User:Brigade Piron/"Luxembourg", "Luxembourgish" or "Luxembourgian"?

Luxembourg has attracted so little scholarship in English that there is no concensus as to the predictive adjective.

Péporté, Pit; et al. (2010). Inventing Luxembourg: Representations of the past, space and language from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century (Online ed.). Leiden: Brill. p. 16. ISBN 9789004181762.

Is the correct adjectival form denoting something from Luxembourg "Luxembourgish", "Luxembourgian" or "Luxembourg"? This is a question that comes up regularly on Wikipedia in the context of Luxembourg art, Luxembourg cuisine etc. It's not possible to say that any one form is "wrong": all are in current use, albeit in various context, around the world. In fact, other forms (usually variants that drop the "o" from Luxembourg or derived from the French and German forms) also exist but here we'll deal with the most prevalent.

This essay presents a list of sources which use the different varieties. The reader is invited to read the table, add to it - and draw his or her own conclusions about which is best. Link rot may occur (especially as this list was compiled in 2014), so please take the usage on good faith when this is the case.

Usage by version

Of Luxembourgish

• Crude Google Books search reveals 13,600 results for "Luxembourgish" (1)
• Even more crude blanket Google test reveals 995,000 results (1)

Use

• Official Lux government websites:
  • In official translation of citizenship law ("Luxembourgish financial institutions" in 1)
  • Ministry of Tourism (i.e. "Luxembourgish society" in 1)
  • Ministry of Statistics (i.e. "Luxembourgish territory" in 1)
  • Foreign ministry (Embassy in Washington: "Luxembourgish nationality" in 1)
• Luxair (national airline) (i.e. "Luxembourgish population" in 1
• BBC (i.e. "largest non-Luxembourgish community" in 1)
• US Library of Congress (i.e. "Luxembourgish literature" in 1)
• EU-backed European University Institute ("Luxembourgish legislation...Luxembourgish nationality" etc. at 1)
• OECD ("Luxembourgish government" in published work)
• EU Publications Official Manual of Style ("Adjective: Luxembourgish" 1)

Of Luxembourgian

• Crude Google Books search reveals 7,070 results for "Luxembourgian" (1)
• Blanket Google test reveals 19,000 for -ian (1)

Use

• Merriam-Webster dictionary gives term equal credence with "Luxemburgian" ("Adjective: Luxem-bourg-ian" in 1)
• US Embassy Luxembourg ("Luxembourgian architect" in 1)
• International Monetary Fund ("Luxembourgian financial practice" in 1)

Of Luxembourg (as adj.)

• Google book search not possible (use of term as country name would make results meaningless).
• Cambridge English Dictionary

Use

• CIA world fact book ("Adjective: Luxembourg" in 1)
• Department for the study of Luxembourg at Sheffield University, UK ("Luxembourg studies" in 1)
• BBC ("Luxembourg Elections" and "Luxembourg Prime Minister" in 1)
• Luxemburger Wort (best-selling newspaper in Lux.) English-language edition ("Luxembourg government" & plenty of similar examples in 1)
• UK Foreign Office ("Luxembourg war memorials" in 1)
• Reuters ("Luxembourg government" in 1)
• Encyclopedia Britannica ("Luxembourg national museum" in 1)
• US New York Times ("Luxembourg Spy Scandal Forces Exit of Premier" in 1 and others)
• UK The Daily Mail ("Luxembourg government" in 1)
• Bloomberg ("Juncker Hands Fate to Luxembourg Ruler as Coalition Fails" in 1)

Of Luxembourgeois

• Google book search not possible (use of term in French would make results meaningless)

Use

• Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which does not recognise any of the other adjectives listed above.

Comments

• ...if I may butt in, apologies, in the absence of a settled English alternative, I tend to think that the native form should prevail: Luxembourgeois. Feel free to delete this, just wanted to give my opinion. Buckshot06 (talk) 19:55, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

I think that has its own problems. It's not that there is no established alternative, merely that it's uncertain which one to choose. Besides, why give precedence to French automatically? —Brigade Piron (talk) 05:52, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

• Hi Brigade Piron, and thanks for this essay. I found it after proposing this cfr-speedy, FYI. But after being alerted to the two previous discussions, le courage m'échappe... Eric ^talk 13:56, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree entirely! Whatever the "right" answer, to me it exemplifies a much wider problem with Wikipedia's merge/rename/deletion process.—Brigade Piron (talk) 09:27, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

• I think that this is pretty great Brigade Piron, and thanks! Since 2019, the EU term has been Luxembourger, which you can find here: http://publications.europa.eu/code/en/en-5000500.htm CompleteAnonymity (talk) 13:56, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks - this is a helpful source but I am afraid you are confusing their suggested adjective (Luxembourgish) for their suggested denonym (Luxembourger). The latter of these is undisputed. I will add the source. —Brigade Piron (talk) 22:49, 12 January 2024 (UTC)