Basque

Basque, Basque or Basque (in Euskera batúa, euskara) is a European language, ergative and agglutinative that is spoken mainly in Euskal Herria. There are also Basque-speaking communities in the Basque diaspora, especially in Europe and America. Euskera is official along with Spanish in the Basque Country and the Basque-speaking area of Navarra, while in France it has no official status. Linguistically, it is one of the few non-Indo-European languages of Europe and is the only language isolate on the continent.

The origin of the Basques is unknown; although there are multiple hypotheses in this regard, none has been definitively proven. Its possible connection with other languages of prehistoric Europe and its unique characteristics have aroused the interest of linguists and anthropologists around the world.

Basque has great linguistic variety and dialectal diversity, especially in oral communication. Five dialects are currently distinguished, three in Spain and two in France; these present, in turn, several subdialects. These dialects have their own lexicon, grammar, and phonetics, making some barely mutually intelligible. However, intelligibility has increased remarkably in the last decades, due to the improvement of communications and the standardization of the language.

Basque has acquired quite a lot of lexicon from other languages, especially from Spanish and Latin and, to a lesser extent, from French, but, due to its binding nature, it has also enriched its vocabulary through derivation and composition. In turn, Basque has influenced the languages of the Iberian Peninsula (see Basque substratum in Romance languages).

In 2016, 28.4% of the inhabitants of the Basque Country, Navarra and the French Basque Country were Basque speakers, some 750,000 people. Approximately another 400,000 people, 16.4%, are passive Basque speakers (they understand the Basque but have difficulties speaking it). Thus, the percentage of people who speak some Basque rises to approximately 40%. 93.2% (700,300) of Basque speakers live in Spain and the remaining 6.8% (51,200) in France. There are also Basque-speaking communities in the Basque diaspora, mainly in America. Since the last decades of the XX century, knowledge of Basque has increased, although its use on the street decreased slightly between 2007 and 2017, standing at 12.6%. The use of Basque at home, in general, is higher than on the street. The region with the highest percentage of Basque speakers is Lea Artibai, with 88% of Basque speakers in 1996.

Basque speakers are not evenly distributed, but are concentrated in a continuous geographical area. In this area, Basque is the autochthonous language and the mother tongue of a large part of the population; in some towns the use of Basque on the street exceeds 90%; For example, Lea Artibai (Vizcaya), Goyerri (Guipúzcoa), Cinco Villas (Navarra) or Sola (France) are areas where the use of Basque is high or very high. The percentage of people who understand Basque is more than 40% in Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa, in all of Álava except in some areas in the south and west, in the northern area of Navarra, and in Baja Navarra, Sola and southern Labort; approximately 40% in the south and west of Álava, the Treviño enclave and the Villaverde Valley; and less than 20% in the center and south of Navarra.

Introduction

The exact origin of this language is unknown. Although lexically, Basque has taken a large number of borrowings from the Romance languages (especially from Latin and Spanish), it maintains a unique grammatical structure. Likewise, many linguists have argued that Euskera had an important influence on the Romance languages, especially those of the Iberian Peninsula (Spanish, Catalan, Asturian and Galician) and Gascon Occitan. There are hundreds of place names of Basque origin in La Rioja, Castilla y León, Catalonia, Aragon and Madrid.

About 1 AD. C., Basque was spoken not only in all of the aforementioned territories, but beyond their current borders, occupying a geographical space roughly delimited by the bed of the Garona rivers in France and Ebro in Spain. Since then, it has been in decline for centuries, from a geographical point of view, largely due to the administrative divisions of the territory, which in turn led to the linguistic division of Basque (which until then was unified) into dialects or euskalkis, and the lack of official or state recognition, as well as its scarce literature (which did not appear until the XVI), which greatly reduced its diffusion.

In France, the advent of the French Revolution led to the proclamation of the equality of all the French, which meant that all the French had a single language: French, with the consequent lack of official recognition of Basque and the rest of the languages of that country, which is maintained to this day. In Spain, during the XIX centuries and a good part of the XX the State was centralist, so the Basque language lacked recognition. During the Restoration and part of the Francisco Franco dictatorship, the use of Basque in public was stigmatized and persecuted. Starting in the 1960s, the efforts to suppress the Basque language ceased: the language was used again in education, the ikastolas reappeared and there was a renaissance of literature in Basque. Thus, a movement emerged that seeks to revive the Basque language and adapt it to modern times, whose maximum expression was the standardization of the language in a single set of grammatical and orthographic rules: the Basque batúa, which is the one used in the administrative, journalistic, literary, etc. fields, although the dialects continue alive in everyday speech and many councils have promoted the conservation of their own dialectal variants of Basque.

Spain recognizes Basque as a cultural asset that is the object of special respect and protection. This, together with the Basque Government's language policy, has led to a large increase in the number of Basque speakers, reversing the trend history of setback Currently, Basque is the official and proper language in the Basque Country and in the Basque-speaking area of Navarra. In France, the French Constitution establishes that the only official language is French, although the different municipalities that make up the French Basque Country have taken measures within the scope of their competence to preserve the language.

Basque is the only non-Indo-European language on the Iberian Peninsula. The fact that during the Early Middle Ages it was spoken, in addition to current Basque-speaking territories, in areas of Rioja Alta, Riojilla Burgalesa and La Bureba ^{[citation required]} could make it have an influence on the conformation of Castilian and singularly on its phonological system of 5 vowels (see Basque substratum in Romance languages). After a period of long decline since the Late Middle Ages, accentuated in the 18th and XIX, which gradually stopped being spoken in areas of Burgos, La Rioja, Navarra and Álava, from the late 1950s and early 1950s. In 1960 various initiatives were put into practice to avoid its disappearance, among them the adoption of a linguistic standard that overcomes dialectal fragmentation. With the advent of democracy in Spain, the 1978 Constitution empowered the autonomous communities to also declare languages other than Spanish official in their territory, which would be materialized for the Basque Country by the Guernica Statute, which includes the co-official status of Euskera. and where it has managed to regain spaces for use in public life. Likewise, in article 9.2 of the Organic Law for the Reintegration and Improvement of the Foral Regime of Navarra of August 10, 1982, the official status of Basque was also established in the Basque-speaking area of Navarra. The subsequent Ley Foral del Vascuence of 1986 recognized Castilian and Basque as the languages of Navarra, delimiting the 'Basque Zone' in which Basque is the co-official language. In the French Basque Country, like the rest of the French regional languages, Basque does not enjoy the status of official language and is the only territorial area of the language in which the knowledge and use of Basque among the population decreases nowadays.

Basque (or its immediate ancestor, archaic Basque) was the predominant language^{[citation required]} of a large area on both sides of the Pyrenees, covering from the Garonne River and Bordeaux to the north; the Sierra de la Demanda and Moncayo to the south (including all of La Rioja and the north of the province of Soria); areas of the province of Burgos to the west; and Andorra to the east. There is toponymic and epigraphic evidence of its presence throughout this area. For example, in the northern part of the province of Soria, there are dozens of Basque place names such as Urbión, Larralde, el Acebal de Garagüeta de Arévalo de la Sierra, Garray or Narros. According to recent epigraphic studies, the presence of Euskera in Soria dates back to before a Celtic language was imposed and then Latin. The toponymic and epigraphic evidence of the presence of Euskera in the northern area of Soria has been supported by an elaborate genetic study in 2017 by the Departments of Human Genetics and Statistics of the University of Oxford (United Kingdom), the Galician Public Foundation of Genomic Medicine of Santiago de Compostela and the Genomic Medicine Group of the Compostela University, which has determined that the Sorianos of The northern part of the province, which includes the regions of Tierras Altas, Almarza and Pinares, have a certain coincidence in their genome with the genetic characteristics of the Basque and Navarrese population, although their similarities are more important with the areas of the center and northeast of the peninsula.

