Austrian German (), Austrian Standard German (ASG), Standard Austrian German (), or Austrian High German (), is the variety of Standard German written and spoken in Austria. It has the highest sociolinguistic prestige locally, as it is the variation used in the media and for other formal situations. In less formal situations, Austrians use Bavarian and Alemannic dialects, which are traditionally spoken but rarely written in Austria. History Austrian German has its beginning in the mid-18th century, when Empress Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II introduced compulsory schooling in 1774, and several reforms of administration in their multilingual Habsburg Empire. At the time, the written standard was Oberdeutsche Schreibsprache (Upper German written language), which was highly influenced by the Bavarian and Alemannic dialects of Austria. Another option was to create a new standard based on the Southern German dialects, as proposed by the linguist Johann Siegmund Popowitsch. Instead they decided for pragmatic reasons to adopt the already-standardized chancellery language of Saxony (Sächsische Kanzleisprache or Meißner Kanzleideutsch), which was based on the administrative language of the non-Austrian area of Meißen and Dresden. Austria High German (Hochdeutsch in Österreich, not to be confused with the Bavarian Austria German dialects) has the same geographic origin as the Swiss High German (Schweizer Hochdeutsch, not to be confused with the Alemannic Swiss German dialects). The process of introducing the new written standard was led by Joseph von Sonnenfels. Since 1951, the standardized form of Austrian German for official texts and schools has been defined by the Österreichisches Wörterbuch ("Austrian Dictionary"), published under the authority of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture. Standard Austrian German The official Austrian dictionary, Österreichisches Wörterbuch, prescribes grammatical and spelling rules that define the official language. Austrian delegates participated in the international working group that drafted the German spelling reform of 1996 and several conferences leading up to the reform were hosted in Vienna at the invitation of the Austrian federal government. Austria adopted it as a signatory, along with Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, of an international memorandum of understanding () signed in Vienna in 1996. The eszett or "sharp s" (ß) is used in Austria, as in Germany but unlike in Switzerland. Because of German's pluricentric nature, German dialects in Austria should not be confused with the variety of Standard Austrian German spoken by most Austrians, which is distinct from that of Germany or Switzerland. Distinctions