The distribution of German dorsal fricatives – palatal [ç] and velar [x] – haspreoccupied linguists of diverse theoretical persuasions for over ninety years.Scholars who have discussed the patterning of those sounds include the follow-ing:Jones (1929),Hermann (1932),Bloomfield (1933),Trubetzkoy (1939),Moul-ton (1947),Leopold (1948),Jones (1950),Trim (1951),Dietrich (1953),Trost (1958),Heike (1961),Freudenberg (1966),Pilch (1966),Adamus (1967),Vennemann (1968),James (1969),Ungeheuer (1969),Bluhme (1970),Wiesemann (1970),Wurzel (1970),Kufner (1971),Zacher & Griš?enko (1971),Werner (1972),Scholz (1972),Werner(1973),Issatschenko (1973),Standwell (1973),Philipp (1974),Dressler (1977),Grif-fin (1977),Kohler (1977b),Russ (1978b),Cercignani (1979),Wurzel (1980),Russ(1982),van Lessen Kloeke (1982a,b),Meinhold & Stock (1982),Vennemann (1982). Cercignani (1983),Wurzel (1983),Lenerz (1985),Benware (1986),Lieber (1987),Jessen (1988),Ronneberger-Sibold (1988),Hall (1989),Macfarland & Pierrehum-bert (1991),Hall (1992),Yu (1992),Iverson & Salmons (1992),Borowsky (1993),van de Weijer (1994),Wiese (1996b),Merchant (1996),Noske (1997),Grijzenhout(1998),Scheer (2004),Fox (2005),Halle (2005),Glover (2014),Hall (2020), andKijak (2021).2,3It would be fair to say that the works cited above have concerned themselvesprimarily with the distribution of [ç] and [x] in the standard language of Ger-many, namely Standard German (StG) – defined here as the pronunciation en-coded in the pronouncing dictionaries (de Boor et al. 1969,Krech 1982,Mangold2005) – but that they have said very little about the occurrence of those fricativesin regional German dialects. Two notable exceptions to that trend areHerrgen(1986)and especiallyRobinson (2001), who both stress that much light can beshed on the correct analysis of the StG facts by considering the patterning of[ç] – the so-called ich-Laut (“ich-sound?) – and [x] – the so-called ach-Laut(“ach-sound?) – in non-standard varieties of German.I contend that the cross-dialectal approach advocated by linguists such as Herr-gen and Robinson represents a step in the right direction but that neither of thoselinguists goes far enough. In fact, it will be clear in the following chapters thatthose works merely scratch the surface of a deceptively complicated beast byfailing to consider enough case studies from geographically-diverse regional di-alects.The topic addressed in this book has not only been neglected by phonologists,but also by dialectologists. To cite one recent example, volume 4 of theHand-bücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft(Herrgen & Schmidt 2019)provides an impressive 1200 page overview of German dialects. That survey in-cludes all of the dialect areas depicted on MapA.1, including varieties of Germanspoken in North and South America, Africa, Australia, and Oceania. Given the breadth of that state-of-the-art work, it is surprising hat none of the chaptersdiscuss the distribution of [ç] and [x] in any detail. he goal of the present study is to fill that gap. I consider over three hundredoriginal sources for all of the major dialect regions spoken over a period of aboutone hundred sixty years (1860 to 2020) throughout the German-speaking worldas it existed before 1945 up to the present day. In doing so I uncover a wealth ofnew data (hinted at in the Murray quote given above) involving the patterning ofvelar and palatal sounds. It is my hope that the data and my analysis thereof willredefine the kind of research question future works will address with respect tothe patterning of German dorsal fricatives.