Luxembourg Culture & Language

Luxembourgish, a West Germanic language spoken by about 400,000 people in the world, is the national language; French is the sole language of legislation and German shares the administration, and most citizens are trilingual as a matter of course. Almost half the residents are foreign nationals and the capital holds 160 of them, so English, Portuguese and Italian are heard as often as any of the three. The culture that is the Luxembourgers' own is Catholic and provincial in the best sense: Echternach's abbey, founded in 698 by the English monk Willibrord, and its hopping procession, inscribed by UNESCO in 2010; the castles of the north; the wine villages of the Moselle; and a cuisine, influenced by France, Germany and Belgium, whose national dish is Judd mat Gaardebounen, smoked pork collar with broad beans, taken with Diekirch beer or a Moselle crémant.

The capital's culture is international by design: the EU's Court of Justice and Court of Auditors, four Michelin-starred restaurants, Villa Vauban and the Casino Luxembourg for art, and, in the north, Steichen's Family of Man at Clervaux. Esch-sur-Alzette, the steel town, was European Capital of Culture in 2022.

The manners are Benelux: quiet, punctual, multilingual and unshowy about the money.

Luxembourgish is the national language, French the language of the law and of most signs and menus in the capital, German the language of the press, and most citizens speak all three; with almost half the residents foreign, English, Portuguese and Italian are everywhere too. Moien is hello, Äddi goodbye and Merci thank you in Luxembourgish; French and German will both be answered in kind, and the visitor who tries a Moien first will be forgiven the rest.