Luxembourgish

Luxembourgish
Lëtzebuergesch
Pronunciation[ˈlətsəbuəjəʃ]
Native toLuxembourg; Saarland and north-west Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany; Arelerland and Saint-Vith district, Belgium; Moselle department, France
RegionWestern Europe
EthnicityLuxembourgers
Native speakers
300,000 (2024)[1]
Early forms
Proto-Indo-European
Official status
Official language in
Luxembourg
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated byCouncil for the Luxembourgish Language
Language codes
ISO 639-1lb
ISO 639-2ltz
ISO 639-3ltz
Glottologluxe1243
Linguasphere52-ACB-db
The area where Luxembourgish (pale indigo) and other dialects of Moselle Franconian (medium indigo) are spoken. The internal isogloss for words meaning "on, at", i.e. op and of, is also shown (Standard German: auf).
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Luxembourgish (/ˈlʌksəmbɜːrɡɪʃ/ LUK-səm-bur-ghish; also Luxemburgish,[2] Luxembourgian,[3] Letzebu(e)rgesch;[4] endonym: Lëtzebuergesch [ˈlətsəbuəjəʃ] ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 300,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide.[5]

The language is standardized and officially the national language of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. As such, Luxembourgish is different from the German language also used in the Grand Duchy. The German language exists in a national standard variety of Luxembourg, which is slightly different from the standard varieties in Germany, Austria or Switzerland. Another important language of Luxembourg is French, which had a certain influence on both the national language Luxembourgish and the Luxembourg national variety of German. Luxembourgish, German and French are the three official languages (Amtssprachen) of Luxembourg.

As a standard form of the Moselle Franconian language, Luxembourgish has similarities with other High German dialects and the wider group of West Germanic languages. The status of Luxembourgish as the national language of Luxembourg and the existence there of a regulatory body[6] have removed Luxembourgish, at least in part, from the domain of Standard German, its traditional Dachsprache. It is also related to the Transylvanian Saxon dialect spoken by the Transylvanian Saxons in Transylvania, contemporary central Romania.

  1. ^ Luxembourgish at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ "Luxemburgish – definition of Luxemburgish in English from the Oxford dictionary". Archived from the original on 7 July 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  3. ^
  4. ^ "Letzeburgesch – definition of Lëtzeburgesch in English from the Oxford dictionary". Archived from the original on 15 September 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  5. ^ "Le nombre de locuteurs du luxembourgeois revu à la hausse" (PDF). Retrieved 8 November 2012.
  6. ^ "Law establishing the Conseil Permanent de la Langue Luxembourgeoise (CPLL)" (PDF).