Consonants

With the exception of the alveolo-palatal fricatives and the approximant [w], the consonant inventory of Luxembourgish is quite similar to Standard German.

Similar to Standard German, voiced obstruents cannot occur syllable-finally and will be devoiced (‘Auslautverhärtung’). Likewise, the voiceless plosives [p t k] are aspirated in most positions. The phonologically voiced plosives [b d ɡ] are in fact often realized as devoiced plosives. Thus, the phonological opposition is established by a fortis/lenis distinction. In contrast to German, the glottal stop [ʔ], although observable in some speaking styles, does not form part of the phonological system. [ɡ] is found only word-initially and banned in all other positions, where the successors of historical [ɡ] are realized as fricatives [ɕ ʑ χ ʁ] or have disappeared.

The main variant of /r/ in pre-vocalic position is the trill [ʀ], the lesser used variant is the fricative [ʁ]. Older speakers pronounce [ʀ] or [ʁ] also word-finally (Bir [biːʀ] ‘pear’) whereas younger speakers often showr-vocalization and produce central [ə] or [ɐ] instead ([biːə] forBir). Between short vowels and consonants /r/ is spirantized, either to a voiced [ʁ] as inParmesan [ˈpɑʁməzaːn] ‘Parmesan cheese’ or to an unvoiced [χ] as inparken [ˈpɑχkən] ‘to park’. Thus, whether /r/ shows up here as voiced or unvoiced fricative depends on the voicing feature of the following consonant.

Fricatives exist at six places of articulation, all but one having a phonological voicing opposition. Among the fricatives, [χ] and [ɕ] are allophones of one single phoneme /χ/. The same holds for their voiced counterparts [ʁ] and [ʑ] with the latter allophone appearing only in a few words, however. The selection of the allophone is determined, as in German, by the preceding context ([χ ʁ] after phonologically back vowels, [ɕ ʑ] elsewhere). An increasing number of speakers no longer distinguish between the alveolo-palatal and the post-alveolar fricatives, i.e. between [ʃ] and [ɕ] on the one hand and between [ʒ] and [ʑ] on the other. The progression of the sound change may eventually lead to a phoneme merger thus reducing the number of the fricatives.

Frequently, [j] is substituted with [ʒ] (Juni [ˈjuːniː] or [ˈʒuːniː] ‘June’) (NewtonReference Newton, Flood, Salmon, Sayce and Wells1993). The labial-velar approximant [w] has to be regarded as an allophone to the voiced labio-dental fricative /v/ with the former only occurring after [ʃ] (schwammen [ˈʃwɑmən] ‘to swim’), [ʦ] (zwee [ʦweː] ‘two’) and [k] (Quatsch [kwɑtʃ] ‘nonsense’), and [v] occurring elsewhere.

Vowels

The vowel inventory contains the phones [iːi eːe ə ɛː æaː ɑ ɐoːo uːu] as monophthongs. In addition, Luxembourgish has a set of eight diphthongs, which is considerably larger than the Standard German one (eight compared to three).

Monophthongs

In order to give a better overview of the monophthongs in Luxembourgish, the schematic, auditorily-based system in the vowel chart is accompanied by a formant chart using the Bark scale, which provides a perceptually more realistic acoustic representation of vowel realisations (seeFigure 1). Example words for each monophthong follow below.

• 

• 

Figure 1 Formant chart of the monophthongs in Luxembourgish (based on the accompanying sound recordings of this article, younger male speaker from the central Luxembourgish region).

Like most other Germanic languages, Luxembourgish distinguishes short and long vowels. Short [i] and [u] as invill [fil] ‘many’ andKuch [kuχ] ‘cake’ mainly differ in length from their long counterparts [iː] and [uː] as inZil [ʦiːl] ‘goal’ andTut [tuːt] ‘plastic bag’. As the formant chart inFigure 1 shows, the acoustic difference between these vowel sets is minimal. Short [e] and [o] are also realized rather closed and are thus similar to long [eː] and [oː], respectively. Depending on regional accent and speaker age, more open variants [ɛ] and [ɔ] can be found frequently, especially when followed by the vibrant /r/.

