Austrian German

Austrian German is the standardized variety of German written and spoken in Austria and in South Tyrol, distinguished from other national standards of German chiefly at the levels of vocabulary, some grammar and pronunciation rather than by a separate grammar of its own. It coexists with the everyday Bavarian and Alemannic dialects that remain the vernacular of informal speech across most of the country, with the standard variety reserved for media, education, administration and other formal contexts. Its vocabulary includes items unfamiliar to speakers of German German, such as Janner for January and Erdapfel for potato, and its grammar favors sein over haben as the perfect auxiliary for verbs describing a state, as in ich bin gesessen, I have been sitting.