IX

Preface

director at the Marburg Research Institute ‘German Language Atlas’ The "Deutscher Sprachatlas" is a renowned research institution focused on the dialects and linguistic geography of the German language. provided the intellectual and material requirements for this work. Since the age-related change in the institute's leadership brought about a particularly active and research-intensive successor generation with colleagues Jürgen Erich Schmidt and Joachim Herrgen, many fruitful contacts remained unbroken. The multifaceted support during the progressively modernizing text production processes, which are largely associated with the names Karin Steuber and Gundula Grund, also proved very helpful.

Ultimately, however, the successful completion of the years of work on the text is thanks to the great subject-matter and technical expertise of the younger colleague Thomas Gloning and his staff in Marburg, Vienna, and Giessen, especially Bettina Bachmann, Dr. Iris Bons, and Bastian Schmidt.

Special thanks are due to Professor Dr. Heiko Hartmann from the Walter de Gruyter publishing house for the readily undertaken editorial supervision of the work.