Since the Late Middle Ages, Basque has been suffering a decline due to various geographical, political and sociological factors. According to the Atlas of endangered languages prepared by UNESCO, Basque is in a situation of "vulnerable". When the Spanish Constitution of 1978 was approved, in Navarra, Basque was spoken in its northwestern area. In Álava, the setback was even greater, and it was spoken practically only in the Aramayona valley, and some in the neighboring towns. In Vizcaya, despite being spoken in almost the entire province, since it is not spoken in Las Encartaciones or in the metropolitan area of Bilbao, which is home to between 85% and 90% of the population, the extension of the Basque was also reduced. In Guipúzcoa, it was spoken throughout the province, although with strongly de-Euskerized foci, especially in areas of strong migration from other parts of Spain during the century XX. Finally, within France it was spoken in approximately half of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department.

Etymology

The exact origin of the word euskara is disputed; nevertheless, the identification of said term with the Basque cultural identity seems accredited. Thus, the word euskara derives from the word euskaldun (literally 'the one who owns Euskara'), which designates the speaker of Euskera. Likewise, the word euskara originated the term Euskal Herria, originally denoting the territory where Basque was spoken ('the land of Basque') and which in the Statute of autonomy of the Basque Country is used as a synonym for "Basque people". The neologism Euskadi, created as an alternative to the expression Euskal Herria and currently synonymous with the Basque Country, also comes from the word euskara. The relationship that the words «Basque» and «Gascon» have with euskara is discussed. To designate all other languages, Basque speakers use the word erdara and non-Basque speakers are known generically as erdaldunak (literally 'possessors of another language', non-Basque speakers).

The philologist Alfonso Irigoyen proposes that the word euskara comes from the verb "to say" in Old Basque, reconstructed as *enautsi (maintained in verb forms such as Biscayan dinotzat, "I tell you"), and from the suffix -(k)ara, "way (of doing something)". Therefore, euskara would literally mean "way of saying", "way of speaking", "habla" or "language". Irigoyen presents as evidence to support this theory the work Historical Compendium (1571), by the Basque Esteban Garibay, where the author affirms that the native name of the Basque language is “enusquera”. See also Basque- < *ausc-, from the name of the important Aquitanian town of the Auscos (Auch, Gers).

Distribution and speakers

Some geographical traces of the Basque Country.

Blue points: current toponymy

Red dots: epigraphic traces (several stages, etc.) of the time of the Roman Empire

Blue Blade: Trail Extension.

Geographic distribution

The extent of the Basque language in antiquity and the High Middle Ages is a subject discussed. Some studies suggest that it came to cover a territorial area that stretched from the Bay of Biscay to the Catalan Pyrenees, including in this area the territories of what is now Gascony, La Rioja, northern Soria, eastern Cantabria, northern Huesca, northeast of Burgos, northwest of Zaragoza and part of the province of Lérida, as well as part of the current French department of the High Pyrenees. Other opinions defend that the primitive version of the current Basque has its origin in the Aquitaine region and believe that it would already in historical times when its expansion to the Spanish territories in which it is currently spoken took place. During the VIII and XI it is estimated that the Basque language experienced a second period of expansion, spreading through the territories of La Rioja Alta and the province of Burgos, period of which the toponymy clearly The Basque language of these areas (Herramélluri, Ochánduri, Bardauri, Sajazarra, etc.) would be a test.

Currently, within Spain, Basque is spoken as the first or second language in the three provinces of the Basque Country (Álava, Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa), in the Foral Community of Navarra, in the enclave of Treviño, Ebro Region (Castilla y León) and in the Villaverde Valley (Cantabria).

In the entire territory of Guipúzcoa, in the center and east of Vizcaya, as well as in a few municipalities in the north of Álava and in the northern third of Navarra, Basque is the traditional language of the majority of the population. On the contrary, in western Vizcaya (Las Encartaciones and Gran Bilbao) and in most of Álava and Navarra, in the Treviño enclave and in Valle de Villaverde, the traditional language is Spanish.

Within France, Basque is spoken in the territories of Labort, Baja Navarra and Sola, commonly known together as the French Basque Country (Iparralde in Basque, 'Northern Zone') and members together with Bearne from the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department. Basque is the predominant traditional language of Lower Navarre (except for the Gasco-speaking enclave of La Bastida de Clarenza), of Sola and of most of Labort, while the northwestern end of the latter territory, where the cities of Biarritz are located, Anglet and Bayonne, is predominantly French-speaking today, and the Gascon language was spoken previously.

Number of speakers

Percentage of people who know or understand Basque, by municipalities (2011)

▪ ▪60 % ▪

▪ %

The Basque language, by municipalities, in the Basque Country and in Navarre (data of 2001 and 2006)

In the case of the Basque Country, the data from the VI Sociolinguistic Survey (2016) carried out jointly by the Basque Government, the Government of Navarra and the Public Office of the Basque Language of the French Basque Country, indicated that 33.9% of the population over 16 years of age were bilingual Basque speakers (631,000 inhabitants), 19.1% were passive bilingual Basque speakers (356,000) and 47% were exclusive Spanish speakers (877,000). According to this study, the number of Basque speakers was the majority in Guipúzcoa (50.6% bilingual Basque speakers, 20.4% passive bilinguals, 32.1% exclusive Spanish speakers) and the minority in Vizcaya (27.6% bilingual, 17.8% passive bilinguals, 52% monolingual Spanish speakers) and Álava (19.2% bilingual Basque speakers, 18.4% passive bilinguals and 62.4% monolingual Spanish speakers). a decrease in monolingual Spanish speakers in the three territories, especially in Álava (from 7% of bilingual Basque speakers in 1991 to 19.2% in 2016). This increase is due to the number of Basque speakers among the young population (71.4% between 16 and 25 years).

In the Treviño enclave, according to the sociolinguistic study carried out in 2012, 22% of the population of the enclave is bilingual, and 17% is passive bilingual. In the period 2002-2012 the percentage of bilinguals has doubled. By age range, bilingualism is greater as age decreases: among those under 15 years of age, 65% speak Basque. The main factor in the growth of Basque in this territory has been the demographic movement of inhabitants originating from Álava, especially from Vitoria. The general attitude of the inhabitants of Treviño towards Basque is also very positive, where around 40% of the population declares to have a great interest in the language.

In Valle de Villaverde, according to data from 2002, 20.70% of the population of the municipality was bilingual, and 16.98% was passive bilingual. Bearing in mind that in 1986 only 3.4% knew Basque, it is to be assumed that the percentage of bilinguals has increased today. The main reasons for the increase are, on the one hand, the disappearance of education in the enclave due to the lack of students, with which the majority of families choose to enroll their children in Trucios (Vizcaya), where bilingual education is taught; On the other hand, numerous Biscayans, part of whom are Basque-speaking, have second homes in the town.

In the case of Navarra, this latest sociolinguistic study carried out in 2016 indicated that for the entire population of Navarra the percentage of active Basque speakers over 16 years of age was 12.9% (69,000), in addition to a 10.3% (55,000) of passive bilinguals, compared to 76.8% of Navarrese who were exclusively Spanish speakers. The data show a trend of increases in active Basque speakers (3.4 points more than in 1991) and especially of passive bilinguals (5.7 points more than in 1991) and a decrease in monolingual Spanish speakers (9.1 points less than in 1991). This trend is also due to the number of Basque speakers among the young population (25.8% between 16 and 25 years old, compared to 10% in 1991). Knowledge of Basque in Navarra presents very different realities depending on the areas established by the Ley Foral del Vascuence in 1986. Thus, in the predominantly Basque-speaking area of Navarra there are 61.1% of active Basque speakers, while in the Mixed Zone it is 11.3% and in the non-Basque-speaking zone it is 2.7%. The data from the VI Sociolinguistic Survey referring to Navarra will become more specific in the middle of this year.

In the French Basque Country, according to 2016 data, 28.4% of the population is a Basque speaker and 16.4% is a passive Basque speaker. The trend has been a decrease in the number of speakers due to a greater number of speakers among the older population, although it is a slow decrease due to some increase in knowledge among the young population.

