Austrian language
Though there is no such thing as an
Austrian language, several
Germanic dialects are spoken in
Austria.
- Standard German, called "High German" in Austria, is taught in schools, but many Austrians do not consider it a native language.
- Austro-Bavarian is a common language throughout much of the country. Wienerisch, the Austro-Bavarian dialect of Vienna, is most frequently used in Germany for impersonations of the typical inhabitant of Austria. The Central Austro-Bavarian dialects are more intelligible to speakers of Standard German than the Southern Austro-Bavarian dialects of Tirol.
- Vorarlbergerisch, spoken in Vorarlberg, is an Alemannic dialect similar to Swiss German.
The two southern provinces of
Styria (Steiermark) and
Carinthia (Kärnten)
speak variations of the Southern Austro-Bavarian dialect range similar to the
common tyrolean dialect which originates near
Innsbruck (but it has to be said
that
Tyrol has many dialects).
Simple words in these dialects are very similar, but pronunciation is distinct for each and it is very easy for an Austrian after a few spoken words to judge which kind of dialect of Austria someone speaks, and most dialect words are understood but if it goes into the dialects of the deeper valleys of Tyrol, sometimes even other Tyroleans are hopeless to understand the dialect.
A good reference for the Austrian, Bavarian and other German dialects are the
dialect ("Mundart") editions of Asterix and Obelix comic books which are available in Wienerisch (three editions with different dialects from inside Vienna) and at least one for the common Tyrolean dialect and one for a deep Styrian dialect.
The people of Graz, the capital of Styria, speak yet another dialect which is not very Styrian and more easily to understand for people from other parts of Austria than other Styrian dialects, e.g. from western Styria.