One of the most frequent questions I’ve been asked since moving to the Grand Duchy from friends and family back home (besides “where’s that?” or “what part of Germany are you in?”) is “what do they speak there?”
If you know anything about Luxembourg, then you know the answer is actually quite complicated. So much so that I’m actually taking a class on it! I’ll write a lengthier post at the end of the semester about it all, but here’s a quick recap —
There are three “recognized” languages in Luxembourg, note that I didn’t use the word “official” as that has a bunch of different connotations, social and political, that the country actively tries to avoid in its language discourse. Due to its history (again, longer post coming later), these languages are; French, German and…..Luxembourgish.
Yes, you read that last one right. It sounds a bit made up, something you’d say as a joke, right?
“What do they speak in Luxembourg?”
“Oh you know, Luxembourgish.”
We were discussing in one of my other classes recently the ignorance and presumptuous statements people can often make about language, in regions they aren’t familiar with. Some statements classmates have heard —
“Oh so do you speak Belgian?”
“Your first language is Brazilian then?” (unlike Luxembourgish, there is no such thing as these languages, these countries speak French, Dutch, German and Portuguese.)
And even those familiar, even FROM certain countries can make dumb (usually in the name of bigotry) statements such as —
“This is America, speak AMERICAN.”
Bruh, it’s English.
Oh also, fun fact — the United States doesn’t even have an official language sooo………
Anyways, enough of my long tangent.
What exactly is Luxembourgish?
Well, from the Languages Law of 1984:
“La langue du Luxembourg est le Luxembourgeois.”
Translation:
“Luxembourgish should be the official language of the Luxembourgish people.”
This is actually a stronger statement than maybe it comes off as, as I mentioned before they’re very intentional with their use of “official” in these situations. It was meant as a national unifying statement post-WWII and to push out the German influence a bit. These days official signage and announcements are done in Luxembourgish then French, more on that below.
The reality though, is that it’s mainly used in conversation, while French remains the “lingua franca”, most spoken one and the most common one you’ll see written in institutions and administrations. It’s also the language used in legal settings, as the Luxembourgish legal system is based on the French one.
But enough about that, what exactly is the language?
German dialect which was finally given “official” status in 1984, when the current language law was written (deeming it along with French and German as the nationally recognized languages). It also contains a lot of French influence and words.
If you speak German (I’m learning!) then you can more or less understand Luxembourgish and Luxembourgers can understand you. You’ll hear lots of conversations carried out bilingually like this.
This is also why they don’t bother with German versions in signs and announcements and also because of the post WWII history wanting to separate from German identity a bit. So this means most signs and announcements in public are carried out in Luxembourgish followed by French. I’ve even begun to understand the tiniest bit of the Luxembourgish announcements on the train!
Anyways, hope you enjoyed this little sociolinguistic history lesson. Now I’d thought I’d end with some common Luxembourgish words and phrases to give you a bit of a sense —
- Moien – hello/most common greeting
- Wéi geet et dir? – How are you?
- Wéi ass däin Numm? – What is your name?
- Äddi – Bye
How about you, did you know anything about language in Luxembourg?