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'Austrian German' (''Österreichisches Deutsch'') is the national standard variety of the German language spoken in Austria and South Tyrol.
As German is a Pluricentric language, Austrian German is not a dialect, it is another standard variety in addition to the High German spoken in Germany. Much like the relationship between American and British English, Austrian German is simply another standard form of the German language. There is no standardized Austrian language but a variety of High German dialects are spoken.

Contents

Overview

Subgroups

Intercomprehensibility and regional accents

Grammar

Perfect tense

Vocabulary

Standard German in Austria

Regional dialects

See also

Literature

Overview

★ Standard German, called ''"High German"'' (German: ''Standardsprache'' by philologists, but generally referred to as ''Hochdeutsch'') in Austria.

★ Vorarlbergerisch, spoken in Vorarlberg, is an Alemannic dialect similar to Swiss German.

★ All other dialects belong to the Austro-Bavarian group, which is a common language throughout much of the country and closely related to "Bayerisch" or Bavarian 'German.'

Subgroups

Ordinarily, these dialects are considered to belong either to the Central Austro-Bavarian or Southern Austro-Bavarian subgroups, with the latter encompassing the languages of the Tyrol (including South Tyrol), Carinthia, and Styria and the former including the dialects of Vienna, Upper Austria, and Lower Austria. As the dialect spoken in Vorarlberg is more closely related to Swiss German than to other Austrian dialects, most Austrians have difficulty in understanding it.

Intercomprehensibility and regional accents

While strong forms of the various dialects are not normally comprehensible to Northern Germans, there is virtually no communication barrier to speakers from Bavaria. The Central Austro-Bavarian dialects are more intelligible to speakers of Standard German than the Southern Austro-Bavarian dialects of Tyrol. Viennese, the Austro-Bavarian dialect of Vienna, is most frequently used in Germany for impersonations of the typical inhabitant of Austria. The people of Graz, the capital of Styria, speak yet another dialect which is not very Styrian and more easily understood by people from other parts of Austria than other Styrian dialects, for example from western Styria.
Simple words in the various dialects are very similar, but pronunciation is distinct for each and, after listening to a few spoken words it may be possible for an Austrian to realise which dialect is being spoken. However, in regard to the dialects of the deeper valleys of the Tyrol, other Tyroleans are often unable to understand them. Speakers from the different states of Austria can easily be distinguished from each other by their particular accents (probably more so than Bavarians), those of Carinthia, Styria, Vienna, Upper Austria, and the Tyrol being very characteristic. Speakers from those regions, even those speaking Standard German, can usually be easily identified by their accent, even by an untrained listener.
Several of the dialects have been influenced by contact with non-Germanic linguistic groups, such as the dialect of Carinthia, where in the past many speakers were bilingual with Slovenian, and the dialect of Vienna, which has been influenced by immigration during the Austro-Hungarian period, particularly from what is today the Czech Republic. The dialects of South Tyrol has been influenced by the Italian language, in particular with many loan words.
Interestingly, the geographic borderlines between the different accents (isoglosses) coincide strongly with the borders of the states and also with the border to Bavaria, with Bavarians having a markedly different rhythm of speech in spite of the similarities in the language as such.

Grammar

Perfect tense

In Austria, as in the German speaking parts of Switzerland and in southern Germany, verbs that express a state tend to use ''sein'' as the auxiliary verb in the perfect tense, as well as verbs of movement. Verbs which fall into this category include ''sitzen'' (to sit), ''liegen'' (to lie) and in parts of Carinthia, ''schlafen'' (to sleep). Therefore the perfect tense of these verbs would be ''ich bin gesessen'', ''ich bin gelegen'' and ''ich bin geschlafen'' respectively. For some verbs which fall into this category, the use of ''sein'' as the auxiliary in the perfect can change to ''haben'' to avoid confusion between two verbs that would otherwise look the same in this tense, as in the case of ''stehen'' (to stand) and ''gestehen'' (to confess). In the perfect these would be ''ich bin gestanden'' and ''ich habe gestanden'' respectively.