Outside Europe, there are some Basque-speaking communities in the American continent, in which you can find second- and third-generation Basques who continue to speak the language in the original dialect, and even hybrids of the traditional dialects, the result of the meeting of Basques from different regions. Very striking is, for example, the existence of a community of Basque origin in the US state of Idaho that has managed to keep the language alive. In fact, there are many unproven theories about the use of Basque by the US army during World War II to prevent their internal communications from being intercepted by the Axis Powers.

In 2009 it was mentioned in the Unesco red book on endangered languages as a vulnerable language.

Use of Basque

Bilingual traffic sign in Spanish and Basque in Bilbao.

The use of Basque varies by area, being more spoken in Guipúzcoa with 30.6% and less spoken in Álava with 4.8%. In all the territories with a presence of Basque, Spanish (in the Basque Country and Navarra) or French (in the French Basque Country) is the most widely spoken language. By age, Basque is most widely spoken among children between 2 and 14 years of age, spoken by 19.3% of children. Its use decreases progressively the older the person is until it reaches 8.1% for people over 65 years of age.

Official Status

The status of Basque in the territories where it is spoken is diverse.

Percentage of pupils enrolled in Basque (2000-2005)

Both Spain and France were signatories in 1992 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages promoted by the Council of Europe. However, only Spain would proceed to ratify the letter by instrument deposited in 2001 by means of which it is declared that the full effectiveness of the application of the commitments, obligations and guarantees that derive from the Letter will reach all those Spanish languages declared co-official by the different autonomous communities; which in the case of Euskera implies its application to the territory of the Basque Country, on the one hand, and to the Basque-speaking area of Navarra, on the other.

Spain

In the case of Spain, the current Constitution of 1978 declares in article 3 that Castilian is the «official Spanish language of the State», and that «the other Spanish languages will also be official in the respective Autonomous Communities in accordance with its Statutes".

Thus, in the Basque Country, its 1979 Statute of Autonomy establishes that both Basque and Spanish are official languages throughout its territory, regardless of the existence of traditionally Basque-speaking areas and traditionally Spanish-speaking areas in the territory of the community autonomous. Such declaration would be later developed by the Basic Law 10/1982 for the Normalization of the use of Euskera which regulates the official status of the two languages in the administrative, educational and social spheres, establishing the compulsory nature of the teaching Basque, either as a subject or as a vehicular language.

Linguistic Zoning of Navarre following the 2017 reform

In the case of Navarra, the Improvement of the Jurisdiction grants Spanish the status of the official language of Navarra and also Euskera, but in this case only for the Basque-speaking areas of the foral community; providing that a foral law would be the one that specifically delimited the extension of that Basque-speaking area in which the Basque language would be co-official. Thus, in 1986 the Ley Foral del Vascuence was approved, which carried out said delimitation according to the legal concept of linguistic predominance, determining that the «Basque-speaking areas of Navarre» to which the Improvement of the Jurisdiction alludes would be included in the so-called «Basque-speaking Zone », an area in which both Basque and Spanish would be co-official languages, while in the Spanish-speaking areas of Navarre (the so-called «Mixed Zone» and «Non-Basque-speaking Zone») the only official language would be Spanish.

For the Basque-speaking area, the obligatory nature of the teaching of Basque in the educational system was established (either as a subject or as a vehicular language), as well as the regulation of the official and normal use of both languages. In addition, the foral law established that within the Spanish-speaking areas of Navarra, a special regulation would be recognized for one of them, the Mixed Zone, consisting of the right of citizens to receive education in Basque or of the Basque language according to the demand, as well as the faculty of that the citizens of this area could "address" (although not relate to the administration or receive public services in that language, as is established for the Basque-speaking area) to the public administrations in Basque without the administration being able to require the citizens the translation of his writing into Spanish; given the fact that due to the macrocephalic concentration of the Navarrese population in the metropolitan area of Pamplona and the phenomenon of depopulation suffered by the Mountain, according to the data of the Sociolinguistic Survey of 2001 the largest number of Basque speakers in Navarra in absolute terms is concentrated precisely in this so-called Mixed Zone.

France

The official status of Basque in the French Basque Country is determined by the Constitution of the French Republic, which establishes that the only official language of France is French, therefore the rest of the languages spoken in Gallic territory, such as Basque, are not an official language, nor are they incorporated into the educational system. In 2001, an agreement between the French national government, the Aquitaine region, the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, and a committee of elected public officials from the French Basque Country led to the creation of the Public Office for the Basque Language (Office Public de la Langue Basque in French) as an officially recognized entity to activate a policy in favor of the Basque language and culture, and to which is attributed the power to issue certificates accrediting proficiency in the language.

History

Possible territorial evolution of the euskera linguistic domain in the past 2000 years

Basque is a language of agglutinative typology and genetically isolated, that is, it does not show a clear common origin with other languages, which has led to diverse and multiple theories about the origin of this language.

Basque relationship

Extension of the archaic euskera to the centuryId. C., according to Luis Núñez Astrain.

Although there are many hypotheses about the origin and kinship of the Basque language, all of them lack solid foundations. The only proven one is the one that relates it to the old Aquitanian, archaic Basque or Vasquitano of which only about 400 brief funeral inscriptions scattered throughout present-day Aquitaine, Aragon, northern Soria, La Rioja, Navarra and the Basque Country have been preserved. For this reason, the only kinship that is considered to be proven is that of Euskera with the old Aquitanian language, since the works of Luchaire in 1877, later expanded by Mitxelena and Gorrochategui. In fact, specialists in the history of Euskera consider that Aquitanian is simply Old Basque.

There are three main historiographical theories about kinship:

• Vasco-iberism: during most of the centuryXX.from the so-called Basque-Iberist theories, the consideration of the Basque-Iberian was defended as a language related to the pre-Roman Iberian languages of the Iberian peninsula (of which only short texts are preserved in inscriptions in bronze plates and in coins).

The best known defender of this theory was the father of modern linguistics, Wilhelm von Humboldt, who claimed that the Iberian language was in fact the predecessor of the Basque language; thesis that Miguel de Unamuno would also defend. Within Basque-Iberism some researchers advocated the philological relationship between these languages, while for others the relationship between the Iberian and Basque languages would be limited to being of sprachbund. A third opinion would defend that both languages belonged to the same linguistic group, but that the Iberian would not be the ancestor of the Basque language.

• Caucasian languages: in the final decades of the centuryXX., it took the hypothesis that the Basque was the only survivor of a family, perhaps more widespread, of European languages that was swept away with the arrival of the indo-European invaders from the centuryXIIIa. C. and whose kinship would be Caucasian. The similarities—although limited—found between the Basque language and the Georgian language would come to point out that theory. In fact, the idea even received political backing, with details such as the twinning between the capital of Vizcain, Bilbao, and the Georgian, Tiflis. (Georgiano: zara, gw, ezer; euskera: zara, gu, eder; Spanish: cesto, us, beautiful).
• Drink: in the context of the increase in studies concerning the origin and kinship of the euskera produced in the centuryXX.In recent decades, the theory that makes the euskera related to the Berber languages of Northwest Africa was notarized on the basis of the conclusions applied by the lexico-statistical method, seeking similarities between Basque and Berber words, which demonstrated the resemblance between the lexicon Berber and the euskérico, despite presenting clear differences between both languages and other languages.
• Theory of the Basque Substrate: is a hypothesis proposed by the German linguist Theo Vennemann, according to which many languages in Western Europe contain remains of an ancient linguistic family from which the Basque language would be the only survivor. Unlike those considered to be neolytic atlantic-semitic languages, these would be prior to neolytic migration and would be the only paleolytic language survivor in Europe.
• Relations with the paleosardo: some linguists, from the 1940sXX., found similarities between the roots in Basque and the substrate of the paleost, the tongue spoken in Sardinia before the Romans. Despite the lack of documents in this language, some words of prelatin etymology continue to exist in the current branch. The Italian linguist Vittorio Bertoldi was the first to discover that the word "acebo" is practically the same in the two languages: golostri/kolostri (Eus.) / golostru/kolostru (Srd). Bertoldi wrote about the possible brotherhood in an essay published in a Spanish magazine of his time. Also the famous scholar of the Sardinian language Max Leopold Wagner, highlighted some similarities, especially regarding nine nouns. In the ten years of the centuryXXI Catalan philologist Eduardo Blasco Ferrer deepened relations between the roots of the Basque Country and the paleost substrate present in the toponyms of Sardinia, especially those of the central part of the island, where the language is more conservative. In 2017, the Basque philologist Juan Martin Elexpuru publishes an essay that deepens the issues highlighted by Blasco Ferrer.

