Luxembourg, a Multilingual Society at the Romance/Germanic Language Border

Abstract

In 1839 the current borders of Luxembourg were drawn approximately along the Romance-Germanic language border. From that moment on, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was inhabited by a population speaking a German dialect, while by historic tradition and political opportunity, the administrative and judicial language continued to be French. This paper focuses on two aspects: the study of the interference between Lëtzeburgesch on the one hand and French, German and English on the other. The description of the present linguistic situation based on a sociolinguistic survey done in 1997. Bourdieu's concept of the legitimate language is modified to match the Luxembourgish situation of 'triglossia with trilingualism' and the legitimate multilingual language competence, which requires a subtle understanding of the combination of different varieties of the three languages officially in use in Luxembourg, is depicted.