Luxembourg’s Language Lives in Comics

The trouble with Luxembourgish is that most Luxembourgers speak it but few of them read or write it.

The language has only one dictionary and no newspapers to its credit.

Now a cartoon-strip hero who lives on beer and cheese is leading a campaign to popularize the written language.

Luxembourgish is a mostly German concoction heavily influenced by French and spoken with an accent resembling Dutch. It reflects this tiny grand-duchy’s geographical position, hemmed in on all sides by bigger neighbors.

Few people read the poetry, plays and literary novels that have long existed in Luxembourgish.

Lex Roth, government spokesman and defender of the language, says these works cannot provide a staple diet for the young.

“There have to be some sausages,” he says. “We can’t always eat lobster.”

So, Roth translates comic strips into Luxembourgish.

Luxembourg’s first hero, “Superhjemp,” a dumpy crusader who draws his strength from the local beer and cheese, first burst onto the scene in 1988.

In his latest best-selling adventure, published last year, he confronts and defeats an evildoer who is trying to have the world’s literature translated exclusively into Luxembourgish so that only he can understand it.

Although Luxembourgish has been the official language here since 1984 and is spoken by the 300,000 citizens, few are comfortable reading and writing it.

Most locals have studied and worked in French, German or both, and are untrained in reading or writing in what many regard as little more than a dialect.

Children here learn to read and write first in German, then in French. Luxembourgish comes in a poor third. Even the local history is taught in a foreign tongue and all the newspapers except one are published in German.

It seems people have learned the languages of their neighbors too well, to the neglect of their own.

A former French teacher, Roth takes a refreshingly non-pedantic approach to preserving Luxembourgish, designed to appeal to the young and influence them in later life.

He cites Gaelic as an example of what can happen to a language once neglected. Only 4% of people in Ireland speak the language.

Roth has translated seven volumes of the adventures of globe-trotting reporter Tintin, and is working on another about the renowned ancient Gaul, Asterix.

The first Asterix volume in Luxembourgish, “The Son of Asterix,” came out in 1987 and sold 20,000 copies in five months. Roth says the only book more widely read here is the telephone directory.

Asterix volumes are now printed here in runs of about 10,000 each and sell fast.

Teachers say the comic strips have transformed the climate in their elementary Luxembourgish language classes.

“For reading, comic books are the method par excellence,” said Monique Hermes, a teacher for 21 years. Now she wants new grammar and spelling books.

She is also working part time on the country’s first language manual for primary-school pupils. There are plans to bring out a second Luxembourgish dictionary.

The only grammar book dates from 1951, and has a running commentary in German printed in the margins. Roth says it will be at least another generation before the language can be properly codified in written form, since so few people write it.

Twenty years ago, Roth helped to found “Actioun Letzebuergesch,” a group that promotes writing in Luxembourgish.

The aim is not nationalistic, Roth says. It is simply that a language without widely used written forms is likely to disappear.