The origins of the settlement of Tyrol
During the Iron Age, the territory that corresponds to today's Tyrol was mainly occupied by the Rhete 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 and also the Bajuvares (Bavarians), who left their name to Bavaria. Today, Tyroleans, like Austrians, speak a High German dialect of the Bavarian branch. Tyrol became part of the Holy Roman Empire and then of the Habsburg Empire, which became the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867. It shared the destinies of these states, until its territory was divided after the First World War and South Tyrol and Trentino became part of Italy. Mussolini's forced Italianization naturally created tensions that lasted for several decades, leading to the development of extremist movements calling for South Tyrol to be attached to Austria. Today, fortunately, South Tyrol's linguistic communities coexist peacefully. The assimilation of Latin origins into the Germanic substratum is notably 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 powerful intrinsic relationships between territory, history, identity and linguistic communities.
Linguistic specificities
With the exception of Italian-speaking Trentino, Tyrol is a predominantly German-speaking region. The German dialect spoken is a rather lilting language that belongs to the Bavarian branch, and bears a striking resemblance 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 north-western Austrian Tyrol is similar to that spoken in German-speaking Switzerland. The Italian Tyrol, meanwhile, has two official languages: German and Italian, plus Ladin in some communes. Today, around 70% of the inhabitants of Trentino-Alto Adige (South Tyrol) consider themselves to be German-speaking (although in reality they are often bilingual), 26% Italian-speaking and 4% Ladin-speaking (mainly in Val Gardena [Gherdëina] and Val Badia). The autonomous province of Bolzano has a population of around 470,000, spread across 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 entirely bilingual Italian/German. Depending on the location, you may 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, due to geography and terrain (mountains, seas, etc.) for example, the dialect in question tends to remain static, as new words are not added from other dialects, nor does it disappear because a group has taken over and imposed its language. This has been the case for Ladin, which has remained relatively well isolated in hard-to-reach mountain valleys near the Dolomites. Ladin is a member of the Indo-European language family, a branch of the Italic, Romance and particularly Rhaeto-Romance languages. It is the result of a linguistic crossbreeding 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 some 30,000 speakers in the Dolomites, Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto and Friuli. It's worth noting that Ladin is one of Europe's smallest language groups! 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 panels. By the way, Ladin speakers are almost all bilingual, if not trilingual (Ladin, Italian, German).
Tyrol, land of welcome?
Over the past twenty years, the number of immigrants living in Tyrol has almost tripled, rising from 16,000 in 2002 to over 50,000 in 2022. This is due to the region's geographical position, various political and humanitarian crises, and the construction, textile and tourism industries, which regularly need workers. While this immigrant population obviously brings cultural and linguistic diversity, it also poses challenges in a region regularly singled out for its poor integration policy, and for good reason: difficult access to social housing, wage discrimination (a quarter of Turkish citizens living in Austria, for example, live below the poverty line), complicated naturalization, language tests, compulsory relinquishment of original nationality (in Austria). The subject of migrants remains particularly sensitive, as demonstrated by the violent reactions in 2020 when Innsbruck mayor Georg Willi (the only ecologist mayor in the whole of Austria) proposed welcoming 200 migrants from Greece into empty refugee centers. Hearts up!