Vocabulary

There are many Austrian terms which differ from standard German. These include 'Jänner' (January) rather than ''Januar'', 'Feber' (February) rather than ''Februar'', 'heuer' (this year) rather than ''dieses Jahr'' and a whole series of foods and vegetables such as: 'Erdäpfel' (potatoes) German ''Kartoffeln'', 'Faschiertes' (ground beef) German ''Hackfleisch'', 'Fisolen' (green beans) German ''Gartenbohne'', 'Karfiol' (cauliflower) German ''Blumenkohl'', 'Karotte' (carrot) German ''Möhre'', 'Kohlsprossen' (Brussels sprouts) German ''Rosenkohl'', 'Marillen' (apricots) German ''Aprikosen'', 'Paradeiser' (tomatoes) German ''Tomaten'', 'Palatschinke' (pancakes) German ''Pfannkuchen'' and 'Topfen' (cottage cheese) German ''Quark''.

Standard German in Austria

With German being a pluricentric language, Austrian dialects should not be confused with the variety of Standard German spoken by most Austrians, which is distinct from that of Germany or Switzerland. Distinctions in vocabulary persist, for example, in culinary terms, where communication with Germans is frequently difficult, and administrative and legal language, which is due to Austria's exclusion from the development of a German nation-state in the late 19th century and its manifold particular traditions. A comprehensive collection of Austrian-German legal, administrative and economic terms is offered in: Markhardt, Heidemarie: Wörterbuch der österreichischen Rechts-, Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungsterminologie. Peter Lang, 2006.
When Austria became a member of the European Union, the Austrian variety of the German language (limited to 23 agricultural terms) was “protected” in the so-called Protocol no. 10 (1) regarding the use of specific Austrian terms of the German language in the framework of the European Union, which forms part of the Austrian EU accession treaty. Austrian German is the only variety of a pluricentric language recognised under international law / EU primary law. All facts concerning “Protocol no. 10” are documented in Markhardt, Heidemarie: ''Das österreichische Deutsch im Rahmen der EU'', Peter Lang, 2005.

Regional dialects

★ Viennese German

★ Vorarlbergerisch

See also

★ Austro-Bavarian

★ Carinthian dialect, with examples (German)

Literature

★ Ammon, Ulrich: ''Die deutsche Sprache in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz: Das Problem der nationalen Varietäten.'' de Gruyter, Berlin/New York 1995.

★ Ammon, Ulrich / Hans Bickel, Jakob Ebner u. a.: ''Variantenwörterbuch des Deutschen. Die Standardsprache in Österreich, der Schweiz und Deutschland sowie in Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Ostbelgien und Südtirol.'' Berlin/New York 2004, ISBN 3-11-016574-0.

★ Grzega, Joachim: „Deutschländisch und Österreichisches Deutsch: Mehr Unterschiede als nur in Wortschatz und Aussprache.“ In: Joachim Grzega: ''Sprachwissenschaft ohne Fachchinesisch.'' Shaker, Aachen 2001, S. 7-26. ISBN 3-8265-8826-6.

★ Grzega, Joachim: “On the Description of National Varieties: Examples from (German and Austrian) German and (English and American) English.” In: Linguistik Online] 7 (2000).

★ Grzega, Joachim: “Nonchalance als Merkmal des Österreichischen Deutsch.” In: ''Muttersprache'' 113 (2003): 242-254.

★ Muhr, Rudolf / Schrodt, Richard: ''Österreichisches Deutsch und andere nationale Varietäten plurizentrischer Sprachen in Europa.'' Wien, 1997

★ Muhr, Rudolf/Schrodt, Richard/Wiesinger, Peter (eds.): ''Österreichisches Deutsch: Linguistische, sozialpsychologische und sprachpolitische Aspekte einer nationalen Variante des Deutschen.'' Wien, 1995.

★ Pohl, Heinz Dieter: „Österreichische Identität und österreichisches Deutsch“ aus dem ''„Kärntner Jahrbuch für Politik 1999“''

★ Wiesinger, Peter: ''Die deutsche Sprache in Österreich. Eine Einführung'', In: Wiesinger (Hg.): ''Das österreichische Deutsch. Schriften zur deutschen Sprache. Band 12.'' (Wien, Köln, Graz, 1988, Verlag, Böhlau)