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Luxembourg. Photo: Tourism Luxembourg

Luxembourg. Photo: Tourism Luxembourg Luxembourg. Photo: Tourism Luxembourg

Luxembourgish Is it a language? Is it a German dialect? That discussion divided the Grand Duchy after the Second World War. To take distance from their eastern neighbours, Luxembourgish linguists inked down the rules for their new, official language, to make it sound a bit more French and a bit less German. Today, the language floats in the middle between both. The pronouns like ‘ech’ and ‘du’ still sound very German, where a Frenchman will instantly recognise that a ‘zossiss’ is actually a sausage. Luxembourgish Lexicon: Äddi: Goodbye Villmols merci: Thank you very much Pompljeeën: Firemen Dreimal nichts: Nothing at all Präbeli: Umbrella

84  |  Issue 63  |  March 2019

Luxembourg. Photo: Tourism Luxembourg

Luxembourg. Photo: Tourism Luxembourg