# Why do Austrians speak German? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 6, 2016, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638 "2016-06-06T03:12:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2016, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/61 "2016-06-06T18:40:51Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Actually, German and Dutch are, if not precisely, very close to being a [Dialect Continuum.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum) Yes, that is correct. What I meant is that I don’t know how different Dutch (or Danish) is from Frisian. While I can understand some Dutch (if spoken slowly and without slang), I am totally lost when it comes to Frisan (at least the variety spoken in the Netherlands). ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/62 "2016-06-06T19:00:15Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > Yes, that is correct. What I meant is that I don’t know how different Dutch (or Danish) is from Frisian. While I can understand some Dutch (if spoken slowly and without slang), I am totally lost when it comes to Frisan (at least the variety spoken in the Netherlands). It’s always a funny question, because it depends on what your motives are. If you WANT the languages to be different, you can make them so. If you WANT them to be similar, you can make them so, too. Sort of like when people ask if Spanish and Italian is mutually comprehensible. The answer depends on how hard the two speakers are trying, and which way. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2016, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/63 "2016-06-06T19:12:10Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It’s always a funny question, because it depends on what your motives are. If you WANT the languages to be different, you can make them so. If you WANT them to be similar, you can make them so, too. Sort of like when people ask if Spanish and Italian is mutually comprehensible. The answer depends on how hard the two speakers are trying, and which way. 🙂 Yes, and this is also where the concept of asymmetric intelligibility comes into play: > **[Mutual intelligibility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibility#Asymmetric_intelligibility)** > > In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intelligibility is sometimes used to distinguish languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. > Intelligibility between varieties can be asymmetric; that is, speakers of one variety may be able to better understand another than ... ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2016, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/64 "2016-06-06T19:55:45Z")
> [@Isilder](#): > > Austrasia was in what is now France. Not entirely - you’re perhaps thinking of Neustria. Austrasia included the old Franconian homeland ( later the duchy of the same name ) east to the borders of Thuringia, and most of the middle and lower Rhine valley generally, as well as the Moselle. Areas like Lorraine and Picardy are now French, but more of it is in western Germany, the Low Countries and Luxembourg. > [@Donnerwetter](#): > > While I can understand some Dutch (if spoken slowly and without slang), I am totally lost when it comes to Frisan (at least the variety spoken in the Netherlands). Frisia was an interesting place as historically it was virtually an island. It _looks_ like just another coastal area on maps, but in the Middle Ages the geography of the low-lying ( and very frequently flooded ) marshlands was such that outside access was very difficult and populations usually sparse. Consequently it tended to have an independent streak and it is not surprising it ended up a bit more dialectically distinct from the rest of Low Germany. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2016, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/65 "2016-06-06T20:03:14Z")
Frisian is also often cited as closer to English than any other language/dialect in the German-Dutch continuum. (English if it were stripped of its post-800-AD Danish-then-French admixtures and semi-creolized simplifications, that is). Hence the slightly forced expression (sounds bout right, but would be written differently): _Good butter and good cheese is good English and good Friese._ ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2016, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/66 "2016-06-06T20:36:06Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Austria and Prussia were the two biggest German kingdoms at the time Otto Von Bismarck wanted to unify Germany into one nation. His philosophy was that there was only room for one big fish in the pond. So he picked Prussia, and united it along with all the other principalities and regions and kingdoms and fiefdoms that used to be part of the Holy Roman Empire into the nation of Germany. And Austria was left out. > . Umm, no. The Austrian Empire was an empire in Central Europe created out of the realms of the Habsburgs by proclamation in 1804. Bismark didn’t have a choice or chance to make it part of Great Germany as it was on it way to becoming part of it’s own greater Empire, aka Austria-Hungary. In fact Prussia and Austria went to war during that period. Bismark really created a Prussian state. > **[Unification of Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_Germany)** > > The unification of Germany (German: Deutsche Einigung, .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}pronounced \[ˈdɔʏtʃə ˈʔaɪnɪɡʊŋ\] ⓘ) was a process of building the first nation-state for Germans with federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany (one without Habsburgs' multi-ethnic Austria or its German-speaking part). It commenced o... > **[Otto von Bismarck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck#Germanisation)** > > Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg\[a\] (born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898) was a Prussian statesman and diplomat who oversaw the unification of Germany. Bismarck's Realpolitik and firm governance resulted in him being popularly known as the Iron Chancellor (German: Eiserne Kanzler). > From Junker landowner origins, Bismarck rose rapidly in Prussian politics under King Wilhelm I of Prussia. He served as the Prussian ambass... ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/67 "2016-06-06T21:12:30Z")
