The origins of the settlement of Tyrol
During the Iron Age, the territory that corresponds to the present-day Tyrol was mainly occupied by the Rhetian people who lived in the eastern Alpine arc. Conquered by the Romans at the beginning of the Christian era, the territory was occupied by successive waves of Germanic peoples who crossed the Alpine passes: Lombards, Carolingians, Franks but also the Bajuvares (Bavarians), who left their name to Bavaria. Today, the Tyroleans, as well as the Austrians, speak a High German dialect of the Bavarian branch. As part of the Holy Roman Empire and then the Habsburg Empire, which became the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867, Tyrol shared the destinies of these states until its territory was split after the First World War and South Tyrol and Trentino were attached to Italy. During the Fascist era, Mussolini sought to eliminate any Germanic ancestry in South Tyrol, which obviously created tensions that lasted for several decades, leading to the development of extremist movements wishing to see South Tyrol attached to Austria. Today, fortunately, the linguistic communities of South Tyrol live together peacefully. The assimilation of Latin origins into the Germanic substratum is visible in the names of the inhabitants who may have a Germanic first name and an Italian surname or vice versa. Moreover, Tyrol has been relatively unaffected by the migratory movements that have marked Europe in the second half of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st century. The Tyrol region is truly emblematic of the strong intrinsic relationship between territory, history, identity and linguistic communities.
Linguistic specificities
Except for Trentino, which is Italian-speaking, Tyrol is a predominantly German-speaking region. The spoken German dialect is a rather lilting language that belongs to the Bavarian branch and is very similar to the German spoken in Bavaria and the rest of Austria. As languages generally tend to follow territories and people, the German dialect spoken in the northwestern part of the Austrian Tyrol is similar to that spoken in German-speaking Switzerland. The Italian Tyrol has two official languages: German and Italian, with the addition of Ladin in some communities. Today, about 70% of the inhabitants of Trentino-Alto Adige (South Tyrol) consider themselves to be German-speaking (although in reality they are often bilingual), 26% consider themselves to be Italian-speaking and 4% Ladin-speaking (especially in Val Gardena [Gherdëina] and in Val Badia). The autonomous province of Bolzano has a population of about 470,000 inhabitants, distributed among 116 municipalities, the main ones being Bolzano (capital), Merano, Bressanone and Brunico. Alto Adige, like the Aosta Valley, is an officially multilingual region, which means, for example, that signage is completely bilingual Italian/German. Depending on the location, you will hear GrüsGott ( "good morning" in Bavarian) rather than Buon giorno.
The specificity of the Ladin language
When the speakers of a language or dialect are isolated, because of the relief and geography for example (mountains, seas, etc.), the dialect in question tends to remain fixed because there are neither contributions of new words coming from other dialects, nor disappearance because of a group having taken the power and imposed its language. This is what happened to Ladin, which remained relatively isolated in the hollows of mountain valleys with difficult access, near the Dolomites. Ladin is a member of the Indo-European language family, a branch of the Italic, Romance and more particularly Rhaeto-Romance languages. It is the result of a linguistic mixture between Latin and the languages of the Rhetians, a people who occupied the eastern Alps in ancient times and were conquered and assimilated by Rome.
Can you guess what these few Ladin vocabulary words mean: uedl, lesier, trei, roda, ciajuel, cësa, cian, gialina, giat?
In order of appearance, they mean eye, light, three, wheel, cheese, house, dog, chicken, cat.
Today, Ladin survives thanks to the approximately 30,000 speakers spread throughout the Dolomites, the Trentino-Alto Adige region and also in Veneto and Friuli. It should be noted that Ladin is one of the smallest language groups in Europe! Recognized as a minority language by the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige, it is sometimes used in administration and education, but also in signage with trilingual signs. By the way, Ladin speakers are almost all bilingual if not trilingual (Ladin, Italian, German).Tyrol, land of welcome?
In the last 20 years, the number of immigrants in Tyrol has almost tripled, from 16,000 in 2002 to more than 50,000 in 2022. This is due to its geographical position, the various political and humanitarian crises and the construction, textile and tourism sectors, which regularly require labor. While this immigrant population obviously brings cultural and linguistic diversity, it also poses challenges in this region, which is regularly singled out for its poor integration policy, and for good reason: difficult access to social housing, wage discrimination (a quarter of Turkish citizens residing in Austria live below the poverty line, for example), complicated naturalization, language tests, and the obligation to give up one's original nationality (in Austria). The subject of migrants remains particularly sensitive, as shown by the violent reactions in 2020 when the mayor of Innsbruck, Georg Willi (the only ecologist mayor in the whole of Austria), proposed to take in 200 migrants from Greece in empty refugee centers. Hearts up!
