, it became the capital of a newly formed Swiss canton, in 1964 the city hosted the Swiss National Exhibition, displaying its newly found confidence to host major international events. From the 1950s to 1970s a large number of Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese immigrated, settling mostly in the district of Renens. The city has served as a refuge for European artists, while under the care of a psychiatrist at Lausanne, T. S. Eliot composed most of his 1922 poem The Wasteland. Hemingway also visited from Paris with his wife during the 1920s, in fact, many creative people - such as Edward Gibbon, an historian, and Romantic era poets Shelley and Byron - have sojourned, lived, and worked in Lausanne or nearby. The city has been quiet, but in the late 1960s. Later demonstrations took place to protest against the high cinema prices, the most important geographical feature of the area surrounding Lausanne is Lake Geneva. Lausanne boasts a dramatic panorama over the lake and the Alps, in addition to its generally southward-sloping layout, the centre of the city is the site of an ancient river, the Flon, which has been covered since the 19th century
6.
French literature
–
This article is a general introduction to French literature. For detailed information on French literature in specific periods, see the separate historical articles in the template to the right. Literature written in French language, by citizens of nations such as Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco. As of 2006, French writers have been awarded more Nobel Prizes in Literature than novelists, poets and essayists of any other country, France itself ranks first in the list of Nobel Prizes in literature by country. French literature has been for French people an object of pride for centuries. The French language is a dialect derived from Latin and heavily influenced principally by Celtic. Today, French schools emphasize the study of novels, theater, the literary arts are heavily sponsored by the state and literary prizes are major news. The Académie française and the Institut de France are important linguistic and artistic institutions in France, Literature matters deeply to the people of France and plays an important role in their sense of identity. As of 2006, French literary people have been awarded more Nobel Prizes in Literature than novelists, poets and essayists of any other country, a writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form. For most of the 20th century, French authors had more Literature Nobel Prizes than those of any other nation. M. G, le Clézio 2014 – Patrick Modiano Grand Prix de Littérature Policière – created in 1948, for crime and detective fiction. Grand Prix du roman de lAcadémie française – created 1918, Prix Décembre – created in 1989. Prix Femina – created 1904, decided each year by an exclusively female jury, Prix Goncourt – created 1903, given to the author of the best and most imaginative prose work of the year. Prix Goncourt des Lycéens – created in 1987, Prix Littéraire Valery Larbaud – created in 1957. Prix Médicis – created 1958, awarded to an author whose fame does not yet match their talent, Prix Renaudot – created in 1926. Prix Tour-Apollo Award – 1972–1990, given to the best science fiction published in French during the preceding year. Prix des Deux Magots – created in 1933, a short history of French literature Burgwinkle, William, Nicholas Hammond, and Emma Wilson, eds. The Cambridge history of French literature Cobb, Richard, Promenades, an appreciation of modern French literature Harvey, Paul. The Oxford companion to French literature Denis Hollier, ed, a New History of French Literature, Harvard University Press,1989,1150 pp. France, Peter
7.
