The Alpenforum was founded by its president Dr. Ian     Meerkamp van Embden on January 4 1995, only a few days     after his retirement from VCI (Verband der Chemischen      Industrie e.V.) Frankfurt am Main. The seat of this association       is St. Georgenob Murau in upper Styria, Austria. Walter Klöpffer has been a member of Alpenforum since 1997 and was  appointed as a scientific advisor of the board in the same year. The German daughter association Alpenforum Deutschland       with seat in Bad Homburg v.d.H. was founded in 2001. Walter Klöpffer acts as vice-chairman of this association according to German law, the chairman is the president of Alpenforum.

The Alpenforum deals with a broad range of social and environmental problems of the alpine area. The following goals  are stated in the programme:

• Fostering the historical heritage and the cultural assets of the Alpine countries
• Protection and promotion of the economic basis
• Conservation of the nature and the recreational values in      the Alpine area
• Recognition of a sustainable development in the Alpine countries as a guiding principle
• Recognition of the goals of the convention on the Alpes ("Alpenkonvention")
• Promotion of the relations between the Alpine countries, recognizing especially the economic, socio-cultural and ecological conditions
• Promotion of the integration of the Alpine states in the framework of the European Union
• Respect and protection of regionally developed forms ("gewachsene Strukturen").

For more information please visit Alpenforum´s website given below.

The second topic to be dealt with under "Sidelines" is a    collection of Austriazisms, which eventually will be published      as a book. Austriazisms are words of the German language   which are used only in Austria (and partly also in the southern  parts of Germany and in Switzerland) or have there a different meaning or pronounciation. Similar differences, which may        also include some discrepancies in grammar, can be        observed in most - if not all - languages spoken in more than      one country (e.g. English, French, Spanish and many others).

As an Austrian living in Germany, the author is well aware of the different usage of German in the two countries. As a pastime,      he started in 1994 collecting characteristic citations from   classical as well as modern Austrian literature and from newspapers and journals. The quotations were stored in a PC   data bank. This collection is now being used to create a   dictionary of austriazisms. A preliminary compilation of the     letters A to L is given in the attached files. The dictionaries       used are given in another appendix ("Lexika"). Also a short introduction into the origines of “Austriazisms” given (in     German).

Suggestions etc. with regard to the austriazisms:

More information:

16.07.2002