Living Together Multilingually

Navigating Assumptions and Claiming Place

In 2019, I travelled from my hometown, Beijing, to Esch-sur-Alzette to pursue a Master’s degree at the University of Luxembourg. There, I met one of my first Luxembourgish friends, Laura (pseudonym). I still remember the surprise I felt when she introduced herself as “coming from Luxembourg” – I had assumed she was from somewhere non-European based on her skin color. Later, I learned that she was born and raised in Luxembourg to parents who had moved to the Grand Duchy from Cape Verde.

As my life in Luxembourg gradually took root, I befriended more Luxembourgers of various skin tones. At the same time, I delved deeper into migration studies. Looking back, I felt ashamed of my initial surprise about Laura. Who was I to judge who she was based solely on her skin color? I was just glad that I had not blurted out the question that often follows such assumptions: “But where are you really from?” That could easily have ended our friendship before it had even begun.

Besides race, language often triggers similar assumptions. Hadn’t I felt the same surprise when, shortly after arriving in Luxembourg, I overheard an Asian-looking teenager on the bus speaking fluent Luxembourgish with his friends? Today, that surprise no longer feels right to me. Who decides who “should” belong to a place, and who the “rightful” speaker of a language is? How are such judgments made, and what impact do they have on people’s lives? These are the questions that motivated my Master’s research. For my thesis, I interviewed a group of young Luxembourgers, including Laura, all of whom have at least one parent born abroad. Drawing on this research, I invite you to listen to their voices and learn about their struggles and resilience as they strive to claim their places in Luxembourg.

“I see that it is not normal to speak Luxembourgish as a black person”

Although born and raised in Luxembourg and holding Luxembourgish citizenship, Laura often feels that she is not seen as a legitimate speaker of Luxembourgish. “Sometimes I give so many signs that I speak Luxembourgish, they still think that I don’t speak Luxembourgish and speak French with me.” For her, such encounters imply an external rejection of her identity as a Luxembourger, a feeling that is reinforced in everyday interactions and becomes a source of frustration:

“I remember once I was with my sister in the supermarket, ready to pay. We were talking in Luxembourgish together. When it was our turn, the cashier said ‘ Bonjour!’ and we replied ‘ Moien’, because we had heard her speaking Luxembourgish with other customers. But she said to us: “Vous payez par carte ou cash?” People just can’t accept that these black women can speak Luxembourgish. It doesn’t enter their brains. This happens so often. It’s okay, I understand French, but this insisting on ‘You don’t speak Luxembourgish’ is really tiring. This happens often, very, very often. You know they reject it totally. And I think because of these situations, I am constantly reminded that it is not my natural language. From how people react or the way they address me, I see that it is not normal to speak Luxembourgish for a black person.”

As Laura shared this experience during the group interview, her story immediately prompted a reaction from Kate (pseudonym). As a white Belgian-Luxembourger, Kate also faces assumptions about her language abilities. While Laura often encounters refusal to recognise Luxembourgish as one of her first languages, Kate is frequently presumed to be a fluent Luxembourgish speaker. People often insist on speaking Luxembourgish with her, despite the fact that French, rather than Luxembourgish, is the language she feels most comfortable speaking.

“When people see me, it’s immediately ‘Ok, we speak Luxembourgish with her’.”

“It happened to me this morning when I went to the bakery. I wanted to say ‘pain au levain’, but I didn’t remember the word in Luxembourgish or German. So, I said politely, ‘Excuse me, I would like a pain au levain’. And then she looked at me like I just insulted her or something. Then she described to me the contents of that bread in Luxembourgish, everything in Luxembourgish, and it’s very technical. I didn’t know these words. So I didn’t say anything, just like ‘uh-huh, thank you’. When people see me or my family name, it’s immediately ‘Okay, she’s Luxembourgish. We speak Luxembourgish with her’. And even if I struggle and show them, ‘Please help me out with these Luxembourgish words’, they won’t help me. So Laura and I, we are in the same situation. But opposite sides.”

The “opposite sides” are striking here: black and white, refusal and enforcement. Despite unfolding in opposite ways, these experiences stem from the same root: assumptions about people’s language abilities based on non-linguistic factors, such as race and cultural background, rather than attention to their actual linguistic abilities and needs. Such assumptions often lead to the same unfortunate outcomes: frustration, feelings of exclusion, and a struggle to understand one another.

For all of us living in a multilingual and multicultural society such as Luxembourg, deciding which languages to speak to whom is so deeply embedded in daily lives that we seldom stop to think about it. Yet this question deserves far more attention than we might assume. On the one hand, language is one of the key tools through which we claim our place in society. Like Laura, who replied to “Bonjour” with “Moien” to affirm her identity as a Luxembourger. On the other hand, language can create subtle boundaries by imposing assumptions about who people are and what they are capable of. Such assumptions can drive people apart, undermining mutual understanding, solidarity, and conviviality within a society. In both Laura’s and Kate’s cases, the way in which others chose to speak French or Luxembourgish, disregarding their actual language preferences, contributed to their sense of being excluded, both from the national community and from everyday interpersonal interactions.

