Austro-Bavarian | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Bairisch | ||||
Pronunciation | German [baɪʁɪʃ] | |||
Region | Austria, Bavaria, and South Tyrol | |||
Ethnicity | Austrians Bavarians South Tyroleans | |||
Native speakers | 14,000,000 (2016)e18 | |||
Language family | ||||
Language codes | ||||
ISO 639-3 | bar | |||
Extent of the Austro-Bavarian language | ||||
|
Bavarian (also known as Austro-Bavarian; German: Bairisch [ˈbaɪ̯ʁɪʃ] ( listen)) is a major group of Upper German varieties. They are called "upper" because they are spoken in Switzerland, Austria and southern Germany, which are mountainous. Like standard German, Austro-Bavarian is a High German language, but they are not the same language. However, Austro-Bavarian and Standard German have influenced each other and the vast majority of Austro-Bavarian speakers speak Standard German as well. There are more variants of Bavarian. The variants are Central Bavarian, Southern Bavarian, and Northern Bavarian.