Apart from purely linguistic studies, anthropology and historiography have tried to give answers to the origin of Basque from the data obtained in the investigation of the origin of the Basques, with three also being the most well-known proposals in this aspect:

• Tubalism: historically, one of the first mythical hypotheses of the origin of euskera is the tubalism and related to the Basque-Iberism of Wilhelm von Humboldt and the Basque-Centralism of Manuel de Larramendi. The theory interferes with the belief that all languages come from Babel and its famous tower. The Basque language would be the original language, prior to the confusion of the languages. Some euskera apologists in the centuryXVIII and principles XIX They came to say that such a perfect language could only have been inspired by the very wit of God. Among those authors, Astarloa and Larramendi stand out. Curiously, the Araxes River bathes Mount Aralar, where there is the largest concentration of Pyrenees dólmens (there are more than 400 censuses) and it was on Mount Ararat, where Noah posed his ark, where the river is also called Araxes, which has led to no few interpretations of the origin of the language.
• Pre-indo-European languages: There are a variety of hypotheses related to euskera with many other European languages and the discovery of Basque toponymy in various European areas even caused the hypothesis that its extension was at European level. The German Karl Bouda related the Basque language with various languages spoken in Siberia (chukchi) and the Argentinean Gandía reflected that "the Basque people are the oldest people in Europe. His language was spoken from the Caucasus to the Atlantic and from North Africa to North Europe in the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. The Aryans or Indo-Europeans, the Etruscans, the Iberians and other ancient peoples are after the Basques. »
• Old European: The studies carried out by Theo Vennemann (theoretical Linguistics professor at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich) around the origin of the European toponyms point out that the current Basque language is related to that of the prehistoric inhabitants of Europe, before the arrival of the Indo-European peoples. These studies come to support the thesis that already at the beginning of the centuryXIX Juan Antonio Moguel explained in reference to a common language or families of languages with a common trunk, which were those that were spoken throughout the Iberian peninsula and part of Europe and which were related to the Basque language. But Venneman's studies have been highly criticized by vascologists and are not accepted by many of the linguistic specialists. The magazine Scientific American In 2002 he published a report by Theo Vennemann and Peter Foster, in which they expressed that the protoeuskera would be the language of the first European settlers.

Language Development

Independently of the theories about its linguistic kinship, onomastics and historical toponymy testify that the primitive version of Basque occupied a larger area during the Ancient Age than it would have after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and that the successive arrivals of Indo-European-speaking peoples from the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, meant for Euskera, as for the rest of the Paleo-Hispanic languages, a decrease in its geographical area.

It is common to consider that the Basques (a pre-Roman people that classical sources place in the northern and central territory of present-day Navarra, as well as in the Cinco Villas of Aragón and at the mouth of the Bidasoa river) were Basque-speaking, this town had a pre-Roman script, which was demonstrated by the discovery of the inscription in the hand of Irulegi, as well as the Aquitanians (established according to Roman sources in the extreme south-west of the current region of Aquitaine); However, the linguistic affiliation of the rest of the pre-Roman peoples that the classical sources place in bordering areas with the Basques (the Iberian Iacetans and the Celtic tribes of Várdulos, Caristios, Autrigones and Berones) is controversial.

With the Conquest of Hispania and the Roman infiltration in the territory of the Basques, it has been presumed that the Basque language would receive an intense influence from the Latin language, contextualizing precisely in this period the first great adoption by the Basque language of words of roots latina.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the formation two centuries later of the nucleus of the primitive Kingdom of Pamplona, the Basque language would experience a period of expansion in the context of the repopulations that the Reconquest brought with it, as documented sources such as the Ojacastro feat.

Starting in the Late Middle Ages, on the other hand, Basque would begin a period of slow regression, displaced at first by Gascon and Navarro-Aragonese, and in a second, by Castilian and French.

Despite this decline, at the beginning of the Modern Age, Basque was still the widely predominant language among the population of Guipúzcoa, the northern half of Navarre, practically all of Vizcaya and the northern half of Álava; a situation that would remain without substantial changes until the social, economic, political and cultural processes set in motion with industrialization and liberalism in the XIX century span> that would cause the great setback of the Basque language that would lead in the XX century to the creation of the Society for Basque Studies and the Royal Academy of the Basque Language and the increase in initiatives in favor of the Basque language that averted the risk of its disappearance.

The Basque language is Batúa

It is evident that one of the causes that facilitated the accelerated decline of Basque in the territories where it was still spoken was the high degree of dialectal fragmentation that Basque presented in the early years of the century XX the conviction spread that Basque could only have a future as a language of communication and expression, as long as the fragmentation situation was overcome with the creation of a single written record recognized by the entire Basque-speaking area. Thus, the process for literary unification began in 1918 with the founding of the Royal Academy of the Basque Language (Euskaltzaindia) and the presentation of different proposals. Among them, a current of opinion was committed to using the "classic Labortano" of Axular according to the same function that Tuscan had in the unification of the Italian language, with Federico Krutwig being the main defender of this model and followed by people like Gabriel Aresti and Luis Villasante. Although it initially gained support, the proposal was ultimately rejected by most writers and scholars for being too far removed from the sociological basis of the language. The debate on the unification would culminate in 1968, in the meeting of the Sanctuary of Aránzazu (Arantzazuko Batzarra) in which the Royal Academy of the Basque Language, during the celebration of its 50th anniversary, decided to formally support and promote the report of the Decisions of the Bayonne Congress (Baionako Biltzarraren Erabakiak) of 1964 drawn up by the Linguistic Department of the Basque Secretariat (Euskal Idazkaritza) of Bayonne, supported by various Basque writers through the newly created Idazleen Alkartea (Writers Association) and Ermuako Zina (Ermua Oath) in 1968. The postulates of this report were collected in the paper presented by the academic Koldo Mitxelena, who would be in charge from then on and together with Luis Villasante of directing the process of literary unification.

The result would be euskera batua (literally 'unified Basque' or 'united Basque'), which is the normative support (or record) of written Basque. It is based on the central dialects of Basque as the Navarrese dialect, the Navarrese-Labortano dialect and the central Basque dialect, and is influenced by the classic Labortano of the XVIIth century, precursor of literature in Basque and link between the Spanish and French dialects.

This registry, officially adopted as of the recognition of the normative authority of the Royal Academy of the Basque Language by the institutions of Navarre and the Basque Country, is the preferred and promoted one in administration, teaching and the media.

Since the first years of batúa's validity, an important controversy has developed about the effect that batúa was going to have on the real Basque dialects, spoken up to that date. Thus, writers such as Oskillaso and Matías Múgica maintained that the Basque language batúa and the institutional impulse that it carried out was going to be lethal for the dialects, killing the 'authentic Basque' in pursuit of the unified, artificially created variant. However, other writers such as Koldo Zuazo have been arguing that the batúa is nothing more than the record intended to be used in the most formal spheres (such as education, public television, the official bulletins...) and comes to complement the rest of the dialects, not to replace them; he even argued that the extension of the batúa helps to strengthen the dialects by influencing the general recovery of the language.

