So there I was thinking that only French is spoken in tiny Luxembourg, when I happen upon the language that seems to be really spoken there: Lëtzebuergesch (Luxembourgish). As it turns out, this is a common misconception¹ and quite understandable since the language situation in Luxembourg is surprisingly complicated.

Confusingly, street names, shops, and menus are mostly in French, while newspapers are mostly printed in German, though some cultural articles and many advertisements are also in French. It is mainly in oral communication that the Luxembourgish language is used, which is evidenced by the relatively late introduction of a standard orthography in 1914. Of course, to make matters worse, this first orthography never became official and was eventually replaced by a second orthography in 1950.

Luxembourgish is a Germanic language that has its origins in the 4th century, but it is no longer readily understood by German speakers thanks to strong Romance influence over the centuries. Looking at a map of Europe, this makes sense since the microstate is sandwiched between Belgium, Germany, and France. Nonetheless, from a German perspective, Luxembourgish is classified as a dialect of Middle German (mitteldeutsch) and is considered to be one of its most westerly and archaic dialects.

According to my Luxembourgish sources, the primary reason for the "linguistic puzzle" mentioned above is that it is generally felt that Luxembourgish is too limited for conversations that reach out into "higher levels of abstraction or refined sentiment". Luxembourgians have traditionally borrowed words from surrounding languages when necessary, which was probably much easier than coining new ones given that French and German have always been widely spoken there. I suppose that Luxembourgish simply did not have the same "evolutionary pressures" other languages did if these limitations truly exist.

For this reason, and also due to the general orientation towards French cultural values in the upper classes of its society, French is the official language of the government and the education system, while public communiques are mainly in German thanks to its close relationship with the popular dialect. Public speeches and events remain in Luxembourgish. However, citizens may express themselves in any of the three languages in official matters without having to worry about being misunderstood.

Some basic phrases in Luxembourgish with corresponding voice recordings can be found here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/languages/other/quickfix/luxembourgish.shtml

And a table of basic verbs can be found here:

http://hilton.org.uk/luxembourgish_verb_table.phtml

Why both links are from the UK, I don't know, but these are especially interesting for anyone with even basic knowledge of German since the relationship between the two languages is immediately apparent.

Albert Herring:

Education in .lu is in Letzebuergesch for the first few years (basic literacy), changes to German for the remaining years of primary school (8-12 or so) and then proceeds in French throughout secondary school (further education means going abroad). So yep, it's pretty widespread.

Gritchka:

Another, older, name for it is Mosel-Frankish.