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55-688: The Grand Duchess Charlotte Bridge ( Luxembourgish : Groussherzogin-Charlotte-Bréck , French : Pont Grande-Duchesse Charlotte , German : Großherzogin-Charlotte-Brücke ) is a road bridge in Luxembourg City , in southern Luxembourg . It carries the N51 across the Alzette , connecting Avenue John F. Kennedy , in Kirchberg , to Boulevard Robert Schuman , in Limpertsberg . The bridge

110-588: A canal lock . Major Martel mated the bridge with the tank and used hydraulic power generated by the tank's engine to manoeuvre the bridge into place. For mine clearance the tanks were equipped with 2-ton rollers . Martel also developed his new bridging concept at the EBE, the Martel bridge, a modular box girder bridge suitable for military applications. The Martel bridge was adopted by the British Army in 1925 as

165-417: A dialect continuum of gradual change. Spoken Luxembourgish is relatively hard to understand for speakers of German who are generally not familiar with Moselle Franconian dialects (or at least other West Central German dialects). They can usually read the language to some degree. For those Germans familiar with Moselle Franconian dialects, it is relatively easy to understand and speak Luxembourgish as far as

220-540: A certain influence on both the national language Luxembourgish and the Luxembourg national variety of German. Luxembourgish, German and French are the three official languages (Amtssprachen) of Luxembourg. As a standard form of the Moselle Franconian language , Luxembourgish has similarities with other High German dialects and the wider group of West Germanic languages . The status of Luxembourgish as

275-539: A deliberate decision by the designers to make the bridge noticeable, even in foggy or obscure conditions. Rails attached to the interior of the box girders beneath the bridge deck, permit the use of a vehicular platform for bridge maintenance. Following the completion of the 2018 renovation works, the bridge deck layout, from north to south includes: Though the EC, and later the European Union (EU), never decided on

330-514: A fabrication yard, then transported and emplaced using cranes . For steel box girders, the girders are normally fabricated off site and lifted into place by crane, with sections connected by bolting or welding. If a composite concrete bridge deck is used, it is often cast in-place using temporary falsework supported by the steel girder. Either form of bridge may also be installed using the technique of incremental launching . Under this method, gantry cranes are often used to place new segments onto

385-442: A few nominal phrases such as der Däiwel ("the devil") and eiser Herrgott ("our Lord"). Rare examples of the genitive are also found: Enn des Mounts ("end of the month"), Ufanks der Woch ("at the beginning of the week"). The functions of the genitive are normally expressed using a combination of the dative and a possessive determiner: e.g. dem Mann säi Buch (lit. "to the man his book", i.e. "the man's book"). This

440-436: A few years after opening and then further strengthened years later, although this was often due to increased traffic load as much as better design standards. The Irwell Valley bridge of 1970 was strengthened in 1970 and again in 2000. If made of concrete, box girder bridges may be cast in place using falsework supports, removed after completion, or in sections if a segmental bridge . Box girders may also be prefabricated in

495-884: A single a seat for their basis, construction of the Grand Duchess Charlotte Bridge made it possible for Luxembourg City to today be considered one of the EU's three de facto capitals . Among other institutions based on Kirchberg are the Court of Justice of the EU , the European Investment Bank and the European Court of Auditors . The establishment of the European district in Kirchberg, led to

550-571: A winning design by German architect Egon Jux . Construction work on the foundations of the bridge started on 20 April 1962, with the first segment of the bridge structure arriving on 20 June 1963, marked by a ceremony attended by the Government in the presence of Grand Duchess Charlotte. The components of the twin box girders forming the structure of the bridge were first assembled in Germany , before being transported, in 3 m by 13 m segments, to

605-459: Is also known as the Red Bridge ( Luxembourgish : Rout Bréck , German : Rote Brücke , French : Pont Rouge ) on account of its distinctive red paintwork. It is the main route connecting the city centre, Ville Haute , to Kirchberg, the site of the city's European Union institutions . The bridge was officially named after Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg during ceremony for

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660-641: Is currently also the only political party in Luxembourg that wishes to implement written laws also in Luxembourgish and that wants Luxembourgish to be an officially recognized language of the European Union . In this context, in 2005, then- Deputy Prime Minister Jean Asselborn of the LSAP rejected a demand made by the ADR to make Luxembourgish an official language of the EU, citing financial reasons and