University of Lausanne
–
The University of Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of theology, before being made a university in 1890. Today about 13,500 students and 2,200 researchers study, approximately 1,500 international students attend the university, which has a wide curriculum including exchange programs with world-renowned universities. Since 2005, the University follows the requirements of the Bologna process, the 2011 Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked the University of Lausanne 116th globally. The CWTS Leiden Ranking 2015 ranks the University of Lausanne 11th in Europe and 41st globally, together with the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne the university forms a vast campus at the shores of Lake Geneva. Its vocation at that time was to train ministers for the church, the university enjoyed a certain renown due to the fact that it was the only French language Protestant school of theology. As the centuries passed, the number of faculties increased and diversified until, in 1890, in 1909 Rodolphe Archibald Reiss founded the first school of forensic science in the world, the Institut de police scientifique. From 1970, the university moved progressively from the old centre of Lausanne, around the Cathedral and Château, in 2003 two new faculties were founded, concentrating on the life and human sciences, the Faculty of Biology and Medicine and the Faculty of Geosciences and Environment. On 1 January 2014, the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration was integrated into the University of Lausanne, the main campus is presently situated outside the city of Lausanne, on the shores of Lake Léman, in Dorigny. It is adjacent to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and is served by the Lausanne Metro Line 1, the two schools together welcome about 20,000 students. The UNIL and the EPFL share an active sports centre located on the campus, on the shores of Lake Geneva, the university campus is made up of individual buildings with a park and arboretum in between. The university library serves as eating hall and is centrally located. The view from the library across the fields to the lake of Geneva. On a clear day, Mont Blanc can be seen, the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law and the central administration of the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics are also located on the main campus. In addition to its campus at the lakeside, the University of Lausanne also has other sites. The Faculty of Biology and Medicine is also located in two sites, around the University Hospital of Lausanne and in Épalinges. The Biopôle was built next to the Épalinges campus, the Faculty of Biology and Medicine also comprises a fourth site, the Psychiatric Hospital of Cery, in Prilly. The UNIL also publish Allez savoir, a magazine aimed at a larger audience, published three times a year and whose subscription is free. Besides these, Lauditoire is the newspapers from both UNIL and EPFL, of a circulation 19000 free copies
8.
Restoration and Regeneration in Switzerland
–
The periods of Restoration and Regeneration in Swiss history last from 1814 to 1847. Regeneration refers to the period of 1830 to 1848, when in the wake of the July Revolution the restored Ancien Régime was countered by the liberal movement, in the Protestant cantons, the rural population enforced liberal cantonal constitutions, partly in armed marches on the cities. This resulted in a backlash in the Catholic cantons in the 1830s. When Napoleons fall appeared imminent, the Act of Mediation was suspended in late December 1813, the Tagsatzung which took place between 6 April 1814 and 31 August 1815, the so-called Long Diet, met at Zurich to replace the constitution. The Diet remained dead-locked until 12 September when Valais, Neuchatel and this increased the number of cantons to 22. The Diet, however, made little progress until the Congress of Vienna, Swiss troops under General Niklaus Franz von Bachmann advanced to the Franche-Comté without orders from the diet, but were ordered back. The French fort at Hüningen near Basel was placed under siege by Austrian and Swiss troops, the Swiss were particularly eager to lay siege to this fortress after its commander General Joseph Barbanègre opened fire on the city of Basel. The Treaty of Paris of 20 November included a financial compensation for Switzerland besides the acquisition of a territorial gain. Most significantly, the Treaty included the recognition of permanent Swiss neutrality by all European powers, cantonal constitutions were worked out independently from 1814, in general restoring the late feudal conditions of the 17th and 18th century. The Tagsatzung was re-organized by the Federal Treaty of 7 August 1815, the Tagsatzung reintroduced the old flag consisting of a white cross on a red field, using it for the coat of arms and the flag of the confederation. Following the French July Revolution in 1830, a number of large assemblies were held calling for new cantonal constitutions, as each canton had its own constitution, the assemblies in each canton addressed different specifics, but they all had two main issues. First, they called for peacefully adjusting the constitutions by adjusting the way seats in local legislatures, in particular they objected to what they saw as the over-representation of the cantonal capital in the government. Secondly, they sought a way to amend the constitution, very few cantons even had a way to amend or modify the constitutions, and none of them allowed citizens initiatives to be added. The first assembly was held near Weinfelden in Thurgau in October and November 1830, followed in November by meetings in Wohlenschwil, Aargau then Sursee, Lucerne and finally the Ustertag near Uster in Zurich. In December there were three assemblies in the Canton of St. Gallen in Wattwil, Altstätten and St. Gallenkappel as well as in Balsthal in Solothurn, the final assembly was held in Münsingen in Bern in January 1831. The speeches and articles reporting on the assemblies were widely distributed, the crowds were generally well behaved and orderly. For example, in Wohlenschwil it was reported that they met in unexpectedly quiet attitude with decency, even in Aargau and St. Gallen, where the crowd marched through the streets of Aarau and St. Gallen, the protest march was peaceful. Following the assemblies and marches, cantonal governments quickly gave into the demands of the assemblies, in Basel, the conflict resulted in the split of Basel-City and Basel-Country in 1833
9.
