This year, the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest featured a record breaking twenty languages. Eurovision Ireland will be looking at all the languages that have been performed at the Contest, since 1956, in our latest #AtoZ. Today, we continue the series with Viennese German, Vorarlbergish and Vörå Swedish.

Viennese German

Viennese German is the city dialect spoken in Vienna, the capital of Austria and is counted among the Bavarian dialects. It is distinct from written Standard German in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Even in Lower Austria, the state surrounding the city, many of its expressions are not used, while farther to the west they are often not even understood.

Viennese German appeared in full, within “Music”, the Austrian entry for the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest. Marianne Mendt performed “Music”, finishing in 16th place with 66 points.

Vorarlbergish

High Alemannic is a branch of Alemannic German spoken in the westernmost Austrian state of Vorarlberg and in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Intelligibility of these dialects to non-Alemannic speakers tends to be limited.

Vorarlbergish appeared in full, within “Weil’s dr guat got”, the Austrian entry for the 1996 Eurovision Song Contest. George Nussbaumer performed “Weil’s dr guat got”, finishing in 10th place with 68 points.

Vörå Swedish

Ostrobothnian Swedish is a variety of Finland-Swedish, spoken in Finland. Outside the autonomous island province of Åland, which is officially monolingually Swedish, Ostrobothnia is the only region of mainland Finland where Swedish-speakers are the majority (51%).

Vörå Swedish appeared in full, within “Bara bada bastu”, the Swedish entry for the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest. KAJ performed “Bara bada bastu”, finishing in 4th place with 321 points.

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The Eurovision Community, which Eurovision Ireland are a part of, celebrates diversity through music. Please keep your comments respectful. We will not tolerate racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, body-shaming or any other derogatory or hostile language.

Author: Richard Taylor

Source: Eurovision Ireland, Wikipedia & YouTube/EuroTiggESC/escLIVEmusic1/EBU