715-460: Is formed using the adverb méi : e.g. schéin → méi schéin The superlative involves a synthetic form consisting of the adjective and the suffix -st : e.g. schéin → schéin st (compare German schönst , English prettiest ). Attributive modification requires the emphatic definite article and the inflected superlative adjective: Predicative modification uses either the same adjectival structure or

770-675: Is known as a periphrastic genitive , and is a phenomenon also commonly seen in dialectal and colloquial German, and in Dutch. The forms of the personal pronouns are given in the following table (unstressed forms appear in parentheses): The 2pl form is also used as a polite singular (like French vous , see T-V distinction ); the forms are capitalised in writing: Like most varieties of colloquial German, but even more invariably, Luxembourgish uses definite articles with personal names. They are obligatory and not to be translated: A feature Luxembourgish shares with only some western dialects of German

825-540: Is quite similar to that of Standard German . Luxembourgish has three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and three cases ( nominative , accusative , and dative ). These are marked morphologically on determiners and pronouns . As in German, there is no morphological gender distinction in the plural. The forms of the articles and of some selected determiners are given below: As seen above, Luxembourgish has plural forms of en ("a, an"), namely eng in

880-499: Is seen today as an independent language. Luxembourgish managed to gain linguistic autonomy against a vigorous One Standard German Axiom by being framed as an independent language with a name rather than as a national pluricentric standard variety of German. As Luxembourgish has a maximum of some 285,000 native speakers, resources in the language like books, newspapers, magazines, television, internet etc. are limited. Since most Luxembourgers also speak Standard German and French, there

935-524: Is standardized and officially the national language of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. As such, Luxembourgish is different from the German language also used in the Grand Duchy. The German language exists in a national standard variety of Luxembourg, which is slightly different from the standard varieties in Germany , Austria or Switzerland . Another important language of Luxembourg is French, which had

990-606: Is strong competition with these languages, which both have large language resources. Because of this, the use of Luxembourgish remains limited. Luxembourgish belongs to the West Central German group of the High German languages and is the primary example of a Moselle Franconian language . Furthermore, it is closely related to Transylvanian Saxon which has been spoken since the High Middle Ages by

1045-416: Is that women and girls are most often referred to with forms of the neuter pronoun hatt : Adjectives show a different morphological behaviour when used attributively and predicatively . In predicative use, e.g. when they occur with verbs like sinn ("to be"), adjectives receive no extra ending: In attributive use, i.e. when placed before the noun they describe, they change their ending according to

1100-752: The Province of Luxembourg ) and in small parts of Lorraine in France . In the German Eifel and Hunsrück regions, similar local Moselle Franconian dialects of German are spoken. The language is also spoken by a few descendants of Luxembourg immigrants in the United States and Canada . Other Moselle Franconian dialects are spoken by ethnic Germans long settled in Transylvania , Romania (Siebenbürgen). Moselle Franconian dialects outside

1155-548: The Transylvanian Saxons in Transylvania , present-day central Romania . Luxembourgish is considered the national language of Luxembourg and also one of the three administrative languages, alongside German and French . In Luxembourg, 77% of residents can speak Luxembourgish, and it is the primary language of 48% of the population. It is also spoken in the Arelerland region of Belgium (part of

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1210-517: The bridge deck was resurfaced and in 1989 the bridge was repainted for the first time. Plexiglass safety barriers were erected in 1993. Significant alterations and renovations to the bridge took place between 2015 and 2018, costing approximately 40 million euros , as part of plans to reintroduce trams to Luxembourg City's transport infrastructure. The road deck was strengthened and widened, and two tram lines were added, reducing road traffic from three to two lanes in each direction. Additionally,

1265-444: The 2018 renovation works, the bridge deck width was increased from 25.07m to 26.58 m. Prior to the completion of renovation works in 2018, lighting was provided by conventional tall street lights lining the middle of the central traffic barrier on the bridge deck. Post renovation works, lighting is now diffused onto the bridge deck from LEDs mounted along the interior facing sides of the steel slat safety barriers, and either side of

