# 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:** 4\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/81 "2016-06-07T07:43:23Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > 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. Many Swiss consider standard German - or to be more precise: [Swiss Standard German](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Standard_German)- a foreign language. They switch back and forth between dialect (and there exist more than just one variety of dialect in Switzerland). The switch is very noticeable when you listen carefully, even if you don’t understand neither standard German, nor Swiss dialect. When the Swiss speak standard German, they also tend to speak slowly which is a big help if German isn’t your first language. Feigning / mocking a Swiss accent in Germany always involves speaking exaggeratedly slowly. The distinction between standard German and Swiss-German dialect causes a problems for Swiss citizens from the French or Italian-speaking parts of Switzerland. They learned standard German in school, but when they want to bond with their fellow countrymen in the German-speaking part of Switzerland by talking to them in (standard) German, they find out that this isn’t actually the “real” local vernacular. The difference between the dialects in Austria and [Austrian Standard German](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_German) isn’t nearly as distinct which makes it more difficult for foreigners. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/82 "2016-06-07T12:43:42Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > 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. > > ;);)😛 “C”, eh? “N”, eh?, “D”, eh? ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/83 "2016-06-07T13:19:02Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > … > 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. That is correct. “High” in this sense can be interpreted as “Highlander” - the dialects that underwent the most sound changes were the ones spoken in the mountains. Note that there was a previous Germanic sound change known as [Grimm’s law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm's_law) that all of the Germanic languages, including Dutch, English, and the Scandinavian languages, went through. For the foot example above, the Proto-Indo-European or at least Proto-Centum form looked something like “pod”, and Grimm’s law changed the p-\>f and d-\>t, producing “foot” in the Proto-Germanic languages. English and Low German kept that arrangement, while High German changed it to “fuss”. By contrast, the Italic/Romance and the Celtic languages did not undergo any of these changes, so they often have a word that is closer to the root, such as Latin’s “pedis” for foot. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638/84 "2016-06-07T16:13:19Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > 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. With some sleight of hand, it is. But it suits everyone to ignore the details: Sardinian and Sicialian are certainly Romance languages, but they are not Italian. [Italo-Dalmatian languages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Dalmatian_languages) For instance: _La vidisti chissa cucujara? n’antri tanti duppiji haju mu ci mandu. Mi lu saluti e statti bonu._ From _La Calabria_ 2:2, 10/15/1889, p. 16. You can’t argue that it’s Italian by either grammar or vocabulary. I think an Italian speaker would have no problem with the last sentence, but would probably struggle to read the first one. (This is from one of the dialects of Calabrian which is linguistically Sicilian.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-austrians-speak-german/756638.md?page=4)