The long front vowels [eː] and [oː] are realized very close and may even show overlap with [i] and [u], respectively. From a phonemic perspective, the vowel /eː/ has two contextually conditioned allophones: when preceded by the vibrant /r/ in simplex words an open [ɛː] is realized (Kär [kɛːə] ‘core’); in all other contexts a closed [eː] (Keess [keːs] ‘cash register’) is realized.

Unlike in German, the schwa sound also appears regularly in stressed syllables or root syllables. The short vowels [ə] and [e] are complementarily distributed allophones of the same phoneme /e/. [e] (with a more open [ɛ] alternative realization) appears only before velar consonants as inMéck [mek] ‘fly’ orzéng [ʦeŋ] ‘ten’, whereas [ə] appears in all other positions. Luxembourgish schwa is realized frequently with light lip rounding and – compared to [e] – this vowel is strongly centralized.

In contrast to Standard German, the opposition between the long and short open vowels (as in GermanSchal ‘scarf’ vs.Schall ‘sound’) is manifested in Luxembourgish in quantityand quality, namely [aː] and [ɑ]. Furthermore, the long and front [aː] (Sak [zaːk] ‘bag’) is close to the quality of short [æ] (hell [hæl] ‘bright’,Decken [ˈdækən] ‘blanket’) and sometimes the two even merge qualitatively.

The schwa sounds [ə] and [ɐ] are high-frequency vowels in unstressed position. In contrast to German, where it is usual to omit [ə] in closed syllables, schwa is retained in Luxembourgish (e.g.,setzen [ˈzæʦən] ‘to put’ in Luxembourgish vs. [ˈzɛʦ ] in German).

Stress and intonation

The lexical tone contrast from the Central Franconian tonal accents (Gussenhoven & PetersReference Gussenhoven and Peters2004) has completely disappeared from Luxembourgish (GillesReference Gilles, Auer, Gilles and Spiekermann2002). This development has given rise to the two sets of diphthongs mentioned above with [ɑɪ] and [ɑʊ] associated with the former Accent 1, and [æːɪ] and [æːʊ] associated with the former (lengthened) Accent 2, respectively.

Word accent in Luxembourgish may fall on the antepenultimate, the penultimate or the final syllable, with the penult as the most common stress pattern, which frequently also applies to French loans likeParfum [ˈpɑχf ː] ‘fragrant’,Dekolleté [deːˈkolteː] ‘décolleté’. Although schwa syllables normally avoid word stress (Atelier [ˈɑtəljeː] ‘workshop’), disyllabic words with an initial schwa syllable nevertheless can attract word stress (Tëlee [ˈtəleː] ‘television’) (GillesReference Gilles, Dammel, Kürschner and Nübling2009).

Little is known yet about intonation, but a typical intonational feature of Luxembourgish is the rising-mid-falling nuclear tune, which serves to signal continuation.

Cross-word phenomena

There are various obvious phonological alternations of sounds operating at a supra-segmental level. Syllable-final -n is subject to phonologically conditionedn-deletion (GillesReference Gilles, Moulin and Nübling2006). In external sandhi, all final -ns are deleted unless the following syllable starts with a vowel or the consonants [h d t ʦn] (except in some well-defined special cases). Thus, the final nasal in the articleden is retained inden Dësch [dən dəʃ] ‘the table’ whereas it is deleted inde Schaf [də ʃaːf] ‘the cupboard’. Since Luxembourgish has a lot of words ending in an alveolar nasal,n-deletion occurs quite often.

Unusual consonant clusters arise postlexically due to cliticization of the definite articled’ (for feminine, neuter and plural forms) as ind'Land [dlɑnt] ‘the country’ ord'Kräiz [tkʀæːɪts] ‘the cross’. Voicing of the consonant ford’ depends on the following context.