1320-515: The Alzette River and is composed of an orthotropic slab of steel supported by two parallel box girders, each 6 m wide. The paved pedestrian footpaths, were originally 2.1 m each wide, with renovations carried out between 2015 and 2018, increasing this to 3.69 m on the south side, and 2.55 m on the north side. Either side of the width of the bridge deck is protected by a 2.70 m high safety barrier composed of stainless steel slats. In total, post

1375-830: The ECSC agreed to accelerate cooperation with the 1958 establishments of the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the European Economic Community (EEC). In a bid to become the permanent 'capital' of what would later become known as the European Communities the Luxembourg Government sought to promote the development of the Kirchberg plateau for their use. However, the key factor in Kirchberg's largely undeveloped terrain, despite its proximity to

1430-745: The Large Box Girder Bridge. A scaled down version of this design, the Small Box Girder Bridge, was also formally adopted by the Army in 1932. This latter design was copied by many countries, including Germany, who called their version the Kastenträger-Gerät (K-Gerät for short). The United States was another country whose army created their own copy, designating it the H-20. In addition, the modular construction of

1485-631: The Luxembourg state border tend to have far fewer French loanwords, and these mostly remain from the French Revolution. The political party that places the greatest importance on promoting, using and preserving Luxembourgish is the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR) and its electoral success in the 1999 election pushed the CSV-DP government to make knowledge of it a criterion for naturalisation . It

1540-431: The adoption of the "OLO" ( ofizjel lezebuurjer ortografi ) on 5 June 1946. This orthography provided a system for speakers of all varieties of Luxembourgish to transcribe words the way they pronounced them, rather than imposing a single, standard spelling for the words of the language. The rules explicitly rejected certain elements of German orthography ( e.g. , the use of ⟨ ä ⟩ and ⟨ ö ⟩ ,

1595-437: The adverbial structure am + - sten : e.g. schéin → am schéinsten : Some common adjectives have exceptional comparative and superlative forms: Several other adjectives also have comparative forms, not commonly used as normal comparatives, but in special senses: Luxembourgish exhibits "verb second" word order in clauses. More specifically, Luxembourgish is a V2 - SOV language , like German and Dutch. In other words, we find

1650-659: The arrival of the first section of the support structure on 20 June 1963. Owing to the distinctive red colour coating of its box girder structure, residents have often referred to it as the "Red Bridge". Reaffirming this popular title for the bridge, LuxTram settled on the name of "Rout Bréck - Pafendal", for its new tram stop immediately prior to the bridge on the Kirchberg approach, which opened on 10 December 2017. The Grand Duchess Charlotte bridge carries motor vehicles , trams , pedestrians and bicycles . Together with its Kirchberg approach road, Avenue John F. Kennedy, and its Limbertsberg approach road, Boulevard Robert Schuman,

1705-729: The basic Martel bridge would later during WWII become part of the basis of the Bailey bridge . In 1954, the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors awarded Martel £500 for infringement on the design of his bridge by the designer of the Bailey bridge, Donald Bailey . Both the Large Box and Small Box designs would go on to see much service in World War II, especially in the case of the latter. The (non-modular) box girder bridge

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1760-818: The basis of the standard orthography that became official on 10 October 1975. Modifications to this standard were proposed by the Permanent Council of the Luxembourguish language and adopted officially in the spelling reform of 30 July 1999. A detailed explanation of current practice for Luxembourgish can be found in Schanen & Lulling (2003). The Luxembourgish alphabet consists of the 26 Latin letters plus three letters with diacritics: ⟨é⟩ , ⟨ä⟩ , and ⟨ë⟩ . In loanwords from French and Standard German, other diacritics are usually preserved: In German loanwords,

1815-564: The bridge forms part of the Luxembourg National Route 51 ( N51 ). Since 28 July 2018, the bridge also forms part of the City Tram Line 1 , operated by LuxTram, utilising rails installed in the surface of the deck during renovation works carried out from 2015 to 2018. Trams operating on the bridge section of the line, amongst others, use onboard batteries for traction power, charged by overhead lines elsewhere on

1870-518: The bridge received a fresh coat of paint, new safety barriers, and new lighting. The Grand Duchess Charlotte Bridge is of a batter-post rigid-frame bridge design. The inclined legs vary in length, with those on the Limpertsberg side measuring 40.6 m while those on the Kirchberg side measure 38.7 m. The deck is 355 m in length and composed of three elements, respectively 95.42 m, 152.56 m and 107.02m in length. The road deck sits 75 meters above