Besides the often unconscious language choices we make, another common practice in multilingual societies can also reflect similar assumptions and create exclusion. What may surprise many of us is that it involves something usually considered positive: complimenting someone on their language proficiency.

“Luxembourg would like to validate my Luxembourgish”

Maxine (pseudonym), a Portuguese-Luxembourger whose parents are both from Portugal, shared her mixed feelings when her teachers praised her for “speaking such good Luxembourgish and German as a Portuguese”:

“I didn’t like those comments, like ‘Oh, you speak such good Luxembourgish, not like other foreigners that I know!’ It kind of makes me proud to be able to speak those languages in such a way that professors compliment me as a Portuguese, but it also kind of makes me feel like I’m being validated for belonging to Luxembourg, and as if Luxembourg would like to validate my Luxembourgish. I had some issues in primary school and also afterwards in secondary school with professors saying things like ‘Oh, your German is very good for a Portuguese person’. Comments like that feel like microaggressions to me, even though I know that they didn’t mean any harm and I wasn’t angry with them. But comments like that always reminded me that it’s not my home, even though Luxembourg feels like my home.”

Nadine (pseudonym), whose parents immigrated from Montenegro, expressed a similar view:

“These things still happen to me even up to this day. I’ll be waiting for a bus and speaking with somebody. And if this person is by chance a Luxembourger, they will tell me that I speak Luxembourgish really well. And then they will say, ‘Yeah, that’s because the ex-Yugoslavian people have integrated themselves into the country.’” 

As Maxine pointed out, such compliments in everyday life are often not intended to be hurtful, nor are they deliberately disguised ways of saying “You don’t belong here”. However, understanding the good intentions behind these comments does not necessarily lessen feelings of judgment or exclusion. By treating their Luxembourgish proficiency as something remarkable and unexpected, such compliments imply that the abilities of these Luxembourgers with migration backgrounds are not taken for granted in the same way as those of other Luxembourgers. In doing so, these praises subtly convey the message that “You are still not quite a Luxembourger.” They also foreground ethno-cultural differences over the Luxembourgish identity. Rather than being primarily perceived as Luxembourgish citizens who naturally speak the country’s languages, these young people are often first associated with their family’s origins and, by default, positioned, as linguistically inferior outsiders. As a result, they feel that their belonging to Luxembourg remains to be questioned and judged.

We are all part of a tapestry of language, assumptions, and belonging

Having read this far, you might be wondering: “But why should I care?” True, so far I have been discussing how behaviors such as inattentive language choice and compliments can make them feel. But why should I care?

Because, when we live together multilingually, each of us is embedded within a tapestry of language, assumptions, and belonging. We all use language to position ourselves and others, which means we are all, at the same time, both subjects and objects of assumptions, judgments, and inclusion or exclusion. Take me as an example. At the beginning of this article, I shared how I had made assumptions about Laura and the teenager on the bus. More recently, I experienced what it feels like to have my language abilities, and even my professional capacities, called into question, presumably because of my Chinese name. When applying for a position that clearly stated a requirement for a C1 level of English and a prerequisite for either German or French, I had a few questions about the technical aspects of the role. Before even reviewing my CV, the recruiter did not directly answer my questions but instead replied: “Please feel free to apply, but without one of the other languages at level B2, I’m afraid I will not be able to consider you.”

I replied:

„Vielen Dank für den Hinweis auf die Sprachvoraussetzung der Stelle. Während meiner Promotion habe ich meine Feldforschung größtenteils auf Deutsch durchgeführt. Mein Deutsch befindet sich auf C1-Niveau und ist zertifiziert durch den TestDaF. Zousätzlech hunn ech e B1-Niveau am Lëtzebuergeschen an den Zertifikat Lëtzebuergesch als Friemsprooch 1. Diplom. Ich wünsche Ihnen viel Erfolg mit Ihrem Projekt!“

So, we are all part of this. We use different languages depending on who we are and who we think others are. We judge and are judged. We strive to claim a place in society, whether in a community, a nation, or a profession. This is why it concerns all of us. Living together multilingually requires us to pay closer attention to what people are actually capable of, to replace assumptions with reflection, and to work together towards inclusion rather than exclusion. In doing so, we help to build a society in which diverse languages form bridges rather than barriers to learning, collaboration, and friendship. Such a society is one we all deserve, regardless of our skin color, cultural background, or the language we feel close enough to call our mother tongue.

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Yimin Zhang holds a PhD in Education from the University of Luxembourg. Her research explores the intersections of migration, sociolinguistics, and the environmental humanities.