Resyllabification and voicing of voiceless obstruents (indicated with_⌣) occurs across word boundaries when the following phonological word starts with a vowel, such aseng interessant Iddi [eŋintʀæˈsɑnd_⌣ˈidi] ‘an interesting idea’ but also in compounds likemateneen [mɑd_⌣əˈneːn] ‘together’ (GoudaillierReference Goudaillier and Goudaillier1987, Gilles in press). In all these cases, final devoicing is blocked and the obstruent is realized voiced.

Transcriptions of the recorded passage

The following translation of ‘The North Wind and the Sun’ in Luxembourgish orthography was read by a young male speaker (age 26 years) from the central region of Luxembourg. The broad phonetic transcription is based on this version. Stress marks apply to phrasal rather than to word level here. Intonational phrasing is indicated by [|] (‘minor phrase’) and [‖] (‘major phrase’).

Den Nordwand an d'Sonn

An der Zäit hunn sech den Nordwand an d'Sonn gestridden, wie vun hinnen zwee wuel méi staark wier, wéi e Wanderer, deen an ee waarme Mantel agepak war, iwwert de Wee koum. Si goufen sech eens, dass deejéinege fir de Stäerkste gëlle sollt, deen de Wanderer forcéiere géif, säi Mantel auszedoen. Den Nordwand huet mat aller Force geblosen, awer wat e méi geblosen huet, wat de Wanderer sech méi a säi Mantel agewéckelt huet. Um Enn huet den Nordwand säi Kampf opginn. Dunn huet d'Sonn d'Loft mat hire frëndleche Strale gewiermt, a schonn no kuerzer Zäit huet de Wanderer säi Mantel ausgedoen. Do huet den Nordwand missen zouginn, dass d'Sonn vun hinnen zwee de Stäerkste wier.

dən ˈnɔχtvɑnt ɑn ˈdzon

ɑn dɐ ˈʦæːɪt |hun zəɕdən ˈnɔχtvɑnd_⌣ɑn ˈdzon gəˈʃtʀidən ‖

viəfun hinən ˈʦweː |vuəl ˈmɜɪ ʃtaːk viːɐ ‖

vɜɪ ə ˈvɑndəʀɐ ‖

deːn ɑn ə ˈvaːmə ˈmɑntəl ˈɑɡəpaːk vaː ‖

ivɐt də ˈveːkəʊm ‖

ziː ɡəʊfən zəʑ_⌣ˈeːns ‖

dɑs ˈdeːjɜɪnəʑəfiɐdə ˈʃtɛːəkstə ɡələzolt ‖

deːn də ˈvɑndəʀɐfɔəˈsɜɪəʀə ɡɜɪf ‖

zæɪ ˈmɑntəl ˈæːʊsʦədoːən ‖

dən ˈnɔχtvɑnt huət mɑt ˈɑlɐ ˈfɔχs ɡəˈbloːzən ‖

ˈaːvɐvaːt əmɜɪ ɡəˈbloːzən huət ‖

vaːt də ˈvɑndəʀɐzəɕ ˈmɜɪ ɑzæɪ ˈmɑntəl ˈɑɡəvekəlt huət ‖

um ˈæn huət dən ˈnɔχtvɑnt zæɪ ˈkɑmbv_⌣ˈopɡin ‖

dun huət ˈdzon | ˈdloft mɑt hiəʀə ˈfʀəntləɕə ˈʃtʀaːlə ɡəˈviːəmt ‖

ɑ ʃon noː ˈkuːəʦɐ ˈʦæːɪt ‖

huət də ˈvɑndəʀɐzæɪ ˈmɑntəl ˈæːʊsɡədoːən ‖

ˈdoːhuət dən ˈnɔχtvɑnt misən ˈʦəʊɡin ‖

dɑs ˈdzon fun hinən ˈʦweː |deː ˈʃtɛːəkstəviːɐ ‖