1925-528: The bridge, these were replaced in 2017, with the new stainless steel slat design. Luxembourgish language Luxembourgish ( / ˈ l ʌ k s əm b ɜːr ɡ ɪ ʃ / LUK -səm-bur-ghish ; also Luxemburgish , Luxembourgian , Letzebu(e)rgesch ; endonym : Lëtzebuergesch [ˈlətsəbuəjəʃ] ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg . About 300,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide. The language

1980-440: The bridge. In 1991, Luxembourgish director Geneviève Mersch (lb) shot a short 21-minute documentary , called "The Red Bridge" (lb) , in which residents of Pfaffenthal, below the bridge detailed their gruesome and macabre experiences upon witnessing the aftermath of the suicides. In 1993 the Luxembourgish government decided to erect a Plexiglas safety barrier to prevent more suicides from happening. As part of renovation work on

2035-688: The capitalisation of nouns). Similarly, new principles were adopted for the spelling of French loanwords. This proposed orthography, so different from existing "foreign" standards that people were already familiar with, did not enjoy widespread approval. A more successful standard eventually emerged from the work of the committee of specialists charged with the task of creating the Luxemburger Wörterbuch , published in 5 volumes between 1950 and 1977. The orthographic conventions adopted in this decades-long project, set out in Bruch (1955), provided

2090-450: The city centre, was its relative inaccessibility from the Luxembourg plateau , upon which Luxembourg City's historical centre is situated. In 1957, the Luxembourg Government launched a competition for designs of a bridge that would span the 75 m deep Pfaffenthal valley, through which the Alzette flows, and link the Kirchberg plateau, with Limpertsberg, on the Luxembourg plateau. Sixty-nine designs were submitted with authorities settling on

2145-521: The digraphs ⟨ eu ⟩ and ⟨ äu ⟩ indicate the diphthong /oɪ/ , which does not appear in native words. Like many other varieties of Western High German, Luxembourgish has a rule of final n -deletion in certain contexts. The effects of this rule (known as the "Eifel Rule") are indicated in writing, and therefore must be taken into account when spelling words and morphemes ending in ⟨n⟩ or ⟨nn⟩ . For example: The consonant inventory of Luxembourgish

2200-399: The everyday vocabulary is concerned. The large number of French loanwords in Luxembourgish may hamper communication about certain topics or with certain speakers (those who use many terms taken from French). A number of proposals for standardising the orthography of Luxembourgish can be documented, going back to the middle of the 19th century. There was no officially recognised system until

2255-465: The following finite clausal structures: Non-finite verbs (infinitives and participles) generally appear in final position: These rules interact so that in subordinate clauses, the finite verb and any non-finite verbs must all cluster at the end. Luxembourgish allows different word orders in these cases: This is also the case when two non-finite verb forms occur together: Luxembourgish (like Dutch and German) allows prepositional phrases to appear after

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2310-567: The formation of the Merrison Committee and considerable investment in new research into steel box girder behaviour. Most of the bridges still under construction at this time were delayed for investigation of the basic design principle. Some were abandoned and rebuilt as a different form of bridge altogether. Most of those that remained as box girder bridges, such as Erskine Bridge ( illus. ), were either redesigned, or had additional stiffening added later. Some bridges were strengthened

2365-463: The further successful urban development of the quarter promoted by the FondsKirchberg. In 2016, for the fiftieth anniversary of the bridge, a postage stamp made by the German artist, Anita Wünschmann, and a 2 euro commemorative coin were issued. Between the Grand Duchess Charlotte Bridge's opening in 1966 and the present day, more than 100 people have committed suicide by jumping off

2420-428: The grammatical gender, number and case of the noun: The definite article changes with the use of an attributive adjective: feminine d' goes to déi (or di ), neuter d' goes to dat , and plural d' changes to déi . The comparative in Luxembourgish is formed analytically, i.e. the adjective itself is not altered (compare the use of - er in German and English; tall → taller , klein → kleiner ). Instead it

