Literature in ‘Lëtzebuergesch’ in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

Abstract

In effect, the Grand Duchy has a trilingual literature: we have had, and still have, authors writing in French, German or ‘Lëtze-buergesch’. The reasons that may have motivated a writer when opting for French or German are usually quite personal (education or war experiences for instance); choosing ‘Lëtzebuergesch’, however, was in the nineteenth century and the first half of our century a conscious political act, that could not possibly be compared with, say, a Bavarian expressing himself in his own dialect. A Luxembourg author, by choosing his own language, insists on its peculiarity and insists on its being quite different from standard German (Hochdeutsch); his choice is a separatist’s action.