Part one and introduction to the Language of the Week can be found here.
Keen-eyed readers will note there was no language of the week last week. I've managed to write only one entry, and I'm already behind schedule. Damn! Well, for future reference, the aim is to post a LotW on a weekly basis, though the frequency of these entries may vary wildly.
The last entry on this subject was a bit rushed. In the future I hope to make these LoTW entries a bit more in-depth, though I'm not planning on writing longer dissertations on the subject.
With all that out of the way, let's take a look at this week's LotW: Luxembourgish.
Luxembourgish is a Germanic language, not surprisingly spoken mainly in Luxembourg and the surrounding border regions of Belgium, Germany and France. Today about 300,000 people speak Luxembourgish (it should be noted that in Luxembourg itself, Luxembourgish is one of three official languages, the other two being French and German. While Luxembourgish is spoken by most Luxembourgers, French remains the administrive language). With its close geographical proximity to two major languages, French and German, it should perhaps come as no surprise that Luxembourgish have similarities to both, with a bit of Dutch thrown in for good measure.
Many Luxembourgish words are borrowed directly either from French or Germany; as an example, the Luxembourgish word for thank you is merci (as it is in French). Other words again are derived from French or German; for example, the Luxembourgish word ech (meaning I) is clearly derived from the German ich.
One characteristic and heavily used feature in Luxembourish is the letter �, representing the schwa. Yes, the schwa. What is the schwa, you ask? Schwa is a vowel sound, whose definition is a bit fluent, but it sounds somewhat like a French e. The Luxembourgish word for Luxembourgish, l�tzebuergesch, features, as you can see, the schwa.
Europeans may be more familiar with Luxembourg than they think; one of the largest European TV production companies is RTL, which is an acronym for Radio T�l� Luxemburg/L�tzebuerg, which operates TV channels in several languages throughout Europe (apparently the company's primary owner these day is Bertselmann, originally a German company).
For further reading, check out the English Wikipedia entry on the subject. Or why not the entry in Luxembourgish?
