Austria well as those with significant German speaking minorities: Italy, Belgium and Denmark. Many local dialects are spoken in Austria, and though their base is Austrian German, their corresponding speakers have certain degrees of difficulty when trying to understand each other. The common spoken language of Austria is not the Standard German taught in schools, however, but the Austro-Bavarian language: a group of Upper German dialects not particularly intelligible with Standard German. German languages or dialects are thus spoken natively by 88.6% of the population, which includes the 2.5% German citizens who reside in Austria, followed by Turkish (2.28%), Serbian (2.21%),
Official language Official language An official language is a language given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a country's official language refers to the language used within government (judiciary, legislature, administration). Since "the means of expression of a people cannot be changed by any law", the term "official language" does not typically refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government. About half the countries of the world have declared one or more official languages. The government of Italy officialised Italian only in 1999, and some nations (such as the