French used most in businesses in Luxembourg

This article has a few numbers on the language preferences for businesses in Luxembourg, where French is in first place due in large part to a larger number of people from France and Belgium coming to work (3.5 times more than 20 years ago).

Cette présence de plus en plus forte de la langue française tient sans aucun doute au fait que les travailleurs frontaliers se sont vus multipliés par 3,5 sur les 20 dernières années. Les trois-quarts viennent de France et de Belgique...Un sondage réalisé auprès de "265 chefs et dirigeants d'entreprises actives dans l'ensemble des secteurs économiques du Luxembourg" place ainsi le français en tête des langues au Luxembourg. En effet, 55.8% des entreprises interrogées utilisent le français comme langue principale. Le luxembourgeois arrive en deuxième place avec 20%, puis suivent l'anglais à 17.7% et l'allemand à 4.9%. Le français se trouve, avec 68,2% en tête des langues parlées au travail par les résidents, suivi du luxembourgeois, à 60.5%.

Since Luxemburgish is so close to German I always just add them together. So 55.8% French, 24.9% German or almost German, then English at 17.7%.

I've been taking a close look at the situation of German-speaking Belgium over the past few weeks, considering Belgium's constitutional crises it always seems to face every few years, because were Flanders and Wallonia to ever go their separate ways the question of German-speaking Belgium is always one that remains unanswered. That part of Belgium used to be part of the German Empire, and in the event of a breakup there is little reason to suspect that it would choose to join Wallonia, or France. The three possibilities usually mentioned are:

1) Become an independent micro-state
2) Join Germany
3) Join Luxembourg

Option 3 is apparently appealing because of the higher salaries and pensions in Luxembourg compared to Germany. On the other hand, even a tiny region of just 70,000 people would be a big addition to a country of that size, and could turn it from a 'half French, half German, 100% Luxembourgish' kind of atmosphere into more of a stronger German, Holy Roman Empire successor state kind of feel.

Or not. Corrections are welcome if this assumption is wrong.

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All the foreign nationals in Luxembourg

I came across a page here the other day from the bureau of statistics in Luxembourg, showing the number of foreign nationals in the country. The most interesting part is the number of Portuguese there, a full one in six (at least). Turns out this goes back to the 1960s.

The page shows the numbers for 1981, 1991, and each year from 2001 onward, so with a bit of easy Excel work the years in between can be estimated. That gives us the following charts.

First the total population, Luxembourgers, foreign nationals, and each country after that:

Then remove the total population:

Now remove the Luxembourgers:

And finally the individual foreign nationals by country on their own.

The steady decrease in Italians is also fairly pronounces, German and French increase bit by bit over the years too.

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Most spoken language in Luxembourg: Luxembourgish

Good news, I suppose:

70.5% of the people in Luxembourg use Luxembourgish as the vernacular in daily life, 55.7% use French and 30.6% speak German at home, school or in the workplace. More than one choice was permitted in the survey. English and Portuguese were spoken by just about as many people, with one in five people using them every day. 

Nationality played an important role: 96.4% of Luxembourg citizens used Luxembourgish in daily life, and over 90% of French, Portuguese and English (UK) citizens all used their mother tongues in daily life. Below this were German citizens with 87.5% of them using German in daily life, and Italians with 84.3%. About half of the Germans, Dutch and Montenegrins in the country speak Luxembourgish, while with the Portuguese, Italian and Belgians in the country about 30% of them spoke it. 

Use of French, the second-most spoken language is as follows: Portuguese, Italian and Belgians used it with an average of 55.7%. German citizens used it least among family, at school and at work with 40.8%.

The original article has some more numbers on top of these.

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