It may not be the best idea to think of Luxembourgish as "German with an army". :-)

by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2010/11/04 07:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2010/11/04/10085887.aspx


THE WINDOWS 7 LUXEMBOURGISH LANGUAGE INTERFACE PACK IS LIVE!

Click here to download the Luxembourgish Windows 7 LIP via the Microsoft.com Download Center.

Please note that the Luxembourgish  Windows 7 LIP can only be installed on a system that runs an English client version of Windows 7.   It is in available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

The Luxembourgish Windows 7 LIP is produced as part of the Local Language Program sponsored by Public Sector.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON LUXEMBOURGISH:

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS

~300,000

NAME IN THE LANGUAGE ITSELF:

Lëtzebuergesch  

Luxembourgish is spoken in the small Western European country of Luxembourg where it is official language since 1984 (together with French and German). Though so closely related to German (see "Classification") that German speakers should have no major problems understanding Luxembourgish, the differences between the two languages in terms of grammar are considerable. Luxembourgish has also borrowed many words from French (from merci for thank you to Prabbeli from parapluie for umbrella).

INTERESTING FACT:

Though Luxembourg is founding member of the European Union, Luxembourgish is not an official language of the EU. In Luxembourg itself laws are not published in Luxembourgish either.

CLASSIFICATION:

Strictly linguistically spoken, Luxembourgish is a West Central German dialect - but due to its standing it can be considered a language on its own (As the saying goes, "A language is a dialect with an army".) Luxembourgish as a Germanic language belongs to the family of Indo-European languages.). 

SCRIPT:

Luxembourgish is written in Latin script. There are four special characters: é, ä, ë and ü.

Click here for more information on the Luxembourgish language.

Enjoy!


John Cowan on 4 Nov 2010 8:29 AM:

I'm kind of surprised this LIP doesn't sit on top of German or French or both, since those are the languages of education, business, and public administration in Luxembourg.  English seems an odd choice.

By the way, the army in question has 450 professional soldiers, about 340 enlisted recruits, and about 100 civilian employees, and an annual budget about equal to 3% of Microsoft's R&D budget.

Alex Cohn on 7 Nov 2010 9:26 AM:

I guess that almost all Windows users is Luxembourg have German or French version already. So, to get the free LIP, they must buy a new English one?


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