2475-619: The national language of Luxembourg and the existence there of a regulatory body have removed Luxembourgish, at least in part, from the domain of Standard German, its traditional Dachsprache . It is also related to the Transylvanian Saxon dialect spoken by the Transylvanian Saxons in Transylvania , contemporary central Romania . Luxembourgish was considered a German dialect like many others until about World War II but then it underwent ausbau , creating its own standard form in vocabulary, grammar, and spelling and therefore

2530-503: The nominative/accusative and engen in the dative. They are not used as indefinite articles, which—as in German and English—do not exist in the plural, but they do occur in the compound pronouns wéi en ("what, which") and sou en ("such"). For example: wéi eng Saachen ("what things"); sou eng Saachen ("such things"). Moreover, they are used before numbers to express an estimation: eng 30.000 Spectateuren ("some 30,000 spectators"). Distinct nominative forms survive in

2585-405: The population and the dissemination of the language through mass media such as radio and television are leading to a gradual standardisation towards a "Standard Luxembourgish" through the process of koineization . There is no distinct geographic boundary between the use of Luxembourgish and the use of other closely related High German dialects (for example, Lorraine Franconian ); it instead forms

2640-402: The route. Additionally, the bridge's cycle lane is formally designated as part of Luxembourg's national Cycle Path 2, heading towards Echternach . In 1952, following a failure between the partner countries to agree on a permanent location, Luxembourg became the temporary seat of the institutions of the newly created European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). In 1957, the " inner six " states of

2695-493: The site by train and then by road. The last box girder was lifted into place on 28 October 28, 1964, with construction works completed on 2 June 1965. The bridge was subjected to overload tests involving the simultaneous passage of twelve M48 Patton tanks , of 42 tons each, made available by the Belgian army . Finally, the bridge was officially opened to traffic on 24 October 1966 by Grand Duchess Charlotte. Between 1980 and 1985,

2750-579: The sufficiency of official German and French . A similar proposal by the ADR was rejected by the Chamber of Deputies in 2024. There are several distinct dialect forms of Luxembourgish including Areler (from Arlon ), Eechternoacher ( Echternach ), Dikrecher ( Diekirch ), Kliärrwer ( Clervaux ), Miseler ( Moselle ), Stater ( Luxembourg ), Veiner ( Vianden ), Minetter (Southern Luxembourg) and Weelzer ( Wiltz ). Further small vocabulary differences may be seen even between small villages. Increasing mobility of

2805-415: The traffic barrier separating directions of travel, at alternating intervals, with the aim to produce a more aesthetically pleasing look, and allow a direct line of sight from one side of the bridge to the other, unobscured by street lamps. The total weight of the bridge is approximately 5,200 tonnes including 4,785 tonnes of steel . The distinctive red paint coat of the box girder structure results from

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2860-566: The verb cluster in subordinate clauses: Luxembourgish has borrowed many French words. For example, the word for a bus driver is Buschauffeur (as in Dutch and Swiss German ), which would be Busfahrer in German and chauffeur de bus in French. Some words are different from Standard German, but have equivalents in German dialects. An example is Gromperen (potatoes – German: Kartoffeln ). Other words are exclusive to Luxembourgish. Listen to

2915-539: The words below. Note: Words spoken in sound clip do not reflect all words on this list. Neologisms in Luxembourgish include both entirely new words, and the attachment of new meanings to old words in everyday speech. The most recent neologisms come from the English language in the fields of telecommunications , computer science , and the Internet . Box girder bridge In 1919, Major Gifford Martel

2970-506: Was a popular choice during the roadbuilding expansion of the 1960s, especially in the West, and many new bridge projects were in progress simultaneously. A serious blow to this use was a sequence of three serious disasters, when new bridges collapsed in 1970 ( West Gate Bridge and Cleddau Bridge ) and 1971 ( South Bridge (Koblenz) ). Fifty-one people were killed in these failures, leading in the UK to

3025-584: Was appointed head of the Experimental Bridging Establishment at Christchurch, Hampshire , which researched the possibilities of using tanks for battlefield engineering purposes such as bridge-laying and mine -clearing. Here he continued trials on modified Mark V tanks. The bridging component involved an assault bridge, designed by Major Charles Inglis RE, the Canal Lock Bridge, which had sufficient length to span

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