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.