Dr Ralf Heimrath majored in German language, literature and history at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. His distinguished scholarly career encompasses teaching and leadership positions at a Bavarian open-air museum, the National University of Mongolia and the University of Malta. His research interests include German dialectology, contact linguistics and the history of folk music. He is the
author and editor of a wealth of publications, including a number of folk-song collections. As well as his scholarly expertise, his family heritage made him an asset to this project. His mother and grandparents, as well as the parents of his wife Margret, came from the same region in Egerland as the Pūhoi settlers. Brought up speaking the same dialect, they knew many of the songs and tunes, especially as his grandparents loved making this genre of music. Later Heimrath lived in the Upper Palatinate in Bavaria, which adjoins the region of the Egerland and has an almost identical dialect.
As one of the few scholarly experts in the dialect, he has served his culture by working with several cultural organisations: from 2007 to 2009 he was the president of the Bund der Egerländer Gmoin (Union of the Egerland Communities) and in 2015 he was awarded the Egerländer Kulturpreis Johannes-von-Tepl, the highest award given by any Egerlander association.
