The German minority language of Sauris (Germ. Zahre) is called de zahrar sproche ‘the language of Sauris’ by the speech community. Sauris is located in the historical cultural landscape of Friuli and belongs to the province of Udine in the autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Sauris is situated at an altitude of about 1300 metres above the Tagliamento valley. According to the available sources, the land was settled in the 13th century by people from East Tyrol or Carinthia. These settlers, who spoke a Middle High German variety belonging to the South Bavarian dialects, initially lived very isolated from the surrounding communities and populations; it was not until the 16th century that contact with neighboring villages, where Romance varieties were spoken, intensified due to the cult of St. Osvald.
Nowadays, Sauris has around 400 inhabitants, of which ca. 200 speak and use the Sauris language. The inhabitants of Sauris have been predominantly trilingual since the 19th century. Apart from their German minority language, they also acquire the northern Italian colloquial language through the schooling system and additionally they have a variety of Friulian (Carnic Friulian) to their disposal. The written language is Italian, but due to the recently developed written form, the Sauris language is now also sporadically used in writing (e.g. Whatsapp messages).