In Luxembourg: “Our language must receive a position of prestige”
Published
LUXEMBOURG – Citizens are invited to give ideas to strengthen the place of the national language in society, during public debates.
“Luxembourgish must be spoken and written more at school”, “it must be the first language of contact”, “we must study Luxembourgish literature in high school”, etc. Belval amphitheater, where a few dozen people discussed the language, as part of the Sproocheronn, two new sessions of which were held on Tuesday in the capital and Thursday in Clervaux.
“From an academic point of view, I believe that Luxembourgish should be given a prestigious position,” develops Amela, a young woman born in Luxembourg to Montenegrin parents. It would preserve the place of this language “in the world of work and in intercultural communication, where French is mainly used today”. For his part, Gabriel learned this language when he arrived from Puerto Rico in 2016 and now masters it very well. He believes that Luxembourgish is already “used a lot”, but that it should “perhaps be better passed on to school”. He mentions “the need to write more about it in the press” and to “produce more things in Luxembourgish, like films”.
“Interesting echoes”
The national language is spoken too little in the professional world. “This is due to the number of foreigners and cross-border workers”, observes Amela. “Luxembourgish has a daily role, but it depends on the context, among other things at work. It is not comparable to monolingual countries”, sums up Gabriel, who also uses French and German every day.
A summary will be made after the four debates. “We had learned some interesting echoes from the previous debates,” recalls Marc Bartelemy, Commissioner for the Luxembourgish language. For example, “the idea of family leave to teach the language to those who are raising children, on the model of language leave”. One thing that struck him was that “many foreigners regret that Luxembourgers do not speak to them in Luxembourgish, using French, German or English. We therefore need a process to encourage them to speak Luxembourgish”.
Sproochronn. Tuesday 7 p.m. at the Lycée Michel-Rodange, in Luxembourg. Thursday 7 p.m. at the Edward-Steichen high school, in Clervaux.