Lëtzebuergesch léierenTiens, le voilà - Como estas? - Wir warten am Bahnhof. - Muito obrigado! - What a heat! - Lo kuck der dat do emol un. - Poi me ne sono andato via. - Hvala dobro! What a confusion of languages, a chattering, a nattering and a yattering, a Babel of tongues from all the corners of the earth, with many ingredients mixed up and stirred like some exotic dish. And in the midst of all this there is a taste of home cooking: Luxembourgish. A secret language? A code for insiders? A spot of local ethnic colour? A tool for integration? Luxembourg! What a lot of metaphors these are: in French, 'le carrefour de l'Europe', the crossroads of Europe; in English, a melting pot; in German, 'gelebte Mehrsprachigkeit', multilingualism in action. Almost more languages than people. Only to be expected when more than 35% of the little country's population are non-Luxembourgers. In Luxembourg every language of the European Union is spoken, read and written, as are many others besides. Talking more than one language is nothing special. Multilingualism is a part of everyday life, everyone takes it for granted. Newcomers to Luxembourg notice this quickly. Multilingualism here isn't something imported, grafted on, it is a genuine home-grown product with a long history. The language situation in Luxembourg is known technically as triglossia (or polyglossia), which means that in a given community three (or more) languages are used side by side and are distinguished chiefly by how, or for what purpose, they are used. The languages of traditional triglossia in Luxembourg are Luxembourgish, French and German. This has been the case since the Middle Ages, when it was the outcome of necessity; for centuries the speakers of Germanic and Romance languages lived alongside one another in this country, which was divided into a "Walloon (French-speaking) quarter" and a "German quarter". The ordinary people in those days were not really multilingual, everyone spoke his own language and that was enough. The administration was bilingual in German and French. Luxembourg was founded in 963 and was first an independent county, then a duchy until 1444. After that a succession of foreign masters took control: Burgundians, Spaniards, Habsburgs, French, Austrians. Then, after Luxembourg regained its independence in 1815, the Walloon area went to Belgium in 1839, and what was left was the greater part of the 'German quarter'. But multilingualism asserted itself to gain the status of an institution, which it still is. And Luxembourgish? Surely with all those other languages you don't need that too? What is Luxembourgish, anyway? A language, a dialect, something of its own, a bit of German, a bit of French? The French say: 'C'est un patois bizarre mais sympa', it's a weird dialect but rather nice; the English just say: 'It's funny isn't it?' Since 1984 Luxembourgish has been officially recognised as the national language of the Luxembourgers. Incomers realise the eminently practical value of this language in their contacts with the locals: it makes it easier to get into conversation with people, to get to know them and break the ice. Nowadays Luxembourgish is regarded as a language in its own right. Its basic constituent is Moselle Franconian, a branch of the dialect group known as Central German. Its oldest literary work is the verse epic of Yolanda of Vianden in the Mariendal Codex from around 1290. Thanks to its position on the edge of the German language area and its assimilation of many French words, Luxembourgish has developed along separate lines from dialects within Germany, and this development is still going on. The production of literary works has risen enormously in recent years and has long left the traditional repertoire of dialect literature behind it. Once upon a time Luxembourgish could be defined as the colloquial language spoken by Luxembourgers amongst themselves. Nowadays it is increasingly a written language in all possible spheres: literature, newspapers, liturgy, letters, e-mail, advertisements, the Internet. Luxembourgish is also having a great deal of success among foreigners, who have recognised its importance as the language of integration. Guy Berg Where to learn Luxembourgish: Learning materials Background literature |