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Basque (IPA: ; Basque: Euskara) is the language spoken by the Basque people who inhabit the Pyrenees in North-Central Spain and the adjoining region of South-Western France. More specifically, the Basques occupy a Spanish autonomous community known as the Basque Country (Euskadi), which has significant cultural and political autonomy. Basques also make up sizable parts of the population in what is known as the Northern Basque Country in France and the autonomous community of Navarre in Spain, which in total have historically been considered the Basque Country. The Standard Basque name for the language is euskara; other dialectal forms are euskera, eskuara and üskara. Although geographically surrounded by Indo-European languages, Basque is believed to be a language isolate: it is not an Indo-European language.
History and classification It is likely that an early form of the Basque language was already present in Western Europe before the arrival of the Indo-European languages, which means that in a sense the Basque culture can claim one of the longest unbroken traditions on the continent. Most scholars see Basque as a language isolate. Consequently, its prehistory cannot be reconstructed by means of the comparative method, and little is known of its origins. Latin inscriptions in Aquitania preserve a number of words with cognates in proto-Basque, for instance the personal names Nescato and Cison (neskato and gizon mean "girl" and "man" respectively in modern Basque). This proposed language is called "Aquitanian" and was presumably spoken before the Romans brought Latin to the western Pyrenees. Roman neglect of this hinterland allowed Aquitanian Basque to survive while the Iberian and Tartessian languages died out. Basque did come to acquire some Latin vocabulary, both before and after the Latin of the area developed into Gascon (a branch of Occitan) and Navarrese Romance. Given that the border between Basque and Gascon country is more diffuse than that of Basque and Castilian country, it is commonly assumed that the Basques' origin was in Aquitaine and that they migrated southward. In June 2006, archaeologists at the site of Iruña-Veleia discovered an epigraphic set with a series of 270 Basque inscriptions and drawings from the third century. * Some of the words and phrases found were "urdin" (blue), "zuri" (white), "gori" (red), "edan" (drink) "ian" (eat), "lo" (sleep), "Iesus, Iose ata ta Mirian ama" (Jesus, the father Joseph and the mother Mary), and "Geure ata zutan" (May the Father be with you). Theories on connections with other languages The impossibility of linking Basque with its Indo-European neighbours in Europe made many scholars search for its possible relatives elsewhere. Besides many pseudoscientific comparisons, the appearance of long-range linguistics gave rise to several attempts at connecting Basque with geographically very distant language families. While the link with the ancestor of Basque, the ancient Aquitanian language, was proven beyond reasonable doubt by Michelena and Trask, other hypotheses are considered controversial and the suggested evidence is not generally accepted by most linguists. However, this situation may change in the future. Iberian Iberian, another ancient language once spoken in the peninsula, shows several similarities with Aquitanian and Basque. However, there is not enough evidence to distinguish areal contacts from genetic relationship. Iberian itself is considered an isolate. Georgian The Georgian hypothesis, linking Basque to South Caucasian or Kartvelian languages, is widespread in Georgia. One of the few practical consequences is that the former mayor of Bilbao José María Gorordo made the city and the Georgian capital Tbilisi twin cities, and Euskal Telebista (Basque Television) co-produced a version of Don Quixote with Georgian Television. Despite its popularity, there is little evidence to support it. Dené-Caucasian Some scholars have independently proposed a connection with the North Caucasian languages and Burushaski, as well as a distant relationship with other Dene-Caucasian languages (including regular phonological correspondences, see BENGTSON:1996-2004). The hypothesis, though one of the most elaborate, and perhaps the only one supported by some knowledgeable historical linguists, has not gained wider acceptance among most linguists, who consider the evidence indecisive. In the current state of knowledge, the question of the affinity of Basque thus remains open. Vasconic languages According to a disputed theory by the German historical linguist Theo Vennemann, Basque is the only remaining language of the Vasconic languages that were spoken throughout Central and Western Europe. According to the theory, traits of these languages persist in toponymy and as a substratum to the Indo-European languages. Geographic distribution
