Should German count as only one language?

[Ban my account ffs!]

The fact that most Austrians I met the first time thought I was German says a lot about the strength of dialects.  Then when I was in Germany, they laughed at me because I used a lot of Austrian words and idioms and spoke with a sort of American/Austrian hybrid accent... they especially noticed it when I said the word interesting... or Österreich.. the native word for Austria.

But Austrian German is very much a dialect and not a separate language.  While it took me a while to get used to it, it's not even as difficult as it is for Americans to understand someone with a strong Scottish brogue.  At least in my experience.

I lucked out though because my friends came from all over... Vorarlberg, Vienna, Tyrol, South Tyrol, Carinthia, and especially Upper Austria... and also from eastern Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, and Stuttgart... so I had to learn to understand a variety of dialects.

But when my friends from South Tyrol would converse with, say, someone from Upper Austria.. they used the same words for the most part.. just had slightly different accents.

However, most of the Germans would speak completely understandable Hochdeutsch.

I knew two brothers from Upper Austria and one of them went to school in Salzburg, the other in Munich and only after a year at university, the brother in Munich had pretty much switched over to speaking high German except for the word "nicht", which he still pronounced "net".  His brother that stayed in Austria spoke with a full Upper Austrian dialect.

So I don't know what to make of that.  If the guy in Munich had treated the language there like a foreign language, you'd think he'd speak high German there and then come home and speak in his normal Austrian German... but his dialect and accent actually changed... like if an American were to move to Scotland and live there for years.. he'd probably have an obvious bit of a Scottish accent when he returned to America.

[Ban my account ffs!]

So let's compare different German dialects with concrete examples. I made up the following Standard High German sentence and would like to have it translated into different German varieties. Maybe some other German-speaking users will help me and write how the sentence sounds in their dialect. The sentence just serves the purpose of comparing some varieties - don't look too much at the content.

The English translation of the following sentence is something like "I'm staying at home today because I got sick yesterday."

Standard High German: Ich bleibe heute zu Hause, weil ich gestern krank wurde.
Swiss German: Ich blib hüt dihei, wil ich geschter chrank worde bi.

I don't know how to spell out the various Austrian dialects... but what I heard would sound like what I write below in this situation..

I bin heit dahoam g'blieben, weil i geschtern kroank g'worden bin. (I'm not 100% sure on the word "krank")

Another friend from Südtirol always said "wir haben das gemacht" as "mi' hoan desch g'mocht."

It's funny how the Austrian/Swiss dialects are closer to English with the zu Hause/daheim thing... an English speaker would never say "I am at the house"... always "I am at home"...

So when my friend would say "Ich gehe nach Hause".. it was "I geh hoam" (I go home).