Literature

History of literature in Basque

Early writings 2nd century AD. C

It is considered that the oldest texts of this language found so far are several words that appeared in epitaphs of the II century d. C. in Aquitaine, investigated for the first time by Achille Luchaire, later by Julio Caro Baroja and Koldo Mitxelena, and in more recent times by Joaquín Gorrochategui. In the Navarrese municipality of Lerga (Estela de Lerga) a Hispano-Roman funerary stela with indigenous anthroponyms was found, dating from the I century.. Mitxelena defined the relationship between the Lerga inscription and the Aquitanian epigraphy, as well as with the Euscaran Hispanic inscriptions that would be found later. That is why today Aquitanian is considered to be simply Old Basque or Archaic Basque.

Commemorative plaque of 1974 existing in the Monastery of Yuso (San Millán de la Cogolla, La Rioja) where the Emilian Glosses were found that collect two texts in Basque, considered the first texts written not epigraphic in that language.

The information available on medieval Basque is quite scant and fragmentary. Most of the information on medieval Basque comes from the study of toponymy and anthroponymy, as well as a few words (such as legal terms from the General Charter of Navarre) and some short phrases. Latin and Romance were the languages of knowledge, of the educated minorities and of the official administration, both civil and ecclesiastical. But those groups must also have known the language of the collazos and serfs. The scribes used the romance to write, although the language of daily use was Euskera. From the XI century, it is believed that they are the glosses found in the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, in La Rioja, small annotations translation into a Latin text, the so-called Emilian Glosses, written in Latin and Romance except for 31 and 42, which are phrases in some unknown Basque dialect. These glosses are as follows:

jçioqui dugu
guec ajutu eç dugu

We're happy,
We don't have the right

There is no complete agreement on the meaning of these two glosses. Note that the commemorative plaque located in the monastery makes the small mistake of reproducing the text with a modernized spelling, using the letter zeta, when the ce cedilla is clearly visible in the original text. In the first centuries of the second millennium AD, the references to the use of Basque in the Pyrenean area are diverse. Thus, in a script from the XI century, the donation of the monastery of Ollazábal (Guipúzcoa), in addition to Latin formulas, are the details offered of the boundaries of the land in Basque. Traces of this language can also be found in a guide for pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela from the XII century and attributed to Aimeric Picaud, who includes a small vocabulary in Basque. Likewise, in 1349, in the city of Huesca, a decree was promulgated that penalized those who spoke Arabic, Hebrew or Basquenç in the market with a fine of 30 soles.

As the Middle Ages progressed, the information became more abundant, although we did not have extensive texts until the 15th centuries and XVI. The longest original fragment in the Basque language is contained in a bilingual letter exchanged in 1416 between the secretary of King Carlos III of Navarra and the head of the kingdom's treasury, the so-called "matxin de Zalba bilingual letter". The fragments of ballads and songs that historical chronicles cite are of great interest, such as the Funeral Song of Milia de Lastur that Esteban de Garibay collects in his Memorias in 1596. Proverbs and sentences i> published around the same time in Pamplona is a compilation of popular sayings, probably from the Bilbao environment, according to Joseba Lakarra. Personal letters and other handwritten texts or records of witnesses in trials are considered extremely valuable, as rare testimonies of the Basque spoken in those centuries. Among his personal correspondence, that of Fray Juan de Zumárraga, the first bishop of Mexico, who in 1537 wrote a letter to his family written in Biscayan dialect and Spanish, stands out. Due to its importance, this letter has been published by the Euskera magazine, the official organ of the Royal Academy of the Basque Language. It is probably the longest Basque text in prose known before the first books in Basque.

The first known book was printed in 1545, with the title Linguae Vasconum Primitiae ('First Fruits of the Basque Language') and signed by the Bajo Navarrese priest Bernat Dechepare. It is a collection of poems with erotic, autobiographical and religious themes. He also dedicates verses to Basque, and it is noteworthy that the author is aware that his is the first attempt to bring his language to print. In his poem Kontrapas he says the following:

Shield with registration dated in 1603, in Plencia.

Berce gendec vstà çuten
Ecin scriba çayteyen
Oray dute phorogátu
Enganatu cirela.
Heuscara
Ialgui adi mundura.

Other people believed
That you couldn't write
Now they have proved
That they were cheating
Euskera,
Get out of the world.

Between 1564 and 1567 Juan Pérez de Lazarraga wrote his manuscript, recently discovered and made up of 106 pages. In it we can find poetry and Renaissance pastoral novel.

The next known work is the translation of the New Testament (Iesu Christ Gure Iaunaren Testamentu Berria), commissioned by the Queen of Navarre Juana de Albret to the Calvinist minister Joanes Leizarraga, printed in 1571 in La Rochelle.

The Counter-Reformation brought with it a new “language policy” on the part of the Catholic Church. Thus, catechisms and other works of Christian literature were translated, intended for the formation of the faithful. In the XVII century in the French Basque Country there is a group of writers, today called «the school of Sara», who based on the speech of the coast of Labort (an area of great economic importance) he will develop a literary model for the Basque language. The greatest exponent of these writers is Pedro Axular.

In the Spanish Basque Country from the XVII century, books printed in Basque also appeared, consecrating the literary use of the Biscayan and Gipuzkoan dialects first, and the rest with the passing of the centuries. It is necessary to recognize that initially, in the XVIII century, this literary work was limited to mediocre translations of religious texts, although Agustín Kardaberaz stood out for the quality of his religious and rhetorical work.

Classical literature

Leaving this background aside, along with other manuscripts found in the XX century, what could be considered the first The classic of literature in Basque was the ascetic work Gero ('After') by Pedro de Agerre Azpilikueta, also a priest, written in «classic Labortano» and printed for the first time in 1643 in Pau. His prose was taken as an example of good writing among writers both north and south of the Pyrenees. Manuel de Larramendi refers to Axular as a teacher.

Until very late, secular writers were an exception and most of the published works were religious-themed, limited mainly to translations of doctrines and catechisms, biographies of saints and some theological-philosophical treatises. Among the works that deal with profane subjects we find grammars, apologies (which tried to demonstrate the purity and perfection of the Basque language, although almost all of them were written in Spanish), anthologies of proverbs and poems, as well as traditional Basque or pastoral theater works..

In the 18th century, one of the great cultural and political promoters of Vasconia was the Jesuit father Manuel Larramendi (1690 -1766), who was the author of a Basque grammar and dictionary. His influence marked a before and after in Basque literature. He was in charge of correcting the manuscripts of many writers of his time before printing them, and he can be considered one of the leaders or references in his time.

Modern Age

In the second half of the XIX century, the defeat in the Carlist Wars and the changes that were taking place in the society gave rise to some concern about the future of the language, which led to the founding of associations such as the Euskara Society of Navarra, the holding of literary contests and floral games, and the appearance of the first publications in Basque. European linguistics began to take an interest in it and the language began to be studied scientifically. Literature flourished and folklorists and musicologists became interested in recovering the oral tradition. In 1918 the Sociedad de Estudios Vascos-Eusko Ikaskuntza was founded with the sponsorship of the four Basque councils of Navarra and a year later, the Royal Academy of the Basque Language (Euskaltzaindia) was founded by Alfonso XIII.

On the contrary, some Basque intellectuals of the time such as Miguel de Unamuno called to accept with pain and resignation the death of Euskera, a language with which —according to him— abstract ideas could not be transmitted. The philosopher came to affirm in moments of intimate depressive pessimism ^{[citation required]} that the Basques had to abandon their language and traditions in order to enter into Spanish modernity.

The Basque culture, which is called "culture", has been done in Spanish or in French. In Spanish he wrote his letters and his Iñigo exercises of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, and in French he thought and wrote the abat of Saint-Cyran, founder of Port Royal, fortress of Jansenism. (...) In vascuence you cannot think with universality. And the Basque people, when they rise to universality, do so in Spanish or in French

Miguel de Unamuno, "La unificación del vascuence", en Complete Works (VI): 344-348. Madrid: Afrodisio Aguado.

This position being, with some exceptions, the majority among the Basque left and liberalism at that time, both in Spain and France, the biggest defenders of the language were the foralistas, traditionalistas and nationalistas sectors.

