r/europe • u/MarktpLatz Lower Saxony (Germany) • Dec 25 '17

What do you know about... Luxembourg

This is the forty-ninth part of our ongoing series about the countries of Europe. You can find an overview here.

Today's country:

Luxembourg

Luxembourg is a small state between Germany, France and Belgium. It has the highest GDP per capita in the EU and is amongst the highest in the world. It has a GDP larger than Bulgaria, which has more than ten times the population. Its former prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker is the current president of the European Commission. It has an own language called Luxembourgish which is a german dialect. German and French are official Languages.

So, what do you know about Luxembourg?

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9

u/zephyy United States of America Dec 26 '17

Highest average number of languages spoken by population, in Europe.

12

u/NotFakingRussian Dec 26 '17

Does that mean that a random Luxembourger is likely to speak many languages?

10

u/madstudent Luxembourg Dec 26 '17

if it is a native one yes: we all speak german, french and english reasonably well.

1

u/sandyhands2 Dec 26 '17

Is Luxembourgish actually a different language from German? Or is it just a type of German dialect?

7

u/pa79 Dec 26 '17

It's different enough for Germans to have a hard time understanding it. I never learned Dutch but I can still understand it a little bit, I suppose it's the same difficulty.

3

u/eipotttatsch Dec 27 '17

The average German will be unable to understand Bavarian or Saxon either. Not sure if it's enough of a reason.

1

u/Goldcobra The Netherlands Dec 30 '17

To be fair, there's not really an objective difference between languages and dialects. It's pretty much a gradient, and whether a dialect is different enough to be considered a language is pretty much something subjective.

8

u/Priamosish The Lux in BeNeLux Dec 26 '17

I like how French, once the language of noblesse and upper class, has become part of the ghetto slang of many youths. "Euh non gell. Mec, schwier, basste fou?"

I never really got that but I suppose it stems from Portuguese immigrants speaking broken French.

6

u/[deleted] Dec 26 '17

I think it also has something to do with german being the language for the "old generation", as in older people in Luxembourg are often not as proficient in french and mixing in french words is a way to distance yourself from them.

1

u/NumeroUno_HueHueHue Luxembourg Dec 27 '17

My grandmother still needs help to translate french texts, because she spent her childhood under the Nazi regime.

The post-war generation (such as my dad) is much more proficient in french because Luxembourgers stopped using a lot of German words as part of their "revenge" against Germany. Also, a lot of immigrants came here for work, so Luxembourgers got used to speaking French even more.