University of Bonn
–
The University of Bonn is a public research university located in Bonn, Germany. Founded in its present form in 1818, as the successor of earlier academic institutions. The University of Bonn offers a number of undergraduate and graduate programs in a range of subjects. Its library holds more than five million volumes, the University of Bonn has 544 professors and 32,500 students. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2016 and the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2015 ranked the University of Bonn as one of the 100 best universities in the world. The universitys forerunner was the Kurkölnische Akademie Bonn which was founded in 1777 by Maximilian Frederick of Königsegg-Rothenfels, in the spirit of the Enlightenment the new academy was nonsectarian. The academy had schools for theology, law, pharmacy and general studies, in 1784 Emperor Joseph II granted the academy the right to award academic degrees, turning the academy into a university. The academy was closed in 1798 after the bank of the Rhine was occupied by France during the French Revolutionary Wars. The Rhineland became a part of Prussia in 1815 as a result of the Congress of Vienna, shortly after the seizure of the Rhineland, on 5 April 1815, King Frederick William III of Prussia promised the establishment of a new university in the new Rhine province. At this time there was no university in the Rhineland, as all three universities that existed until the end of the 18th century were closed as a result of the French occupation, the Kurkölnische Akademie Bonn was one of these three universities. The other two were the Roman Catholic University of Cologne and the Protestant University of Duisburg, the new Rhein University was then founded on 18 October 1818 by Frederick William III. It was the sixth Prussian University, founded after the universities in Greifswald, Berlin, Königsberg, Halle, the new university was equally shared between the two Christian denominations. This was one of the reasons why Bonn, with its tradition of a university, was chosen over Cologne. Apart from a school of Roman Catholic theology and a school of Protestant theology, inititally 35 professors and eight adjunct professors were teaching in Bonn. The university constitution was adopted in 1827, in the spirit of Wilhelm von Humboldt the constitution emphasized the autonomy of the university and the unity of teaching and research. Similar to the University of Berlin, which was founded in 1810, only one year after the inception of the Rhein University the dramatist August von Kotzebue was murdered by Karl Ludwig Sand, a student at the University of Jena. The Carlsbad Decrees, introduced on 20 September 1819 led to a crackdown on universities, the dissolution of the Burschenschaften. One victim was the author and poet Ernst Moritz Arndt, who, only after the death of Frederick William III in 1840 was he reinstated in his professorship
10.
Historiography of Switzerland
–
The historiography of Switzerland is the study of the history of Switzerland. While these chronicles were written from the point of view of the individual states, with the introduction of movable type in Europe, chroniclers could reach a wider audience and begin to write about Swiss history as a whole. The 1507 Chronicle of the Swiss Confederation by Petermann Etterlin exerted great influence on later writers because, as a printed work and this development came to a close with Josias Simlers 1576 De Helvetiorum republica libri duo, a sober account of the Confederacys constitutional status and historical background. The work remained the definitive account of Swiss political history for centuries – it saw some 30 editions up until the 18th century, the rest of the world learnt of Swiss history essentially through Simlers treatise. The continuation of the last great work of Swiss humanist historiography, the baroque appetite for curiosa was allayed by Matthäus Merians great engravings. Conditions were not optimal – state archives remained mostly closed to private researchers, still, the early 18th century saw the first critical editions of ancient sources and the publication of the first Swiss historical journals. The first comprehensive historiography was Gottlieb Emanuel Hallers six-volume Bibliothek der Schweizergeschichte, all these works, in general, hewed closely to the popular account of the Confederacys creation as established in the 15th and 16th century. Their 1760 book Der Wilhelm Tell, ein dänisches Mährgen, in which they showed the Tell saga to be an adaptation of a Danish legend, was banned and burnt in public. The 19th centurys most influential work of historiography was Johannes von Müllers epic, the