The development of the Austrian state and an Austrian

In the ninth century of the Common Era, Austria was established as a mark, a border territory for the defense of the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne, but was lost to Magyar invasions. In the tenth century this mark was re-established and awarded to the Babenbergs as the Marchia Orientalis (eastern mark) in 976.The first mention of the name Austria(regione vulgari vocabulo ostarrichi or ‘region commonly known as the eastern realm’) is found in documents of Otto III from 996 CE (Brook-Shepherd 1997: 4). The city of Vienna had been a Celtic settlement as early as the fifth century BCE. Around 15 BCE a Roman military camp, Vindobona (‘good wine’), was established to guard the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire. Although the city was never completely abandoned, Roman

(Völkerwanderungen) became more frequent. Due to Vienna’s achieving the status of city and rights as a staple port, the name of the city Vienna made its way into French and Italian in the twelfth century, in its then-current pronunciation, an indication of the importance of the city for commerce and culture.

In the late Middle Ages the Babenberg family died out, and the king of Bohemia,

Pr_ěmsyl Ottokar, ruled for two decades (1251-1278), during which time a lack of central political order led to a resurgence of local dialectal expression (Ebner 1980: 208).

In the late thirteenth century the Hapsburgs came to power, bringing Alemannic influences into the courtly language of Vienna, both in pronunciation and in the lexicon. During this period Austria gained the states of Carinthia (Kärnten), Styria (die Steiermark), Tyrolia (Tirol), as well as Bohemian and Hungarian lands. At the same time Austria began to differentiate itself and distance itself from Bavaria. Because the Hapsburgs were also

emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, the influence and importance of Vienna over the rest of Europe grew considerably in this period.

The period of the Reformation led to a stark division between the Protestant northern German states and the Roman Catholic states of Bavaria and Austria. One of the emerging standards, gemeines Deutsch (‘common German’), was based on the chancery language of Vienna and served as the regional standard for Austria and Bavaria. When the Hapsburgs’ imperial chancery moved to Vienna in 1438 the Viennese chancery gained in importance. The Protestant religion relied on Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible (first published in its entirety in 1534), which was based on Eastern Central and Upper German regional varieties. The Catholics states of Bavaria and Austria rejected this version as a distortion of the Bible, and gemeinesDeutsch served as the written standard in these Catholic states. The

Austrian imperial court favored Common German, although the differences between the two competing standards were not very great (Barbour and Stevenson 1990: 48). Over time the Saxon chancery language and Common German influenced each other, until the Saxon standard won out (von Polenz 1978:78).

Thus, Luther’s translation served as the basis for Modern German (Neuhochdeutsch). In Upper German-speaking areas, the local dialects of the people were preferred to the emerging standard, which to some extent adds to the popular misperception that only German Standard German is a correct form of German. Another result of the Reformation was that Roman Catholic priests began to preach in the dialect of the local people (Ebner 1980:209). Today the differences between the Upper German dialects and the standard are not as great as the differences between the Low German dialects and Standard German (Mattheier 1990: 62) .

In order to keep pace culturally and scientifically with German states during the

eighteenth century, Maria Theresa (1717-1780) and her son Joseph II (1741-1790) promoted the use of Standard German, albeit an Austrian standard based on gemeines Deutsch, in official functions, documents, and church ceremonies. However, even the royal family spoke dialect in private settings.

In the nineteenth century Austria was an autonomous empire including many nations in one state: Austrian-Germans, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, Italians, Hungarians, Galicians, Transylvanians, Slovenians, etc. This situation created further distinctions between the Austrian and the German culture and language. Whereas in Germany foreign words were converted into a German equivalent, in Austria the words were borrowed and retained their original forms: for example ASG Palatschinke ‘pancake’ (from Romanian plăcintă via Hungarian palacsinta, originally Latin placenta ‘flat cake’), GSG Pfannkuchen; and ASG

Powidl ‘plum jam’ (from Czech povidla), GSG Pflaumenmus (Spácilová 1995: 341). Some of the forms of address uniquely associated with Austria trace back to the monarchy of this period: Küss die Hand ‘Kiss the hand,’ Habe die Ehre ‘[I] have the honor [of greeting you],’ and Servus (greeting and parting word, ‘at your service’ from Latin servus ‘servant/slave’) (Zehetner 1998).

After the dissolution of the Hapsburg empire following World War I, use of specific Austrian vocabulary (Austrizismen) accelerated and was a unifying tool in the rebuilding of Austria after both World Wars (Wiesinger 1990: 224).

Following the annexation of Austria into the Ostmark of Nazi Germany (1938-1945) many efforts were made to distance Austrian language from German Standard German (Ebner 1980:210). This includes renaming German grammar courses Unterrichtssprache

‘language of instruction’ in place of Deutsch.

The dialect and standard variety are less clearly divided in southern German-language (Oberdeutsch) areas than in northern Germany, where the base dialects are disappearing over time. The urban dialects, especially those of Vienna, served to level out dialects among social classes in surrounding commuter areas and along trade routes (Ebner 1980: 213).

Wiesinger (1997: 19) lists the following important influences on the dialects of Austria and Bavaria since the Second World War: the restructuring of economic and social

relationships, resettlement of many people in many regions, the growth of cities and population shift from the countryside, increased mobility and increased urban/rural

relationships through commuting, the availability of education to all social classes and the resulting ability to advance into a higher social class, and the mass media, especially television and radio.