Between 1848 and 1936, the so-called euskal pizkundea or Basque renaissance took place, when we find cultist poetry by authors such as Nicolás Ormaetxea Orixe, Xabier Lizardi or Esteban Urkiaga Lauaxeta, impregnated with the style of the symbolist poets. However, the civil war and its outcome postponed that stage of literary and social maturation.

The identification of Euskera with rural life and therefore with an idealized Basque Arcadia, so attractive to many Basques, had to last until the generational change in the fifties and sixties. It is then when, in an atmosphere of cultural and political effervescence, the Basque language began to be heard in the mouths of young university students and urban environments.

Basque was still spoken by the majority of the inhabitants of the Basque-speaking area (Vizcaya except for its western end, Guipúzcoa, northern points of Álava, northern Navarra and the French Basque Country except for the Biarritz-Anglet-Bayonne area) immediately before industrialization. According to data from 1866-1868 managed by Ladislao de Velasco, it was spoken by 170,000 of the 176,000 inhabitants of Guipúzcoa (140,000 habitually), 149,000 of the 183,000 Biscayans (of whom 6,000 were foreigners and 28,000 lived in the Valmaseda-Encartaciones district, where Euskera disappeared from its eastern part at the end of the XVIII century and beginning of the XIX, with the end of the First Carlist War), 12,000 of the 120,000 Alava, 60,000 of the 300,000 inhabitants of the Spanish Navarra and 80,000 of the 124,000 inhabitants of the French Basque Country.

Notable works and authors

Basque linguistics

Linguistic description

Classification

Typologically, Basque is a strongly binding language. Regarding the genetic classification, Basque is currently considered to be an isolated language, since it lacks related languages. It would be the direct successor of the archaic or historical Basque of the centuries I to III d. c.

Writing and Phonology

Writing

General characteristics of the writing system

Basque, due to its geographical location, adopted the Latin alphabet when it began to develop as a written language in the 16th century. It was generally written according to the Spanish and French systems, adapting them with greater or lesser success to Basque phonetics. The nationalist leader Sabino Arana designed a particular spelling system, achieving some success among his followers. After the Spanish civil war, the Aranista system was gradually abandoned because the accented consonants it required made editions more expensive and were not very practical.

Since 1968, the Academy of the Basque Language established unified regulations. Currently the Basque alphabet is made up of the following letters:

• Five vowels: a, i, o, uThey sound like in Spanish. A sixth vowel is used in the suletin, ü (pronounced as the French "u" in "you"). In the standard euskera, the use of ü is allowed in suletin geographical names and their derivatives, e.g.: Garrüze, garrüztar.
• The following consonants: b, d, f, g (it is always pronounced as the "g" of "gallet" and not as the "g" of "gelatin"). h (in the Western dialects it is mute and aspirated in the Eastern), j (pronounced as the Castilian "yate" in most of the dialects; in the Gipuzcoan and in border areas of Vizcain and Navarre it is pronounced as the "j" Castilian), k, l, m, n, ñ, p, r, s (pronunciada como la «s» del español del centro y norte de España), t, x (pronounced as English "sh") z (pronunciada como la «s» del español de América y las Canarias).
• It is possible to find five other consonants for words from other languages: c, q, v, w, y, but usually these consonants are replaced by their euskera equivalents: the k for the c and the q, the b or u for the v and the wand the j for the and.
• In some extranjerismos it is written ç (curaçao) and E (e.g.: couché paper).

27 letters in total, the same as in Spanish (ü, ç, é are not considered separate letters).

It also has the following digraphs: dd, rr, tt, tx (pronounced like “che” in Spanish), ts (pronounced like a che soft), tz (pronounced similar to the Italian "zz" in "pizza").

In the case of some consonants preceded by i, they palatalize their sound after pronouncing the «i»: il (the l It is pronounced like the «ll» in Spain; eg: ilea is pronounced illea), in (the n is pronounced like the “ñ” in Spanish; eg: ikurrina is pronounced ikurriña), is (the s is pronounced like the “x” in Basque), its (the ts is pronounced like the “tx” in Basque).

In the more oriental varieties, in some words there is the possibility of aspiration after the consonant, which has usually been reflected in the literature of these dialects. Examples: aphez, ithurri, kherestu, orho, alha, unhatu.

There are no tildes or orthographic accents except in loans and idioms from other languages, since the accent in Basque has no phonological value, as it does in Spanish. Normally the strong syllable in the intonation is the second from the left.

Phonology

Correspondencias entre grafemas y pronunciación en español

• a: (a) a
• b: (be) b
• d: (de) d
• dd: (from bikoitza) dy (d palatalized, like "diacle", pronounced very quickly)
• e: (e) e (in front of a vowel, i in suletino)
• f: (ephe) f
• g: (ge) gAlways the sound of "garra" and "war", not "gitano".
• h: (hatxe) h (city in the peninsular dialects, [h] aspirated on the mainlands)
• i: (i) i
• j: (jota) and (semivocal [j] in vizcaino, labortano and navarro, like the Spanish "judo", "yo"), [κ] postalveolar fricativa in suletino and in the speech of Lequeitio (Vizcaino dialect), like "Jacques" in French and frenchy watch sorda [x] (guipuzcoano)
• k: (ka) k
• l: (ele) l
• il: (i ele) l pronounced as ll non-Yeist Spanish
• m: (me) m
• n: (ene) n
• ñ (sing) ñ
• in: (i ene) n pronounced as a ñ in Southern dialects
• or: (o) or (before a vowel, u in suletino)
• p: (pe) p
• r: (erre) r simple castellana ("ere")
• rr: (erre bikoitza) r double castellana ("erre")
• s: (ese) s (apicoalveolar snack), as in northern Spanish and central Spain
• t: (te) t
• tt: (te bikoitza) ty (t palatalized, as a "till", pronounced very quickly)
• ts: (that one) ts (Africa apicoalveolar, as "Montserrat knows" pronounced with a sandhi), but as ts French vingt-six or in English rats (laminal, africada dorsoalveolar), in the vizcaino and on the coast of Guipúzcoa.
• tx: (te ixa) ch castellana strong
• tz: (te zeta) ts French in "vingt-six" or in English "gets" (laminal, africada dorsoalveolar)
• u: (u) u (in suletino, there is also the previous rounded high vowel ü, u French in "you")
• x: (ixa) sh English or ch in the Western dialect, they also have the sound ix groups iz or is followed by vowel, although not always fulfilled
• z: (zeta) s (dorsoalveolar snack), like "cenó", "zen" or "senil" in American Spanish, but in the vizcaino, s (apicoalveolar snack), as in Spanish from the north and center of Spain.

The five letters c, q, v, w and y, rarely used, are called ze, ku, uve, uve bikoitza and i grekoa; the modified letter ç is called ze hautsia or zedila.

In Suletin, there are nasal vowels (õ, û) and voiced sibilants (ss, zz), but they are never reflected in writing.

Consonants

Vowels (general Basque)

Suletin also includes the front labialized vowel /y/ usually written as ü.

The accent

In Basque, the accent is not represented orthographically, but there are unstressed and tonic syllables and it is very different from Romance languages. The accentuation unit does not have to be in a word, as it happens in Spanish, but in the phrase. That is, the tonic syllable can move within the same word depending on what accompanies it.

Normally, in Basque, the second and last syllables tend to be stressed, although the stress of the last syllable is not marked as much as that of the second.