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**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2016, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/68 "2016-06-06T22:08:06Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Not quite. Both Norse and German are Germanic languages. “Germanic” is the name for the extended family (and, if you speak German, for Indo-European: Indogermanisch). Norse is a North Germanic language, and German is a West Germanic language. They are cousins once removed, more or less. I believed that’s what I said, just avoiding the use of any jargon. If you say “Germanic”, that means nothing without explanation. The original form of German as a distinct tongue was spoken, as far as we can tell, by tribes which lived in the area of Denmark, northern Germany, and southern Sweden. They then entered a long and successful expansion period from 750 BC all the way to around 750 AD. These tended to carry their languages and create new, hybrid tongues along the way. However, the main point is that Norse (which didn’t exist in the early period) is a lateral change from proto-Germanic language, not it’s origin. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2016, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/69 "2016-06-06T23:57:13Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Actually four - everyone always forgets about [Romansh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language) 🙂 This reminds me of a bag from a department store in Fribourg (where I lived for a year). It had a slogan in 6 language: Standard German, Swiss (Bernese, at a guess) German, French, Italian, Romantsch, and … English. When the Swiss privatized their PTT, they had to choose a name for the resultant organization. I don’t know how they came to this conclusion, but they called it SwissCom. Now pardon me, for a little language lesson. “High” and “Low” are not sociological distinctions. High German dialects are those that underwent two or (for the Swiss) three sound changes. The first two are t –\> s or ts, and p –\> f or pf. For example, something like foot becomes fuss and something like pepper becomes pfeffer. The third change is k –\> ch or kch (i.e., the k becomes a stop following by an achlaut, so kaese becomes kchase or something like that). In low German, spoken in the north coast, these changes didn’t happen. Dutch and Frisian (and English for that matter) are low German languages. I wonder how mutually intelligible Dutch and low German are. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/70 "2016-06-07T00:16:06Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Spain, France, Andorra, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy… I don’t understand why you group these along with Austria, as countries whose official language is that of an historical and influehtial neighbor. Of course, I did not include tiny states like Liechtenstein, Vatican City, San Marino, Monaco, and the like. I wouldn’t put Austria in their category, either. What larger neighboring country do Italians speak the language of, instead of their own? Or the French or Spanish? I did not include Moldova, because its official language was Russian for most of the last century, and it has only one generation of sovereign history. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/71 "2016-06-07T03:39:22Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Now pardon me, for a little language lesson. “High” and “Low” are not sociological distinctions. Yes, as already noted they are geographical markers. We’ve all heard of The Low Countries. > [@](#): > > High German dialects are those that underwent two or (for the Swiss) three sound changes. The first two are t –\> s or ts, and p –\> f or pf. For example, something like foot becomes fuss and something like pepper becomes pfeffer. The third change is k –\> ch or kch (i.e., the k becomes a stop following by an achlaut, so kaese becomes kchase or something like that). In low German, spoken in the north coast, these changes didn’t happen. Dutch and Frisian (and English for that matter) are low German languages. I wonder how mutually intelligible Dutch and low German are. See my link to Dialect Continuum, above. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/72 "2016-06-07T04:13:57Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > I don’t know, but I guess the birth certificates indicate the correct place of birth. I’m also assuming that the Liechtenstein citizenship law follows the _jus sanguinis_, so it doesn’t make a difference when the babies are actually born in Switzerland or Austria. Yeah well, there’s more than one definition of “correct” place of birth. The issue that led to changing the definition of “correct” place of birth under Spanish law had nothing to do with citizenship, it was about death/birth statistics. > [@jtur88](#): > > I don’t understand why you group these along with Austria, as countries whose official language is that of an historical and influehtial neighbor. They are countries which do not speak a language whose name parallels that of the country and/or where more than one language is spoken. The word “last” does not seem to mean what you think it means. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/73 "2016-06-07T04:19:57Z")
My impression of Dutch when I was in Amsterdam many years ago - was that it was like Swedish Chef English, trying hard to be unintelligible and almost succeeding. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/74 "2016-06-07T04:24:38Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > “Swiss German” is actually somewhat of an umbrella term referring to several informal High German dialects spoken in Switzerland as well as Italy and Liechtenstein. But all German-speaking Swiss also learn the formal “Swiss Standard German” which is easily understood by non-Swiss German speakers. The Standard dialect is used in all government communication, schools, news reporting, etc. It was my experience with the Swiss that they would invariably switch to standard German when speaking to me; as a GSL speaker this was a tremendous help because I never would have understood Swiss dialect. Austrians, on the other hand, seemed to me to speak something much more like standard German as usually taught to foreigners, but with a different kind of accent which I found difficult to understand. I usually had to use English there. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/75 "2016-06-07T05:23:28Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > Austria literally means “eastern part of the empire”; it’s not like they were founded by a people called the Austers. It’s like how “Canada” literally means “Mostly Unpopulated Fifty-First State”. It’s not like they were founded by a people called the Canucks. ;);)😛 ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/76 "2016-06-07T06:15:50Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > I don’t understand why you group these along with Austria, as countries whose official language is that of an historical and influehtial neighbor. Of course, I did not include tiny states like Liechtenstein, Vatican City, San Marino, Monaco, and the like. I wouldn’t put Austria in their category, either. What larger neighboring country do Italians speak the language of, instead of their own? Or the French or Spanish? I did not include Moldova, because its official language was Russian for most of the last century, and it has only one generation of sovereign history. These countries are grouped together because they are counter-examples to the rule of one country = one language. In certain provinces/regions/municipalities, French, German, Ladin, and Slovene are co-official with Italian. Regional languages of France (including Breton, Alsatian German, Basque, and Occitan, among others) enjoy quasi-official status. In Spain, Basque, Catalan, and Galician are co-official languages in certain regions, and for example in Catalonia, Catalan is nearly as prevalent as Spanish, and in some communities perhaps even more so. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/77 "2016-06-07T06:30:36Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > They are countries which do not speak a language whose name parallels that of the country and/or where more than one language is spoken. Time to trot out the old saying “A language is a dialect with an army”; nation state structures have their own variabilities separate from the linguistic realities on the ground\*, which is why the 20th century history of Europe is so much about attempting to impose a rationale on the relationship of one to the other - with disastrous consequences when it became a matter of “exchange of populations” morphing into “ethnic cleansing”. There’s an old story of a traveller somewhere like the Bukowina, deeply rural with multiple linguistic/cultural identities intermingled, and the territory disputed between the successor states to the Austrian and Russian Empires. The residents of more than one village simply didn’t get the idea when asked what country they belonged to, and would simply say “Well, here, of course”. \*A fascinating delve into past variations is Norman Davies’s _Vanished Kingdoms: the History of Half-Forgotten Europe_ ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/78 "2016-06-07T06:37:46Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > These countries are grouped together because they are counter-examples to the rule of one country = one language. In certain provinces/regions/municipalities, French, German, Ladin, and Slovene are co-official with Italian. Regional languages of France (including Breton, Alsatian German, Basque, and Occitan, among others) enjoy quasi-official status. In Spain, Basque, Catalan, and Galician are co-official languages in certain regions, and for example in Catalonia, Catalan is nearly as prevalent as Spanish, and in some communities perhaps even more so. But the claim is that state boundaries “more or less match linguistic boundaries”. Yes, in border areas of Italy there are minority languages. Equally, for most states (with land borders) there’ll be nearby areas _outside_ Italy where Italian is spoken. That’s why “Italian Republic = italophone country” is only “more or less” correct. But it _is_ more or less correct. For this purpose I don’t think it makes much difference whether minority languages enjoy official status or not. What matters is whether, and where, minority languages are used. Official status may or may not follow from use; that depends on the attitude of the central government, and may change over time. There has been a fairly strong political nationalist movement in Europe since (at least) the nineteenth century which holds that each nation (defined by language, culture, shared history, etc) is not only entitle to have but ought to have it’s own independent state. This accounts both for the unification of previously fragmented states like Germany and Italy, and the independence of previously subject states like Iceland, Norway, Ireland and the many countries which were at one time gathered into the Austrian empire. On the one hand, this trend continues until our own time - witness the dissolution along national lines of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia - while on the other hand it has been overlaid with a growing degree of European integration. But at the level of the sovereign entity, the state, the trend for the past two hundred years has very much been towards the nation-state whose boundaries, in many cases, do indeed “more or less follow linguistic boundaries”. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/79 "2016-06-07T06:43:18Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Heh. > > A similar situation led to a change in the way Spanish birth registries work, allowing children to be registered as born wherever the family lives and not wherever the actual delivery took place (forcing the registers to list the actual place made it seem as if most towns were just dying out when they were not). Do you know if people from Liechtenstein can also do that, register as “born in Liechtenstein” regardless of actual delivery location? Presumably if the actual delivery takes place in Switzerland or Austria, Swiss or Austrian law will impose a registration requirement, and the details of what exactly gets registered will be laid down in Swiss or Austrian regulations. Posssibly Swiss or Austrian birth registration laws provide for the citizenship of the parents to be one of the details noted on the register. It may well be the case - a wild guess, here, but it would make sense - that Leichtensteiner law allows (or even requires) citizens of Leichtenstein to register the birth of their children with the authorities of Leichtenstein, regardless of where the births take place. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/80 "2016-06-07T06:48:43Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > In Spain, Basque, Catalan, and Galician are co-official languages in certain regions, and for example in Catalonia, Catalan is nearly as prevalent as Spanish, and in some communities perhaps even more so. And Valenciano (40 years ago it was officially a dialect of Catalan, now it is not; I don’t want to bore you with the politics behind it, but sometimes a language is a dialect with a legal system). There are also other languages which are not co-official (Bable is the one that comes to mind right now; there is some debate over whether Silbo should be considered a language or a form of communication), including two sign languages which are not official but by royal Request “should be treated as if” (that is, interpreters provided as needed and considered for purposes of “language skills” for social service jobs). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638.md?page=5)