I may put Thomas' info on Austria here.
Date: 9 Sep 98
From: Thomas_Fischnaller@arz.co.at
The Austrian language is different from the German language, but Austrian is just a dialect, like Swiss. Every Austrian has to learn German at school and, of course, we write our letters in "Hochdeutsch". There are several dialects in the german speaking area. The heart of real German speaking is Hannover (and surrounding). No other area speaks real german. The other regions speak dialect and slang. In alpine areas like Switzerland, Austria or Bavaria the dialect is sometimes really strong, and someone who isn't from the same area can not unterstand the people. But someone who speaks "Hochdeutsch" (real german) is understood in every area. Thus, if an American speaks "broken" german, it's no problem to be unterstood in Austria, Switzerland or Germany. The same with writing. Everybody in the german speaking area writes in the same German. Of course, there are "written dialects", too, but not in newspapers or in books.
Here is a link for a Austrian-German-Dictionary http://germanistik.uibk.ac.at/germ/OeWB/
Cllick on a letter of the alphabet, That will display a list of Austrian
words. Click on anAustrian word and you will find the German word and other
information.
There are just a few "official" words which are written in a different way, like Tomate (German), Paradeis (Austrian), tomato (English) or Aprikose (German), Marille (Austrian), apricot (English) etc.
It's similar to English vs American:
petrol (British English) and gas (US English)
colour (BE) and color (US)
centre (BE) or center (US).
Greetings, Thomas
Editor: Thomas' letter helps me understand my difficulties speaking German to farmers when I was in Germany during 1955. I knew my German was poor and I had heard about dialects, but the differences were greater than I realized at the time.