Languages of Austria Austro-Bavarian grammar differs from Standard German. A number of minority languages are spoken in Austria, some of which have official status. Turkish is the largest minority language, in a situation mirroring that of Germany, spoken by 2.3% of the population. Serbian is the second largest minority language, with usage by 2.2% of the population. Burgenland Croatian, an official language in Burgenland, is spoken by 2.5% of Austrians, and Burgenland Croats are recognized as a minority and have enjoyed special rights following the Austrian State Treaty ("Staatsvertrag") of 1955. While little spoken today, Hungarian has traditionally held an important position in
Official language the country had four official languages—Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Albanian and Macedonian. Serbo-Croatian was used as a "lingua franca" for mutual understanding and was also the language of the military. When Croatia declared independence (1991) it defined its official language as Croatian, and Serbia likewise defined its official language as Serbian. Bosnia-Herzegovina defined three official languages: Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. From the linguistic point of view, the different names refer to national varieties of the same language, which is known under the appellation of Serbo-Croatian. It is said by some that the Bosnian government chose to define three languages to reinforce ethnic