JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6137 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian
| Message 1 of 7 22 April 2011 at 6:37pm | IP Logged |
Here is the start of the Luxembourgish profile. I will be the Amanuensis and copy and paste the data from subsequent posts into this template.
INTRODUCTION
No text yet.
USEFULNESS
Luxembourgish is a bit limited vis-a-vis it's usefulness. It is, of course, most useful to those who would live and/or work in the Grand Duchy (Groussherzogtum Lëtzebuerg).
However, it is also useful to the Germanist, those interested in German and it's dialects. It is one of the few German "dialects" (using the term broadly as the strong argument can also be made that Luxembourgish is a distinct language in its own right--hence this profile) that has sufficient learning materials, resources and standardization to facilitate learning.
Luxembourgish is especially intriguing to those who have a special interest in languages that are hybrid Germanic-Romance (e.g., English, Flemish). Luxembourgish has many French loanwords. There are German and French-based synonyms for many words and expressions in Luxembourgish.
To learn Luxembourgish though, requires some prerequisites. The learner would ideally need either fluent German or French (or both). Most of the learning materials are in French although some are in German. For the German speaker, learning is facilitated due to the similarity to German.
CHIC FACTOR
No text yet.
ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE
No text yet
TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES
No text yet
COUNTRIES
No text yet.
SPEAKERS
No text yet.
VARIATIONS
No text yet.
CULTURE
No text yet.
DIFFICULTIES
No text yet.
GRAMMAR
No text yet.
PRONUNCIATION
No text yet.
VOCABULARY
No text yet.
TRANSPARENCY
No text yet.
SPELLING
No text yet.
TIME NEEDED
No text yet.
BOOKS
No text yet.
SCHOOLS
No text yet.
LINKS
1. http://www.elearning.lu/lb/intro/index.php
This is an outstanding course but you need fluent French to use it
2. http://luxdico.wordpress.com/
Another good one, but base language is also French
3. http://www.vdl.lu/L%C3%ABtzebuergesch+l%C3%A9iere+mat+MP3+_+ Fichiers+audio-p-64712.html
This is the one to start with if you don't speak French
4. http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&o bj=livre&no=17603
This book is in French and the Subtitle is a good description of the contents:
Langue et culture linguistique d'un petit pays au cœur de l'Europe
Language and linguistic culture of a small country in the heart of Europe
5. http://77.37.15.31/dict.html
Luxdico - French-Luxembourgish/Luxembourgish-French Dictionary
6. http://luxdico.de/
Luxdico - German-Luxembourgish/Luxembourgish-German Dictionary
7. http://infolux.uni.lu/
Infolux - Excellent resource with many outstanding links - Meant for native Luxemburgers though as some portions are in French, some in German, and some in Luxembourgish.
8. http://www.amazon.de/L%C3%ABtzebuergesch-f%C3%BCr-Luxemburg- Letzeburgisch-AusspracheTrainer/dp/3831762015
This one is in German, the classic Kauderwelsch series - CD
9. http://www.amazon.de/L%C3%ABtzebuergesch-f%C3%BCr-Luxemburg- Kauderwelsch-Letzebuergesch/dp/3894163100/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_ b
Book that goes with #8
Edited by JW on 22 April 2011 at 7:07pm
1 person has voted this message useful
|
JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6137 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian
| Message 3 of 7 22 April 2011 at 6:59pm | IP Logged |
Kuikentje wrote:
I want to learn Luxembourgisch as well. |
|
|
You would be able to learn it very rapidly being a French native speaker and having the Germanic language expertise that you do.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Iwwersetzerin Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Luxembourg Joined 5684 days ago 259 posts - 513 votes Speaks: French*, Luxembourgish*, GermanC2, EnglishC2, SpanishC2, DutchC1, ItalianC1 Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin
| Message 5 of 7 07 May 2011 at 12:02am | IP Logged |
Here is my contribution to the Luxembourgish profile:
INTRODUCTION
Luxembourgish is one of the three official languages (with German and French) of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg. It has been recognized as the national language of Luxembourg in 1984 and is protected as a regional language in Belgium.
CHIC FACTOR
There may be a chic factor associated with learning an “exotic”, generally unknown minority language with less than half a million speakers.
ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE
Due to the high number of foreigners in the workforce in Luxembourg, Luxembourgish is hardly used in business relations, French or English are usually the dominating languages in economic relations.
TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES
Luxembourgish can be useful while traveling in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, but it is not absolutely necessary, as the majority of Luxembourgers also speaks German, French and English or at least one of these languages. Since it is highly unusual for a tourist to speak Luxembourgish, any attempt at speaking even some words of it will be highly appreciated by native Luxembourgers.
COUNTRIES
Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, border regions of Belgium, Germany and France.
SPEAKERS
Close to 400.000 speakers worldwide, mainly in Luxembourg. Some speakers in the border regions of Belgium (Arlon region, province of Luxembourg), Germany (Eiffel) and France (Lorraine). A very small minority of descendants of immigrants from Luxembourg still maintains some knowledge of the language in the US, mainly in Illinois and Wisconsin.
VARIATIONS
Even in such a small country as Luxembourg, regional differences exist in the language, mainly regarding pronunciation, vocabulary and idiomatic expressions. However, these differences tend to disappear more and more.
CULTURE
Luxembourg being such as small country, the Luxembourgish language is an important element of Luxembourgish culture and identity. The number of musicians singing in Luxembourgish and authors publishing books in Luxembourgish has been on the rise in recent years.
DIFFICULTIES
The main difficulty in learning Luxembourgish is learning to write the language correctly as even many native Luxembourgers do not know how to write their mother tongue correctly, as Luxembourgish is still essentially a spoken language.
GRAMMAR
Luxembourgish grammar is quite similar to German grammar. Luxembourgish has three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and three cases (nominative, accusative, and dative). The German genitive has disappeared in Luxembourgish and only survives in some expressions.
PRONUNCIATION
Luxembourgish pronunciation is very phonetic. The standard orthography was designed to reflect the spoken language.
VOCABULARY
The majority of Luxembourgish vocabulary is derived from German with many French loanwords.
TRANSPARENCY
Luxembourgish is highly similar to German as it developed out of a German dialect. It has also high similarity to Dutch (mainly written) and uses many French loan words.
SPELLING
Luxembourgish spelling is tricky even for native Luxembourgers! This is due to the fact that Luxembourgish is mainly a spoken language and not often used in writing. Many Luxembourgers never learn to write their mother tongue correctly, because they rarely have the need to write it. The first intent to standardize Luxembourgish spelling dates back to 1946 but was not very successful. A standard orthography became official in 1975 and was reformed in 1999.
TIME NEEDED
Similar to the time needed to learn German or Dutch, provided the learner has sufficient access to Luxembourgish resources.
BOOKS
The Luxembourgish bookstore Libo has a very complete collection of textbooks and dictionaries for Luxembourgish with the possibility to order online (go to the “Luxemburgensia” section).
SCHOOLS
Institut national des langues http://www.insl.lu/ (This is the only institution that offers the official Luxembourgish language exams recognized by the Ministry of Education)
Inlingua Luxembourg http://www.inlingua.lu/
Languages.lu http://www.languages.lu/ (also offers a distance learning course)
LINKS
Luxembourgish online dictionary (Luxembourgish, German, French, English, Portuguese) http://www.lod.lu/lod/
Downloadable French-Luxembourgish dictionary http://www.freelang.com/dictionnaire/luxembourgeois.php
Luxembourgish-English dictionary
http://www.babylon.com/free-dictionaries/English-Luxembourgi sh-Dictionary/57162.html
Luxembourgish spellchecker http://cortina.lippmann.lu/site/
LetzLearn - Luxembourgish lessons for English and French speakers http://www.letzlearn.org/
Luxembourgish lessons on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/luxpaul
Luxembourgish online lessons for English, French and German speakers http://www.quattropole.org/fr/e-learning
5 persons have voted this message useful
|
Saim Pentaglot Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5098 days ago 124 posts - 215 votes Speaks: Serbo-Croatian, English*, Catalan, Spanish, Polish Studies: Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Occitan, Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic (Maghribi), French, Modern Hebrew, Ukrainian, Slovenian
| Message 6 of 7 04 July 2011 at 3:21am | IP Logged |
Isn't Luxembourgish intelligible at least with Mosselle Franconian (as linguistic shifts do not end at political borders), and perhaps to a lesser degree with other Middle Franconian dialects? Wouldn't that bump up Luxembourgish's usefuleness, at least a little bit?
Edited by Saim on 11 July 2011 at 6:42am
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6918 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French
| Message 7 of 7 09 November 2013 at 5:18pm | IP Logged |
The course on elearning.lu is now available in English as well.
2 persons have voted this message useful
|