The Linguistic Background Of The Name Panholzer Language and dialect have played an important role in the development of the name. Today, Bavaria is spelled "Bayern" in German, and anything related to todays Bavaria is called "bayrisch" (with a "y"). When it comes to describe a linguistic domain, on the other hand, today's linguists use the word Bairisch (with an "i") to describe the contiguous language domain comprising most of Austria and Southern Germany.

Language Domain spoken in
Lower German (niederdeutsch) Northern Germany
Upper German (oberdeutsch) Alemannic Switzerland, Vorarlberg
East-Franconian
Bairisch North-Bairisch Oberpfalz, Lower (northern) Bavaria, ancient Bohemia
Middle-Bairisch
West-Middle-Bairisch Upper (southern) Bavaria, Austrian province of Salzburg
East-Middle-Bairisch Upper and Lower Austria, northern Burgenland
South-Bairisch South Tyrol, southern Burgenland, Austrian Alpine regions (without Vorarlberg, where Alemannic prevails)

Fifteen of the eighteen Panholz(er) place names found can be geographically attributed to the East-Middle-Bairisch area. Typical for East-Middle-Bairisch pronounciation is the general weakening the plosive P to the soft B. Even in Austria, where the spelling of Panholzer has been maintained with a plosive P, the name is routinely pronounced as "Banholzer". Other sharp consonants such as K and T underwent as similar fate: "Kraut" is pronounced closer to "Graud". Historically, PANHOLZ is OHG (Old-High-German), BANNHOLZ is MHG (Middle-High-German).
In the East-Middle-Bairisch area PANHOLZ maintained its older OHG spelling,
elsewhere it changed to the MHG BANNHOLZ.

Naive Guesses Real Roots Of The Name Panholz Place Names Meaning of PANHOLZ History of Bannwald
Linguistic Roots Of The Name First Mention Of A Place The Panholzers Of America The Panholzers Of Austria The Home Page Of Peter Panholzer
Map Of PANHOLZ Place Names Related Spellings The Bairisch Language The Importance of Bann Pan Mail
Sources, Credits
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