It is occasionally referred to as Granish or Granisch in the United States (< German Krainisch 'Carniolan'), a term also used for Slovene.

Gottscheerish shares a lot of properties with the Bavarian dialects of the German language islands of the eastern Alps, among them Cimbrian in Veneto, Sappada (Pladen), and Timau (Tischelwang) in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and Sorica (Zarz) in Upper Carniola (Slovenia).

Gottscheerish evolved independently for more than 600 years from the settlement of the first German-speaking settlers from Eastern Tyrol and Western Carinthia around 1330.

After resettlement of most Gottscheers by the German occupation forces in 1941 during the Second World War, only a few hundred speakers of Gottscheerish remained in their homeland.

Most Gottscheerish speakers live in Moschnitze valley (Črmošnjiško-Poljanska dolina) between Kočevske Poljane and Črmošnjice, where some Gottscheer families collaborated with the partisan movement and therefore were allowed to stay.

[4][10] As a primarily or exclusively spoken language, the written representation of Gottscheerish has varied considerably.

The phonological inventory of Gottscheerish differs from standard German in a number of ways, especially regarding palatal consonants.

[19] Falling diphthongs: ai, ao, au, aʉ, ea, ei, ia, iə, oa, oɛ, oi, ou, ɵi, ɵʉ, ua, ui, uə, ʉi, ʉə, əi, aːi, aːo Rising diphthongs: i̯a, i̯aː, i̯ɛ, i̯e, i̯eː, i̯i, i̯iː, i̯o, i̯oː, i̯ɵ, i̯ɵː, i̯u, i̯uː, i̯ʉ, i̯ʉː, i̯ə Falling triphthongs: oai, uai, eau, iəu, ʉəu, oːai, uːai Rising-falling triphthongs: i̯ai, i̯au, i̯aʉ, i̯ea, i̯ei, i̯iə, i̯ou, i̯ɵʉ, i̯uə, i̯əi, u̯ai Tetraphthongs: i̯oai, i̯uai, i̯oːai, i̯uːai The following pronouns are given in Hans Tschinkel's transcription.