Vienna talk · Languages in Vienna
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Languages in Vienna
Languages in Vienna
Most Viennese speak a range and mix of Austro-Bavarian and German as their mother tongue, unlike in most other parts of Austria where pure Austro-Bavarian is much more prevalent. You are extremely unlikely to ever come across a person who can't speak German; in fact, it has become more and more used as a language in common life in the capital, almost to the dismay of the Austro-Bavarian dialect, so with the possible partial exception of really old people in the outer suburbs, everyone will be able to speak German to you more or less fluently. German here means Austrian German, which differs slightly in vocabulary and more so in pronunciation, but it is the same language so Northern German speakers (most common German taught abroad) will be understood. Should someone be so proud as to continue speaking Austro-Bavarian and you don't understand (you might, since the languages are close), just ask the person to speak in "Hochdeutsch" (standard German, literally "high German") and he/she will.
German is the sole official language and thus the main recoginzed written language.
People in jobs dealing with foreign visitors are usually fluent in English, though English is not as universally spoken as in northern European countries, and signs (including descriptive signs in museums) don't as often include English translations as in some other European countries, so those who don't speak German or Austro-Bavarian may find a traveler's phrase book or bilingual dictionary useful.
Minority languages are wide spread as well, such as Serbo-Croatian, Turkish and Romanian.
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Vienna Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.