Luxembourgish

Where it’s spoken

Luxembourgish (Lëtzebuergesch) is the national language of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg under the 1984 Language Law, which also recognized French (the legislative and judicial language) and German (the primary newspaper language) as administrative languages. About 390,000 Luxembourgers speak it as a first language. Closely related Moselle Franconian dialects are spoken in adjacent areas of Belgium, France, and Germany.

What it sounds like

Luxembourgish derives from the Moselle Franconian dialect group of High German. It has front rounded vowels (ü, ö), diphthongs not present in Standard German, and some lenited consonants. French loanwords have introduced sounds like the nasal vowels in unassimilated borrowings.

How it’s written

Luxembourgish uses the Latin alphabet plus ë, é, è, and ä. The orthography was officially codified in 1976 and updated in 1999. It is essentially phonemic, with some etymological conventions for words borrowed from German and French.

History

Luxembourgish was historically considered a German dialect; only in 1984 was it officially recognized as a separate language. Earlier, German served as the church and school language while French was administrative — Luxembourgish was a spoken vernacular. Today it dominates everyday speech.