Official status Historically, Latin or Romance has been the official language in this region. However, Basque was explicitly recognized in some areas, as the local charter of the Basque-colonized Ojacastro valley (now in La Rioja) allowed the inhabitants to use Basque in legal processes in the 13th and 14th centuries. Today Basque holds co-official language status in the Basque regions of Spain: the full autonomous community of the Basque Country and some parts of Navarre. Basque has no official standing in the Northern Basque Country of France and French citizens are barred from officially using Basque in a French court of law. Paradoxically, the use of Basque by Spanish nationals in French courts is allowed (with translation), as Basque is officially recognised on the other side of the frontier. The positions of the various existing governments, in areas where Basque usage is common, differ with regard to the promotion of Basque. The language has official status in those territories which are within the Basque Autonomous Community where it is spoken and promoted heavily, but only partially in Navarre, which is divided by the law in three distinct language areas, Basque-speaking, non-Basque-speaking, and mixed (this law is strongly rejected by the Basque-speaking people of Navarre). The law is called the "Ley del Vascuence", as vascuence (from Latin vasconice loqui, "to talk in the Vascon way") is the traditional name for the Basque language in Spanish (euskera and vasco are also used). Dialects There are six main Basque dialects, comprising Bizkaian, Gipuzkoan, and Upper Navarrese (in Spain), and Lower Navarrese, Lapurdian, and Zuberoan (in France). However, the dialect boundaries are not congruent with political boundaries. One of the first scientific studies of Basque dialects, in particular the auxiliary verb forms, was made by Louis-Lucien Bonaparte (a nephew of Napoleon). In 2005 the daily Berria published a new map of dialects, brought up to date by Koldo Zuazo, Basque Filology Professor at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU). In this new map the distinguished dialects are Western, Central, Navarrese, Navarrese-Labourdin and Souletin. Standardized dialects The most widely used standardized dialect is Batua ("unified" in Basque), which is the language taught in most schools and used on media and official papers. Batua is based largely on the Gipuzkoan regional dialect, where it is the most used, although it allows use of Northern and Navarrese vocabulary. It is also referred to as Standard Basque. Azkue's gipuzkera osotua was the first attempt to create a Basque standard in 1935. It did not succeed, not even in Gipuzkoa where Batua is mostly preferred, the southwestern part of Gipuzkoa speak and prefer the Biscayan dialect. Along with Batua, Classical Labourdin, like Pierre Laffite's Navarro-Labourdin is the standard form of Lapurtera taught in some schools of Lapurdi and used on radio, church and by the newspaper Herria. A group (Jakintza Baitha, "Wisdom House") gathered around the academian Federico Krutwig preferred to base the standard on the Labourdin of Joannes Leyçarraga's Protestant Bible and the first printed books in Basque. However they got no official or popular support. The most distinct dialects, Biscayan and Souletin also have a standard form. Derived languages In the 1500s, Basque sailors mixed many Basque words with a European Atlantic pidgin in their contacts with Iceland. Another Basque pidgin arose from contact between Basque whalers and Aboriginal inhabitants in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Strait of Belle Isle. Several travelling professional groups of Castile used Basque words in their jargon: examples are the gacería, the mingaña and the Galician fala dos arxinas. Grammar Basque is an ergative-absolutive language. The subject of an intransitive verb is in the absolutive case (which is unmarked), and the same case is used for the direct object of a transitive verb. The subject of the transitive verb (that is, the agent) is marked differently, with the ergative case (shown by the suffix -k). This also triggers main and auxiliary verbal agreement. The auxiliary verb which accompanies most main verbs agrees not only with the subject, but with the direct object and the indirect object, if present. Among European languages, this polypersonal system (multiple verb agreement) is only found in Basque and some Caucasian languages. The ergative-absolutive alignment is also unique among European languages, and rather rare worldwide. Consider the phrase: Martinek egunkariak erosten dizkit. "Martin buys the newspapers for me." Martin-ek is the agent (transitive subject), so it is marked with the ergative case ending -k (with an epenthetic -e-). Egunkariak has an -ak ending which marks plural object (plural absolutive, direct object case). The verb is erosten dizkit, in which erosten is a kind of gerund ("buying") and the auxiliary dizkit indicates: The phrase: "you buy the newspapers for me" would translate as: Zuek egunkariak erosten dizkidazue The auxiliary verb is composed as di-zki-da-zue (equivalent terms in European languages) A Basque noun is inflected in 17 different ways for case, multiplied by 4 ways for its definiteness and number. These first 68 forms are further modified based on other parts