Southern Bavarian or South Bavarian, is a cluster of
Upper German dialects of the
Bavarian group. They are primarily spoken in
Tyrol (i.e. the
Austrian federal state of
Tyrol and the
Italian province of
South Tyrol), in
Carinthia and in the western parts of
Upper Styria. Before 1945 and the
expulsions of the Germans, it was also spoken in speech islands in Italy and Yugoslavia.
[Kurt Gustav Goblirsch, ''Consonant Strength in Upper German Dialects'', John Benjamins Publishing Company 2012 a]
NOWELE Supplement Series
vol. 10 (originally Odense University Press 1994), p. 23
Due to these
Alpine regions, many features of the Old Bavarian language from the
Middle High German period have been preserved. On the other hand, the Southern Bavarian dialect area is influenced by the
Rhaeto-Romance languages, locally also
Slovene and to a lesser extent
Italian.
The speech area historically included the former linguistic enclaves in
Carniola (present-day
Slovenia
Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...
) around
Kočevje in the ''
Gottschee'' region (
Gottscheerish),
Sorica ''(Zarz)'' and
Nemški Rovt ''(Deutsch Ruth)''. The
Cimbrian language still spoken in several language-islands in north-eastern Italy (
Friuli,
Veneto and
Trentino) mostly counts as a separate Bavarian language variant. Southern Bavarian is also spoken in the
Werdenfelser Land region around
Mittenwald and
Garmisch-Partenkirchen in German
Upper Bavaria.
The
Tyrolean Unterland, the Alpine regions of
Salzburg
Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...
(
Pinzgau,
Pongau
The Bezirk St. Johann im Pongau is an administrative district (''Bezirk'') in the federal state of Salzburg (state), Salzburg, Austria, and congruent with the Pongau region.
Area of the district is 1,755.37 km2, with a population of 77,872 ...
and
Lungau), as well as the adjacent parts of
Styria
Styria ( ; ; ; ) is an Austrian Federal states of Austria, state in the southeast of the country. With an area of approximately , Styria is Austria's second largest state, after Lower Austria. It is bordered to the south by Slovenia, and cloc ...
and southern
Burgenland form the
dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
with the
Central Bavarian language area in the north.
Phonology
Vowels
Southern Bavarian has 8
vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
s:
Consonants
Southern Bavarian has about 33
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
s:
See also
*
Hutterite German
*
Mòcheno language
References
{{Authority control
Bavarian language
Languages of Germany
Languages of Switzerland
Languages of Austria
German dialects