• A syllable: the words of a syllable do not have accentuation, but are assimilated to other words to make units of several syllables.
• Two syllables: (xX) the words of two syllables have the tonic in the last: agur (bye), mutil (boy), hori (ese), although there are exceptions such as: se(son) ume (child), kale (calle), atze (behind) or orrdu (hour).
• Three syllables (xXX): the tonic in the words of three syllables is double in the second syllable and the last, although the latter is not as strong as the second. ikusi [ikÚsii] (see), mutilate [mutile] (the boy), lagoon [lagÚnaa] (the companion).
• Four or more syllables (xXxxX): the main tonic is the second syllable and the secondary tonic is the last syllable. batasuna [batÁsunaa] (unit), aizkolaria [aizkÓlariaa] (the wooder), interesgarri [intÉresgarrii] (interest).
• Exceptions:
  • Verbs: the accent takes reference to the root: (IKÁSI: ikási, ikásikò, ikásità) except boot, jakin, jaio, jagon, joan or bazkaldu. In combinations of auxiliary verb plus main verb this auxiliary verb is assimilated to the main as if it were a single word: it is dugù, it is dizkìdatè.
  • Keywords: are exceptions: aurre, eurri, gai, haur, euskara, ga#barra, mediku, egia, liburu, lege, pihis, maistra...

Text samples

Morphosyntax

Noun phrase

The morphology of Basque is very rich in the structure of the nominal and verb phrase.

The way to build the nominal and verbal groups is complex, due to the declination, the ergativity (case nork) and the large amount of information that the verb contains, not only about the subject, but also on the direct and indirect object. Furthermore, in the familiar address form (hika), the verb varies its endings according to the sex of the person to whom it is spoken, in the second person singular of the allocution.

Noun phrases: declension

Basque has two means of reflecting the relationship between the phrases in a sentence: declension and postpositions.

The decline

The declension is the set of marks of the noun phrase to express the syntactic function it performs, that is, the grammatical cases (subject, direct and indirect object), place-time cases (circumstantial complements) and other complements.

The main characteristics of the Basque declension are:

• The cases, one by one, are added to the entire nominal syntagma, specifically to the last element that closes this syntagma: (nire anaia gaiztoa, my evil brother) + ari = nire anaia gaiztoari (to my evil brother).
• The corresponding dissents are unique for each case, so all words that should be declined in a given case will take the same mark.

Example: dative singular (case nori), -ari: gizon-ari, anaia-ari, beltz-ari, katu-ari (to the man, to the brother, to the black, to the cat). If it ends in -a: osaba+ari = osaba-ri (to uncle).

• There is no gender category, so cases only differentiate number: singular / plural / undetermined

Example: dative singular: -ari / dative plural: -ei / dative indefinite: -(r) i: Gizonari eman dio / Gizonei eman die / Zein gizoni eman dio? (He has given it to man/he has given it to men/what man(s) has he given it to?

• In the decline, the root and disindence can be differentiated: gizon (raice of "man") + -ari (desinence, "to/to") = gizon-ari ("the man").
• Depending on the dialects, declination may take one form or another, for example: Norekin? ("With whom?") common form to all dialects, except the vizcaino), Noregaz? (vizcaino) and Norekilan? (sphatic form of suletino).

Grammatical cases

• Absolute: This is the case used when the nominal syntagma fulfills the subject function of an intransitive verb or direct object of a transient verb. In this case there is no decline, no dissent is added: Mutila etorri da (The boy has come).

However, when the noun phrase has direct object function, but is found in an interrogative or negative sentence with an undetermined value, the partitive case is used and the mark that is added is - (r) ik: Ez daukat dirurik (I have no money).

Ergative: it is the case where the noun phrase fulfills the function of subject of a transitive verb and the mark that is added is -(e) k. Mendiek gero eta zuhaitz gutxiago dituzte (The mountains have fewer and fewer trees).

Dative: in this case, the noun phrase adopts the function of indirect object in those sentences with three elements nor-nori-nork, or two elements nor-nori. The mark that is added is -(r) i, for example, Umeari esan diot (I have told the child).

Place cases: Place cases vary if they are added to an animate or an inanimate noun. Ama-rengana joan naiz (I have gone to the mother)/ Etxe-ra joan naiz (I have gone to home).

Other declensions: they correspond to the following cases: instrumental (about what/who; through what/who), sociative (with what/who), genitive (whose), motivational (because of what/who), destinative (for whom) and prolative ([taken] by what/whom). The declensions beginning with "nor" they refer to living beings (with the exception of plants); those started by "zer", to inanimate objects and plants.

Determinants

In Basque, determiners can be included in the word:

mutile + -a = maim

(i.e.: boy + the (determining) = the boy)

Or they can also go outside the word:

mutile + bat = mutile bat

(i.e.: boy + one (determinant numberl) = a boy)

Numeral

The cardinals are these:

1-bat, 2-bi, 3-hiru, 4-lau, 5-bost, 6-sei, 7-zazpi, 8-zortzi, 9-bederatzi, 10-hamar, 11-hamaika, 12-hamabi (ten two), 13-hamahiru (ten three), 14-hamalau (ten four)... 18-hamazortzi or hemezortzi, 19-hemeretzi, 20-hogei, 21-hogeita bat (twenty-one), 22-hogeita bi (twenty-two)... 30-hogeita hamar (twenty-ten), 31-hogeita hamaika (twenty-eleven), 32-hogeita hamabi (twenty-ten two), 33-hogeita hamahiru (twenty-ten three)... 40-berrogei (double twenty), 41-berrogeita bat (double twenty-one)... 50-berrogeita hamar (double twenty-ten), 51-berrogeita hamaika (double twenty-eleven), 52-berrogeita hamabi (double twenty and ten two)... 60-hirurogei (three twenty), 61-hirurogeita bat (three twenty and one)... 70-hirurogeita hamar (three twenty and ten), 71-hirurogeita hamaika (three twenty and eleven)... 80-laurogei (four twentys), 81-laurogeita bat (four twentys and one)... 90-laurogeita hamar (four twentys and tens), 99-laurogeita hemeretzi (four twentys and ten nines), 100 -ehun, 2 00-berrehun, 300-hirurehun, 400-laurehun, 500-bostehun, 600-seiehun, 700-zazpiehun, 1000-mila, 1001-mila eta bat... 1,000,000-milioi

Ordinals:

1.-lehen/aurren, 2.-bigarren, 3.-hirugarren... n-garren.

Distributive:

1-bana (one for each), 2-bina (two for each)... 10-hamarna... n-na.

In Basque the number '20' hogei is an important numerical group, apparently related to the number of fingers on both hands and feet, since it appears as a complementary base in the construction of the higher numbers. Compared with other languages, the construction of upper numbers in base '20' is less common than in base '10', however it is not non-existent since it also appears in other numeral systems. For upper numbers in Basque we have: '40 ' berr-hogei (2x20), '60' hirur-hogei (3x20), and '80' laur-hogei (4x20).

Verb phrase

General characteristics of verbal syntagma

ergative

Lexicon, semantics and pragmatics

Lexicon

In addition to the patrimonial lexicon inherited from Proto-Basque, there are lexical forms that are loans from other languages, coming from:

