Austrian German vocabulary remains stable in print media

A new linguistic study published in the journal ‘Languages’ reveals that Austrian German vocabulary, known as Austriazisms, remains remarkably stable in domestic print media. Researchers from the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences analyzed the ‘Austrian Media Corpus,’ examining more than 50 million press articles published between 2001 and 2023.

The study, led by linguist Alexandra N. Lenz, is described as the largest of its kind. Rather than focusing on a small list of words, the team investigated 76 word groups containing over 200 variants. This allowed researchers to track how typical Austrian terms, such as ‘Paradeiser’ (tomato), ‘Sackerl’ (bag), or ‘Jänner’ (January), compare to their German counterparts like ‘Tomate’ or ‘Januar’.

While there is often public concern regarding the disappearance of regional dialects, the data suggests that these specific lexical variations have maintained a consistent presence in Austrian journalism over the past 23 years.