Austro-Bavarian
Bairisch
Pronunciation	German [baɪʁɪʃ]
Region	Austria, Bavaria, and South Tyrol
Ethnicity	Austrians Bavarians South Tyroleans
Native speakers	14,000,000  (2016)e18
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Elbe Germanic High German Upper German Austro-Bavarian
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bar
Extent of the Austro-Bavarian language
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Bavarian (also known as Austro-Bavarian; German: Bairisch [ˈbaɪ̯ʁɪʃ] ( listen)) is a major group of Upper German varieties. They are called "upper" because they are spoken in Switzerland, Austria and southern Germany, which are mountainous. Like standard German, Austro-Bavarian is a High German language, but they are not the same language. However, Austro-Bavarian and Standard German have influenced each other and the vast majority of Austro-Bavarian speakers speak Standard German as well. There are more variants of Bavarian. The variants are Central Bavarian, Southern Bavarian, and Northern Bavarian.