On Friday 27 December 2024, Luxembourg's Ministry of Culture, together with the Centre for the Luxembourgish Language (ZLS) published the top five Luxembourgish words of the year for 2024.

Presidententrick (Presidential trick) cam top, with Caritas-affär in second place, ahead of Heescheverbuet, Rietsruck and Grenzkontrollen.

National news dominated the choice of the Luxembourgish word of the year 2024. For the fifth time since 2020, the word of the year was determined on the initiative of the Centre for the Luxembourgish Language (ZLS) by the Ministry of Culture and in collaboration with media partners.

The top five were:

- Presidententrick (Presidential trick)
- Caritas-affär (Caritas Affair)
- Heescheverbuet (Begging ban)
- Rietsruck (Right-wing push)
- Grenzkontrollen (Border controls)

Linguistically, it is striking that there are five compounds: compounding words is a way of forming new words.

How was the choice made in Luxembourg?

From mid-November to St. Nicholas Day (6 December), proposal for the word of the year 2024 were submitted to the ZLS, either on a ballot at the Walfer Book Days or via an online form. Around 420 proposals with around 250 different words arrived at the centre. Among them were a number of terms that were only mentioned once or twice.

The majority of the proposals were directly related to concrete events. Unfortunately, conflicts around the world still stand out here (escalation, Gaza, genocide, war, two-state solution), and also the presidential elections in America (Maga, Trumpism, swing states), the Pope's visit to Luxembourg (with the variant Pope's visit) and the kangaroo saga in late spring.

In addition, a number of terms from youth language (cringe,...), from the field of sports or entertainment (Olympics, Eurovision Song Contest), cool Luxembourgish words (Gemauschels, Intebinnes, nondikass, Nullekackert, Pimpampel) and other striking words such as Buppknätzel or Kästevélo were proposed.

From the long list of all the proposals, the ZLS team made a shortlist of 20 words and presented them to the jury. The main criterion for the selection was the number of mentions, as well as the relevance to current events, the degree of familiarity and the spread and comprehensibility of the proposed term were also taken into account, among other things. The jury included the Commissioner for the Luxembourgish Language, Pierre Reding, the President of the Council for the Luxembourgish Language (CPLL), Myriam Welschbillig, the 100.7 editor, Dany Weyler, the RTL senior journalist, Andy Brücker, the Tageblatt editor-in-chief, Armand Back, the Wort culture director, Marc Thill, and the linguist, Dr. Sara Martin from the ZLS.

In a first round of voting, the list was reduced from 20 to ten terms, and in a second step from ten to five, with the result that "Presidententrick" emerged as the word of the year 2024, succeeding AI (word of the year 2023), Ukraine war (2022), boosteren (2021) and Corona (2020).

Some information about each word from the top 5

1. Presidententrick

As part of the Caritas affair, a word came into use that few people knew until then: the Presidententrick. Such a trick is used to trick people into making unauthorised transfers with sophisticated combinations.

2. Caritas-affär

The Caritas affair was the event that marked the national news in the second half of 2024. Without Caritas affair, Presidententrick, the word of the year 2024, would certainly not have been the subject of such attention. Caritas affair did not come to the first place in the ranking. Two main reasons were given for this: Caritas affair is a proper noun. We are not talking about a Caritas affair, but about THE Caritas affair. Since the term refers to a very precise event, it will not be included in the LOD.

3. Heesheverbuet

The ban on begging in the city was already the subject of discussion at the end of 2023. The word had already made it into the top 10 last year. In the young history of the Luxembourg word of the year, this is the first time that a term has been selected for the shortlist twice. Here too we find a combination of two words: heeschen and verbouet. The first in particular is often considered a typical Luxembourgish word: In German, one says betteln, in French mendier.

4. Rietsruck

The word Rietsruck is not necessarily new, but gained a new boost in 2024, because it was often used to comment on election forecasts and results around the world, notably in the European elections in June 2024. Here too, it is a combination, this time between riets and ruck. The word ruck is relatively rare in Luxembourgish – it is not yet in the LOD. Therefore, one might have expected that Rechtsruck would be adopted as a "loan word" from German. The first part is often integrated, and the form Rietsruck is the one that is most often encountered. Rietsruck is on the list to be included in the LOD.

5. Grenzkontrollen 

The fifth word (and thus also the fifth combination) in the ranking was used more in late summer 2024, when it was decided in Germany to carry out more systematic checks at the borders with neighbouring countries, including Luxembourg. The measure was widely commented on, but the word is still new – it has been in the LOD for a long time – and there is something extra to be said linguistically about the combination between border and control: They are two very established Luxembourgish words that can also be found practically 1:1 in German.