What really makes me wonder, is that the ethnologue seems to ignore the
vast amount of published information on the german language and its dialects.
There is more than a century of dialetological research on german, and there
are easy accessible publications showing the major and minor subdivisions
of the german language.
The ethnologue gives a very strange picture there, compared to the mainstream
german literature. Maybe, because german dialectologists prefer to publish
in german?
--J"org Knappen
P.S. For fans of the german language, I recommend:
Werner König, DTV-Atlas zur deutschen Sprache, DTV München, 10th printing 1994,
ISBN 3-423-03025-9
Make sure to get the 10th printing or a latter version, it contains more
fascinating material.
