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Tour de Luxembourg June 2nd - 6th

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python

python

Sep 25, 2009
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@ christian

thanks for the links and your posts. keep them coming. i should be able to 'get by' ;)

oh and about racing :)...

who will win the nocturnal prologue today ? Jens anyone ?

and the gc should be fschleck's or kloedi's or ivanov's ?
 
A

Ashtabula

May 20, 2010
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Very interesting about Lëtzebuergesch. There's a long, very detailed Wikopedia page about it.

While I knew about the tendency of the languages of the region to influence and alter one another, so that the border regions even of the major countries have local dialects the main body of German, in this case, speakers don't understand, I hadn't know Lëtzebuergesch was so distinct and well-defined.

Some years ago the PBS program The American Experience had a film about the Battle of the Bulge, with a great many interviews and memories. The local people, many of them children at the time, were speaking it, although I thought they were calling it something else. I can't see any alternative names that aren't merely transliterations of its name, though.

Wasn't Charly Gaul from around there? What did he speak?
 
Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

Feb 20, 2010
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Christian, feel free to correct any of this you disagree with, I'm not sure quite how much of this I remember accurately:

Lëtzebuergesch is of a weird status. It is a national language but is yet, according to the theories of Abstand, not a fully-developed language (more a half-language). It is developed from Rhine-Franconian dialects of German, but Luxembourg's independent status and distinctness from the rest of Germany (plus its official ties to French) have led to the dialect becoming usable for all functions of society. It now has, after about fifteen attempts, a standardised orthography (though not an enforced one) and is in the process of codifying its grammar, at which point it should be considered a language in its own right.

Lëtzebuergesch became an official language in 1984, I believe, or rather a national language, not an official language. French and German remain the main working languages of the country, with French holding the higher prestige, partially due to urban educated classes (much like in Brussels) preferring it, and partially due to some residual resentment against the Germans for historical reasons.
 
L'arriviste

L'arriviste

Feb 23, 2010
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Libertine Seguros said:
... with French holding the higher prestige, partially due to urban educated classes (much like in Brussels) preferring it ...
Click to expand...

I'll be straying OT but did want to add something here and we've had this sort of thing before. Whilst the above would be true in the upper echelons of Gent society, I think the opposite is true here in Brussels. French has become the unofficial majority language, in part because it used to be the language of diplomacy, but more because of the demography of more recent arrivals.

Anyway, I love the Luxembourg lilt. It's worth getting up early just to hear them say "Moien"! :)
 
Roude Leiw

Roude Leiw

Aug 3, 2009
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Ashtabula said:
Very interesting about Lëtzebuergesch. There's a long, very detailed Wikopedia page about it.


Wasn't Charly Gaul from around there? What did he speak?
Click to expand...

Actually Charly Gaul was from Luxembourg and spoke luxembourgish as his main language.
 
Roude Leiw

Roude Leiw

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python said:
@ christian


and the gc should be fschleck's or kloedi's or ivanov's ?
Click to expand...

Who will win is anybodys guess. Historically (with the notable exception of last year where Saxo worked a lot to keep things together), there always was a break of like 10 to 20 guys coming in with a decisive advantage on the first stage, thus the winners of the TdL you had in the last years (Rast, Voeckler, Monfort,....) despite some really big names starting here on a regular basis. If a break comes through tomorrow, the winner will be from that group if Saxo or Katusha (Kirchen) will not work to keep things together tomorrow.
 
Publicus

Publicus

Mar 17, 2009
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Ferminal said:
Too punchy for a genuine GC guy I think.

I'm looking more at Ivanov, Visconti, Voigt.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about the overall or the prologue?

@Jamsque: He showed a little something at the Tour of Flanders. And he looks much fitter. Given that it is June, my thinking is that he will be much more competitive than he's been all year (when I was reminded ad nausem that it was only March or April or May). I obviously could be wrong here.
 
J

Jan the Man

Mar 12, 2010
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@ Publicus - I doubt Lance will show. The prologue is too short and the other stages are too explosive. He is here for base miles. What form he has, who knows. He hasn't finished a stage race since criterium international, correct? He is horribly short of racing miles and that is why he's doubling up here and Suisse.

If he will show anywhere before the Tour it will be on a stage in Suisse, not here.

Kloden has a shot here for Radioshack. Although I tend to favour the idea that the course suits someone more adept at the classics like Schleck, Ivanov, Visconti, Kirchen, Gerrans etc.
 
thehog

thehog

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Jan the Man said:
@ Publicus - I doubt Lance will show. The prologue is too short and the other stages are too explosive. He is here for base miles. What form he has, who knows. He hasn't finished a stage race since criterium international, correct? He is horribly short of racing miles and that is why he's doubling up here and Suisse.

If he will show anywhere before the Tour it will be on a stage in Suisse, not here.

Kloden has a shot here for Radioshack. Although I tend to favour the idea that the course suits someone more adept at the classics like Schleck, Ivanov, Visconti, Kirchen, Gerrans etc.
Click to expand...

Isn't base miles something you do in January?
 
N

nowhereman

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Jamsque said:
Lance hasn't shown any kind of form yet this year, I doubt he'll be a factor.
Click to expand...

I'm with you. I'm betting that this will be one of those, "I'm getting ready for the Tour" efforts. And he'll go on to site all the problems he's been trying to sort out for most of this season. He's shown us absolutely nothing so far this season. So, I have to say, I don't expect him to turn it all "on" now, like it's a television, tuned into Versus, circa 2005. As far as I'm concerned, this series is set to be cancelled, but the producers will let it run out the season.:D
 
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