1. Celtic languages: andere 'woman'. ainder), zaldi 'caballo', Aita- 'padre' (Irish) athair), orkatz- 'Corzo' (proto-celta ♪Welsh. iwrch), izoki- 'salmon' (proto-celta ♪). Even some traditionally considered word of euskérico origin, as (k)harri- (rock), a Celtic origin (gaelic) has been proposed carraigeBreton. karrekWelsh. carreg). However, the relations between the Basque language and the Celtic languages are not completely clarified, and some of these words may not be exactly loans, but rather words inherited from a older substrate, common to both groups.
2. Latin, from which a lot of words come, taken directly or through Romance tongues such as Navarro-Argonese, Gascon, Spanish and French: eliza (chuckles) errege (laughs) suede (thing) doministiku ("dominus tecum")
3. Germanic languages: zilar (silver) and urki (abedul), but also in this case it is complex to establish whether it is loans or words due to other types of relationships. In the case of urki (1284) beerecoa, urquiegia garaycoa), burki (1412 burquidi -di on burki), burkhi, bürkhi, turki, epurki, epuski, and theoretical gurki or kurki, is intended to link one, surely wrong, buruki with birihhaAbedul in Ancient Upper German. It's not possible. {Paul Friedrich, Proto-Indoeuropean-Trees, 1970: “Except for Nehring’s apparently unique suggestion of an “Assiatic borrowing (1954, p.20), some form of the PIE birch name appears to have been borrowed into Basque as still reflected in contemporary buruki (sic) according to Antonio Tovar (see Mugica for the forms). I am indebted to Jaan Puhvel for his personal communication on the philology of the birch name}. {Orotariko Euskal Hiztegia. Etymology: a link may have been lost gurki or kurki due to assimilation between burki and turki. It has been thought of an i.-e origin (a.a. birihha etc.)}. Some authors (Campion, letter to R.I.E.V.) are set in Ancient English: berc, birce) birch and its resemblance with Eastern Basque forms burki, it seems that it may well be considered superficial if it is not supported by a global study of forms (fonology, protosemantics, morphology and symbolology). There is no IE protoform (bherH-g-o-o-) for abedul in Celtic, Greek, Armenian, anatoly, Tocario, and in italics it becomes a fresno Δ*far(a)g-(s)nos. Yes, on the other hand, they may arise theoretically from the IE protoform bherH-g-o-o- in Slavic (berëza, bereza, brzoza, breza, breza,...) in Germanic (Old English) (brc, brc...........................Breasts), Sanskrit (*bhrHg-negative bhurjá-etc.). The root -o- (slavo-a-) -Meillet (1923, p.197)- denotes female gender for botanical gender Betulaor at least for the species Betula pendula. Note: J.M. They will be barandian in their "Ethno-Graphic Box of Sara" A.E.F. 1962, T.XIX, in the relation of houses says:BURKIA.- L.B. brings a surname Burqui. I don't know if the last names Murgui and Murguia, listed in the same book, have some relationship with Burgui. In 1754 the house is marked Murguia. In 1803 they lived in Bourguia... According to L.S. in 1804 they lived in "Burkhia"... In 1940 (it is supposed to be Burkhia... lived...».
4. Arabic: alkate (alkade), Alkandora (camisa) or azoka (market)

Dialectology and variants

Dialects

In 1729, the Jesuit Manuel de Larramendi published a grammar of Basque in Salamanca, which he titled The Impossible Vanquished. The art of the Bascongada language , where he spoke of the various dialects: he cites Gipuzkoan, Vizcayan and Navarrese or Labortano ( which is commonly oneself , he says).

Current distribution of the 5 euskera dialects, according to Koldo Zuazo: Western dialect Central dialect Navarre dialect Navarro-laboran dialect Suletin dialect Hispanic areas that were vascophones in the centuryXIX (according to the map of Luis Luciano Bonaparte)

Dialectal distribution according to Luis Luciano Bonaparte in 1869.

A later classification of dialects was the work of the Basque-phile Louis-Lucien Bonaparte, a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. The map was reviewed by the priest and first president of the Academy of the Basque Language, Resurrección María de Azkue (1864-1951).

In 1998, the linguist Koldo Zuazo renewed the distribution of dialects, based on criteria unknown or ignored by previous authors. This modern classification divides Basque into six dialects (in Basque called euskalkiak): western dialect; central dialect; Navarrese, Eastern Navarrese (roncalés, extinct), Navarrese-Labortano and Suletino. Bonaparte considered the roncalés dialect a subdialect of Suletino ("Spanish Suletino"), while Azkue classified it as a distinct dialect. This variant, formerly spoken in the seven towns of the Roncal valley (Navarra), disappeared definitively in 1991 with the death of Fidela Bernat, its last speaker. One could also speak of an Alava dialect, now extinct, although from place names and known written testimonies we know that it was very similar to the Western dialect. The main source of information on the Basque spoken in Álava today is the recently discovered manuscript of Juan Pérez de Lazarraga (XVI century), since it is the most complete written testimony.

The maps are made by joining groups of speech with general coincidences, since Basque is characterized by its variety of expressions and accents. The differences can be appreciated from one locality to another, and even from one neighborhood to another. For example, if we take the word ogia (bread), throughout the Basque-speaking territories we will find variants of the same word such as ogiya, ogiye, ogixa, ogixe, uía, uíe, uíxe, heard, etc.

The phonological, morphosyntactic and lexical differences between two geographically distant dialects can be as many as those between Catalan and Spanish. This is the case of Biscayan (western extreme) and Suletino (eastern extreme), which are characterized by their distance from the other dialects, and which are spoken precisely at both extremes of the Basque language domain. Even so, for most Basque speakers speaking different dialects is not an insurmountable obstacle to understanding each other. On the other hand, mutual intelligibility may depend, in addition to geographical distance, on custom and the "gift of tongues" of the speakers, in addition to the level of schooling and the consequent knowledge of the language itself beyond the colloquial register. An illustrative case can be that of the Biscayan: a Basque speaker from Navarre, for example, can easily understand someone who speaks a Western variety, thanks to the fact that the words he uses are not strange to him, which he has been able to read in books and use them in a formal record. In addition, Basque speakers from Navarre can get used to hearing Biscayan Basque in the media and make themselves understood by Biscayan interlocutors, each speaking their respective dialect, without excessive complications. This, it is said, depends on the predisposition, pronunciation, or cultural level of the interlocutors. These situations are common in languages that are characterized by their dialectal diversity, such as German and Italian.

In this regard, the linguist Koldo Mitxelena believes that

The discussion is rather idle as soon as a technique is not used to give it a precise, quantitative answer. The estimation of this magnitude is also relative by necessity: for a linguist, for example, differences are not great and, if the linguist is a compartist, he will find them even desperately small. The same criterion of the possibility of mutual understanding between speakers of different varieties, which is most often appealed, is of doubtful value. Mutual communication depends to a high degree on the "don of tongues", that peculiar capacity made of versatility and mimeticism, of the contact partners. On the other hand, it is known that [what] in a first encounter is inintelligible becomes understandable and even clear after a longer period of accommodation and learning. About the past of the Basque language, 1964, p.18

Many people have mainly learned the unified Basque, with more or less influence from the speech of their region. Although Batúa Basque is the official version of the language, the dialects are widely used on local radio stations and publications, with the aim of getting closer to everyday language. In the cases of the western dialect and Suletino, they are also present in teaching and the academy itself has issued rules on their writing. This is not contrary to the use of Basque batúa, since it is considered that the coexistence between the dialects and standard Basque is an essential condition to guarantee the vitality of the language.

Due to the historical conditions in which Basque literature has developed, the linguistic community has not had a single model for written use, but several, which, unable to be completely imposed on the rest, have developed in parallel since the 16th century. In the manuals on the history of Basque literature, they talk about the "literary dialects" Gipuzkoan, Biscayan, Labortano and Suletino, since these are the most used in literary production. Both the Gipuzkoan to the south of the Pyrenees, and the Labortano to the north, have been the most used as standard for centuries, and are varieties that have gained a certain prestige in their areas of influence, being referential when undertaking the unification project. in the 60s.

Labortano

"Alabainan Jainkoak altean du mundua maithatu, non bere Seme bekhara eman baitu, hunen baithan sinhesten duen nihor ez dadien gal, aitzitik izan dezan bethiko bizitzea"

Suletino

"Zeren Jinkoak hain du maithatü mundia, nun eman beitü bere Seme bekhotxa, amorekatik hartan sinhesten dian gizoneratik batere eztadin gal, bena ükhen dezan bethiereko bizitzia"

Guipuzcoan

"Zergatik ain maite izan du Jaungoikoak mundua, non eman duen bere Seme Bakarra beragan fedea duan guzia galdu ez dedin, baizik izan dezan betiko bizia"

The form euskera (from the dialects of Gipuzkoa, Vizcaín and Altonavarro) is more used than the term vascuence among Spanish-speaking Basques and is the one adopted in the Dictionary of the Spanish language in its XXII edition. On the other hand, in batúa it is only called euskara (the most common in the central dialects). Also, depending on the region, it is called euskala, eskuara, eskuera, eskara, eskera, eskoara, euskiera, auskera, oskara, uskera, uskaa, uska or üskara.

Influence of Basque on neighboring Romance languages