Burgenland Croatian (; , ) is a regional variety of the Chakavian dialect of Croatian spoken in Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. Burgenland Croatian is recognized as a minority language in the Austrian state of Burgenland, where it is spoken by 19,412 people according to official reports (2001). Many of the Burgenland Croatian speakers in Austria also live in Vienna and Graz, due to the process of urbanization, which is mostly driven by the poor economic situation of large parts of Burgenland. Smaller Croatian minorities in western Hungary, southwestern Slovakia, southern Poland and southern Czech Republic are often also called Burgenland Croats. They use the Burgenland Croatian written language and are historically and culturally closely connected to the Austrian Croats. The representatives of the Burgenland Croats estimate their total number in all three countries and emigration at around 70,000. Dialects Štoj dialect: dialect of the Croatian folklore group Štoji (Güttenbach, Stinatz, Neuberg), is Southern Chakavian dialect with some Western Shtokavian features Vlah dialect: dialect of the "Vlahi" in Weiden bei Rechnitz, Zuberbach, Althodis, Schandorf, Dürnbach, Allersdorf, etc., is Western Shtokavian (Schakavian) dialect very similar to Western Ikavian with influence from neighboring Burgenland dialects Dolinci dialect: dialect of the Dolinci in Unterpullendorf, Frankenau, Kleinmutschen, etc. is a Central Chakavian dialect Poljan dialect: dialect of the Poljanci near Lake Neusiedl, is a Central Chakavian dialect Hati dialect: Central Chakavian dialect of Hati near Neusiedl Grob dialect: Central Chakavian dialect, or mixed Chakavian-Kajkavian dialect, spoken in Chorvátsky Grob etc. in Slovakia History Burgenland Croatian was the language of Croatian refugees who fled Croatia during the Croatian–Ottoman wars and settled in the western part of what was then Hungary, the area where they still live. Burgenland Croats included speakers of all three dialects of the Croatian language (Shtokavian, Chakavian and Kajkavian), with the majority being the Chakavians. A part of them originally probably came from Dalmatia, and all of them mostly emigrated from the river Una valley. Burgenland Croats did not take part in the shaping of the present standard Croatian in the 19th century. Instead, they constructed their own written standard based mainly on the local Chakavian speech and adopted the Croatian alphabet, a modified Latin alphabet, as their script. It is still a matter of debate whether Burgenland Croatian should be classified as a Slavic micro-language of its own. Burgenland Croatian dialects are mostly viewed as isolated dialects of