Traditions in Austria

In her entry “Austria 1923” Pam Mandel talks about the Schladminger Erntedank festival. It’s one of those typical Austrian traditions known for Dirndlkleider, Lederhosen etc. I don’t think there are typical Austrian customs, since it’s difficult to define what “Austrian” means. Austria is a very small country (83 871 square kilometres) with a population of only 8090000 people. Austrians are said, like many other people, to have special trades. They are conservative, religious, cling to their traditions, are able to yodel (I, for one, can’t do that) and so on. However, if you dig a little deeper and get to know Austrians from different regions you will find out that it’s not that easy. Austrians are very different indeed and are very proud of that. Try to call a Tyrolean a Viennese and you’ll understand what I’m saying.

Firstly, our language isn’t all the same. Foreigners might learn that we speak German, but that’s only the language we use for writing or in school. In fact in every Austrian region another German dialect is spoken. Even German people struggle to understand some of them, because they differ a great deal from standard German or “Hochdeutsch”, as we call it. We are very proud of that dialects and not seldom make fun of the way other Austrians speak, especially Viennese lingo is very unpopular. You have learned that “man” is “Mann in German? Right, but in Carinthia you’d say “Monn” and in Upper Austria you’d pronounce it “Mau”.

Secondly, traditions vary a lot in the different regions. Before I came to
Graz I knew festivals like the one Pam describes only from TV. Ok,
there are some remote areas, were people costume and behave like that, I thought, but I was sure that such tradition-loving behaviour wasn’t common in Austria. Well, it’s not common in Upper Austria, where I come from, but in southern parts of Austria people keep their traditions alive, even people at my age. My boyfriend, for example is from Carinthia. When he first told me that he has a traditional costume at home I though he was kidding me, but soon I learned that where he comes from that’s totally normal.

To sum up, the term “Austrian” isn’t a really adequate one, because there are many types of Austrians. However, there is a list of issues Austrians agree on: HC Strache is as embarrassing as a politican can be, Arnie shouldn’t kill people, there are no cangoroos in our entire country, so stop confusing us with Australia... So what can we learn from all this: Austrians may not be too similar, but they aren’t too different as well.



Greetings from Upper Austria,

Birgit