Half South African, half Austrian, with three years in Denmark in between. Live in Vienna, where I have spent most of my life. Bit of a language nerd who also likes to travel. Politically incorrect at times. Like meat and Heavy Metal. 1975-present.
That is most certainly in the ear of the beholder.
Being from Austria, I have heard on occasion that some more northern Germans take a liking to Austrian German as heard on TV because it is a bit softer-sounding and sing-songy. Then again I have also heard that Austrian German can come across as hillbilly in Germany. But since Austria itself also has a lot of regional dialects, that will greatly depend on the region. Both the source region of the Austrian dialect, and the region of the listener from Germany.
To me as a Viennese, Bavarian sounds most familiar and similar, but still distinct. Other German dialects differ widely, but on average, Germany German is a bit harsher-sounding and no-nonsense, compared to ours. Especially Northern Germans can sound very aloof. But they speak crisp and clear. And not one unnecessary word too many.
East German dialects are very recognizable. Berlinerisch is sorta cool, while Saxon is not very pleasant in my ear. Maybe it is also because of the GDR stereotype. But they just sound weird…to me they sound like they are placing Umlaute where they shouldn’t be. Mäine Größmütter instead of Meine Großmutter (my grandma).
But, apart from the obvious stereotypes, I have no in-deep knowledge of all the German dialects.
Within Austria itself, from a Viennese perspective:
- the Styrians bark like dogs (dei Steiara böulln - die Steirer bellen)
- Carinthians soften up each sentence (Dring a Woosa, wiad dia beesa! for Trink ein Wasser, dann wird dir besser! - Drink water, and you’ll feel better.)
- the Tyroleans have laryngitis, and in Vorarlberg, they barely speak German.
- Eastern Austrian dialects around Vienna are not that different, but an hour by car can already make quite a difference.
- Salzburg and Upper Austria don’t have dialects that one could readily imitate - somewhere between Lower Austria and Bavaria - which they geographically are.
Switzerland is its own cup of tea…they have many regional dialects themselves, but from a Vienna perspective, they universally sound like they are stressing a different syllable in each word than we are, and their sound shifts can be challenging…
