Luxembourg is a pretty tiny place, nothing more (one could say) than a pomegranate seed in the vast European cornucopia. And even though everyone knows this, such an observation is still perpetually welcome in places where small talk is fuelling the conversation, including awkward networking events or family gatherings where only one attendee lives in the grand duchy.
“It’s… I mean, it’s tiny tiny.”
“I can see France from my bedroom window!”
“People think it’s part of Germany but it’s not.”
And so on.
The smallness of Luxembourg isn’t really that weird, except when juxtaposed with grapefruits like Germany and France--or even the clementinesque Belgium. But thanks to the relative stability of borders and plate tectonics, such a state of juxtaposition is in fact essentially permanent, which means that the smallness is too. And thus the weirdness.
And one of the nearly infinite ways in which this weirdness is expressed, I argue, is in the adjectivisation of the country’s name: Luxembourgish.
A defensible [ish] theory
To be Luxembourgish carries more relative horsepower than being Italian or American does, or so a columnist might argue. But to get a sense of what those horses look like, we must look first at the nation’s rival descriptor: Luxembourg.
This, you see everywhere: “a Luxembourg company,” “a Luxembourg presence,” “a Luxembourg entrepreneur.” Without bothering to consult even an amateur linguist on this matter, I will hazard to say that dropping the ish in these instances creates a modifier that is (1) inclusive of people or things associated with the country but which (2) indicates a lack of “nativeness.”
In other words, a “Luxembourg journalist” is likely to be someone who works in the country but grew up outside of it (hello), whereas a “Luxembourgish journalist” will have spent their childhood here. A “Luxembourg company” suggests nothing more than a company domiciled in the grand duchy, while the founders of a “Luxembourgish company” probably know on which day the Hämmelsmarsch comes through their native village.
In other words, the “ish” carries notions of cultural authenticity.
You can test the theory by looking at things that lack a Luxembourg- version, like food or wine. There is no “Luxembourg wine”… wine is either grown here or it isn’t; there is no foreign wine that comes to Luxembourg and gains an association therewith.
And then look elsewhere: you’d never speak of an “Italy journalist,” would you? Either the journalist is Italian, or it’s an American (for example) journalist working in Italy.
So what?
So nothing, really. I just find it interesting that we in the grand duchy have created a handy code for expressing a person’s or entity’s deeper relationship with the country (the word “native” keeps floating into my head, problematic though it is). Or, opposite that on the same coin, a way for an outsider to claim association with the place without crossing cultural lines or resorting to a lot of hoola-hoopy relative clauses (“I’m an American journalist who lives in Luxembourg and who’s, like, settled here.”)
Undoubtedly, having two versions of the adjective comes down to that smallness of which I spoke, a smallness that makes it easier for the country to be crammed full of foreigners to the point where outside cultures are as commonly found as local ones, where it becomes necessary to sort out--quickly--in one extra syllable!--if we’re talking about somebody or something from here or merely here.
Funny.