work, which did not go beyond the Swabian War of 1499 – Switzerlands war of independence – was soon continued in the works of an entire generation of historians. The democratic reforms of the 18th century caused a broadening of public education, cantonal archives along with the new Federal Archives were opened to researchers, and chairs of Swiss history were established in Swiss universities. The first historical society in Switzerland was founded in 1841 and this tradition is being continued in the ongoing publication of Swiss diplomatic archives by several Swiss universities starting in 1979. The conservative Roman Catholic cantons – who had defeated in the 1847 Sonderbund war – also received little attention from scholars situated in the liberal Protestant mainstream of the time. On the whole, Swiss historiography up until the early 20th century was focused on the political, the liberal, Radical intellectual mainstream, which viewed Swiss history as a steady progression of liberty culminating in the founding of the 1848 federal state, was dominant. Some academic attention also shifted to the economic and social history of Switzerland and these developments, inspired by Anglo-American historiographical trends, were however cut short by the World Wars. Attempts by non-historians including Robert Grimm to write a Socialist history of Switzerland had no impact, one historian, Karl Meyer, even attempted to rehabilitate the historicity of the national founding legends in a 1933 work. The early Cold War periods emphasis on geistige Landesverteidigung – intellectual defense of the country – did also not encourage a re-thinking of Swiss history. Picking up where Rappard and Fueter had left off, historians of the 1960s and 1970s published large treatises on the social and economic history of Switzerland. Adapting the newer methods of research in the United States
11.
Romandy
–
Romandy is the French-speaking part of western Switzerland. In 2010 about 1.9 million people, or 24. 4% of the Swiss population, the bulk of romand population lives in the Arc Lémanique region along Lake Geneva, connecting Geneva, Vaud and the Lower Valais. The adjective romand is a dialectal variant of roman, in Old French used as a term for the Gallo-Romance vernaculars. Suisse romande is used in contrast to Suisse alémanique, Alemannic Switzerland, formed by analogy is Suisse italienne, which is composed of Ticino and of a part of Graubünden. Simple Westschweiz western Switzerland may also be used as a loose synonym, in four Swiss cantons, French is the sole official language, Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel, and Jura. There are three cantons where French and German have co-official status, Bern, Fribourg and Valais, the linguistic boundary between French and German is known as Röstigraben. The term is humorous in origin and refers both to the division and to perceived cultural differences between the Romandy and the German-speaking Swiss majority. The term can be traced to the WWI period, but it entered mainstream usage in the 1970s in the context of the Jurassic separatism virulent at the time. It then follows the border between Neuchâtel and Bern and turns south towards Morat, again traversing an areal of traditional bilinguism including the communities of Morat and Fribourg. Cutting across the High Alps at Les Diablerets, the boundary separates the French-speaking Lower Valais from the Alemannic-speaking Upper Valais. It then cuts southwards into the High Alps again, separating the Val dAnniviers from the Mattertal, traditionally speaking the Franco-Provençal or Patois dialects of Upper Burgundy, the romand population now speak a variety of Standard French. Today, the differences between Swiss French and Parisian French are minor and mostly lexical, although in rural speakers, in particular, some parts of the Swiss Jura participate in the Frainc-Comtou dialect spoken in the Franche-Comté region of France. Since the 1970s, there has been an amount of linguistic revivalism. In this context, the Franco-Provençal dialects are called Arpitan and their historical area Arpitania, the cultural identity of Romandy is supported by Télévision Suisse Romande, Radio Suisse Romande and the universities of Geneva, Fribourg, Lausanne and Neuchâtel. Historically, most of Romandy has been strongly Protestant, especially Calvinist, however, Roman Catholicism continued to predominate in Jura, Valais, and Fribourg. In recent decades, due to significant immigration from France and Southern European countries, languages of Switzerland Swiss French Röstigraben Jurassic separatism Bernese Jura Lake Geneva region Rhodanic Republic Arpitania Organisation internationale de la Francophonie