of the sentence, which in turn are inflected for the noun again. It's been estimated that at two levels of recursion, a Basque noun may have 458,683 inflected forms (Agirre et al, 1992). Phonology Basque has a distinction between laminal and apical articulation for the alveolar fricatives and affricates. In the laminal consonants the friction occurs across the blade of the tongue, while in apical ones, it occurs at the tip (apex). The laminal alveolar fricative is made with the tongue tip pointing toward the lower teeth; its affricate counterpart is . These are written with an orthographic z (z, tz). The apical fricative is written s and is pronounced like the normal s in Castillian Spanish; that is, the tongue tip points toward the upper teeth. The corresponding affricate is ts. In the westernmost parts of the Basque country, only the apical s and the alveolar affricate tz are used. Basque also features postalveolar sibilants (, written x, and , written tx), sounding like English sh and ch. There are two palatal stops, voiced and unvoiced, as well as a palatal nasal and a palatal lateral (the palatal stops are not present in all dialects). These and the postalveolar sounds are typical of diminutives, which are used frequently in child language and motherese (mainly to show affection rather than size). For example, tanta "drop" vs. ttantta "droplet". A few common words, such as txakur "dog", use palatal sounds even though in current usage they have lost the diminutive sense; the corresponding non-palatal forms now acquiring an augmentative or pejorative sense: zakur "big dog". Many dialects of Basque exhibit a derived palatalization effect in which coronal onset consonants are changed into the palatal counterpart after the high front vowel . For example, the in egin "to act" becomes palatal when the suffix -a is added: = "the action". The sound represented by j has a variety of realizations according to the regional dialect: (the last one is typical of the Spanish Basque Country). The vowel system is the same as Spanish for most speakers. It consists of five pure vowels, . Speakers of the Souletin dialect also have a sixth, front rounded vowel (represented in writing by ü but pronounced , much like a German ö), as well as a set of contrasting nasalized vowels. Stress and pitch Basque features great dialectal variation in stress, from a weak pitch-accent in the central dialects to a marked stress in some outer dialects, with varying patterns of stress placement. Stress is in general not distinctive; there are, however, a few instances where stress is phonemic, serving to distinguish between a few pairs of stress-marked words and between some grammatical forms (mainly plurals from other forms). E.g., basóà ("the forest", absolutive case) vs. básoà ("the glass", absolutive case; a borrowing from Spanish vaso); basóàk ("the forest", ergative case) vs. básoàk ("the glass", ergative case) vs. básoak ("the forests" or "the glasses", absolutive case). Given its great deal of variation among dialects, stress is not marked in the standard orthography and Euskaltzaindia (the Academy of the Basque Language) only provides general recommendations for a standard placement of stress, basically to place a high-pitched weak stress (weaker than that of Spanish, let alone that of English) on the second syllable of a syntagma, and a low-pitched even-weaker stress on its last syllable, except in plural forms where stress is moved to the first syllable. This scheme provides Basque with a distinct musicality which sets its sound apart from the prosodical patterns of Spanish (which tends to stress the second-to-last syllable). Euskaldun berriak ("new Basque-speakers", i.e. second-language Basque-speakers) with Spanish as their first language tend to carry the prosodical patterns of Spanish into their pronunciation of Basque, giving rise to a much despised decaffeinated pronunciation; e.g., pronouncing nire ama ("my mom") as nire áma (- - ´ -), instead of as niré amà (- ´ - `). Vocabulary By contact with neighbouring peoples, Basque has borrowed words from Latin, Spanish, French, Gascon, among others, but accepted relatively few compared to many Indo-European languages. Some claim that many of its words come from Latin, but phonetic evolution has made many of them appear nowadays as if they were native words, e.g. lore ("flower", from florem), errota ("mill", from rotam, "mill wheel"), gela ("room", from cellam). Writing system Basque is written using the Latin alphabet. The universal special letter is ñ; sometimes ç and ü are also used. Basque does not use c, q, v, w, y except for loan words; they are not considered part of the alphabet. Aa Bb Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Ññ Oo Pp Rr Ss Tt Uu Xx Zz dd, ll, rr, ts, tt, tx, tz are not treated as digraphs. In Sabino Arana's (1865..1903) orthography, ll and rr were replaced with ĺ and ŕ, respectively. Basic phrases Advanced phrases Numbers See also Dictionaries Grammar Dictionaries Classification | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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