The role of Austrian German in the EU: Identity management or Language policy?

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The official language of Greece is Greek, in Poland the parliament discusses in Polish and Luxembourgers love their Luxembourgish. In most of the Member States of the European Union the name of the country equals the name of its “national” language. But did you know that there are also three countries in the EU that have no language to match the name of their country, three countries that “share” a language with their neighbours? Cyprus, Belgium – and Austria.

Before Austria joined the European Union in 1995 a heated language debate occupied the public. Politicians recognized the importance Austrians placed upon “their German” and the fear that the internationally much more powerful “German German” might be imposed upon them and reacted with slogans like „Erdäpfelsalat bleibt Erdäpfelsalat“ (potato salad stays potato salad, using the Austrian word “Erdapfel” instead of the German “Kartoffel” for potato). When Austria finally joined the EU an additional protocol about the use of Austrian German expressions was agreed upon: protocol no. 10. The very fact that such an agreement exists suggests the acknowledgement and formal inclusion of different varieties of pluricentric languages and their importance within the EU’s language policy.

A closer look, however, reveals quite different insights: protocol 10 contains 23 quite randomly chosen words related only to one topic – food. It has never been expanded to other domains or updated since 1995 which suggests that the protocol was never meant to propose the implementation of a language policy to formally include the Austrian variety of German. As Rudolf De Cilia – professor of linguistics at the University of Vienna – states in an interview (see sources) protocol 10 was most likely pure tactics to fulfil people’s identity needs. It is therefore more a response to the public’s concerns which was an easy way to satisfy its claims about a distinct linguistic identity rather than an actual piece of language policy.

Despite this initial focus on identity management, new technologies nowadays also allow for an actual inclusion of different (national) language varieties in the EU terminology. The EU’s terminology data base IATE supports storing nationally and regionally specific terms and makes it possible to specify their origin, the (national) context they are used in as well as regional specifics. For an example, let’s take a look at the term “A level”. You can see that there is a list of equal synonyms in German including the term “Matura” which is not used in Germany but in Austria and Switzerland and therefore contains a note under “regional usage” if you view the full entry.

SnipMatura1

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IATE can therefore be used as a tool to document and support pluricentric EU-languages with different national varieties such as German, French, Dutch and Greek as well as for the specification of regional varieties for many other languages. Even though a data base can only take into account differences in vocabulary (and not for example in grammar or style) it is an important resource for making variation within languages visible and thereby not only supporting specific linguistic identities but also making a step in the direction of a language policy that is flexible and views language as something that is internally diverse and dynamic.

 

Sources:

“The constellation of languages in Europe: an inclusive approach”: Matching of names and languages of the EU-countries (in: Guus Extra & Durk Gorter (2008): Multilingual Europe: Facts and Policies p.3-60)

Beachtung österreichischer Ausdrücke: protocol 10 about the use of Austrian German expressions / Über die Verwendung spezifisch österreichischer Ausdrücke der deutschen Sprache im Rahmen der Europäischen Union

Erdäpfelsalat und Marmeladekrieg: interview with Rudolf De Cilia (Monika Obrist, 2010)

Image: Österreichisches Deutsch (Petra Winkler) from the article Österreichisches Deutsch – Lehrer sind unsicher” (Die Presse)

“Österreichisches Deutsch”: booklet published by the Austrian ministry of education about Austrian German

 

Written by Olivia Bantan
Terminology Student Visitor at TermCoord
German Teacher & Student at the University of Luxembourg