The brilliant autumn sun is streaming into the classroom, as students wander in. Bonjour, Gudde Moien, says the teacher, Luc Schmitz. It is 8am on Monday morning and people from at least a dozen countries are here to take one of this school’s most popular language courses: Luxembourgish.
Despite gloomy predictions, more and more people want to speak the language, which has been on Unesco’s list of endangered languages since 2010. At Luxembourg’s National Institute of Languages, where Schmitz teaches, enrolments are up. According to Luxembourg’s ministry of culture, more than 6,500 adults were enrolled on Luxembourgish courses in 2016-17, twice the number a decade ago.
Luxembourgish, traditionally just spoken at home, can sound like a curiosity. It was not even a national language of Luxembourg until 1984 and is hardly spoken outside the Grand Duchy. Nearly half of Luxembourg’s 576,000 inhabitants are foreigners, many of whom find it easier to speak one of the country’s other official languages, French and German, or even English. “You can live in Luxembourg without knowing a word of Luxembourgish,” says Schmitz. “[But] it is fun, it expands your view and your children cannot talk in a secret language that you do not understand.”
Now Luxembourg’s government wants to boost the status of the language further with a 40-point action plan that aims to promote it in schools, libraries, government offices and embassies. Luxembourgish will be codified, with an academy, nationwide spelling campaigns and the completion of an online dictionary. Schoolchildren will be able to do poetry slam, creative writing and theatre in the language. The government will also petition Brussels for Luxembourgish to be recognised as one of the EU’s 23 official languages – although the result will be symbolic, rather than scores of jobs for translators.
Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:
https://www.scoop.it/t/luxembourg-europe/?&tag=l%C3%ABtzebuergesch
Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:
http://www.scoop.it/t/luxembourg-europe/?tag=Digital+L%C3%ABtzebuerg