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Basque language
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Basque (native name: 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.
It is spoken by approximately a quarter of the Basques, with its stronghold in the contiguous area from central Biscay through Gipuzkoa, northern Navarre and parts of Labourd to sparsely populated Lower Navarre and Soule.
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Encyclopedia
Basque (native name: 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.
It is spoken by approximately a quarter of the Basques, with its stronghold in the contiguous area from central Biscay through Gipuzkoa, northern Navarre and parts of Labourd to sparsely populated Lower Navarre and Soule. Until reintroduced into the education system, it had not been spoken in most of Álava, in western Biscay, or in the southern half of Navarre in the recent past. Out of a total of nearly 3,000,000 Basques, it is estimated that some 1,063,000 speak Basque in which 632,000 are native speakers. Approximately 566,000 of the latter live in the Spanish Basque country, with the rest residing in the French part.
A standardised form of the Basque language called Batua was created at the end of the 20th century. This standard is mainly used in the Spanish Basque country, and to a lesser extent in the Northern Basque Country due to the limited availability of schools teaching in Basque or as a subject. Apart from this standardised version, 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.
Names of the language
In Basque, the name of the language is officially Euskara (alongside various dialect forms). There are currently three etymological theories surrounding the etymology of the name Euskera that are taken seriously by linguists and vasconists which are discussed in detail on the Basque people page.
In French the language is normally called basque or, in recent times euskara. There is a greater variety of Spanish names for the language. Today, it is most commonly referred to as el vasco, la lengua vasca or el euskera. Both terms, vasco and basque, are inherited from Latin ethnonym vascones which in turn goes back to the Greek term ??as?????? (ouaskonous), an ethnonym used by Strabo.
The term Vascuence, derived from Latin vasconice has acquired negative connotations over the centuries and is not well liked amongst Basque speakers generally. Its use is documented at least as far back as the 14th century when a law passed in Huesca in 1349 stated that Item nuyl corridor nonsia usado que faga mercadería ninguna que compre nin venda entre ningunas personas, faulando en algaravia nin en abraych nin en basquenç: et qui lo fara pague por coto XXX sol - essentially penalising the use of Arab, Hebrew or Vascuence (Basque) with a fine of 30 sols.
History and classification
Geographically surrounded by Indo-European languages, Basque is classified as a language isolate, the last remaining pre-Indo-European language in Europe. Consequently its prehistory may not be reconstructible by means of the comparative method except by applying it to language internal dialectal differences. Little is known of its origins but it is likely that an early form of the Basque language was present in Western Europe before the arrival of the Indo-European languages to the area.
Latin inscriptions in Aquitania preserve a number of words with cognates in reconstructed proto-Basque, for instance the personal names Nescato and Cison (neskato and gizon mean "young girl" and "man" respectively in modern Basque). This language is generally referred to as Aquitanian and is assumed to have been spoken in the area before the Roman conquests in the western Pyrenees. Roman neglect of this area allowed Aquitanian to survive while the Iberian and Tartessian languages became extinct. Through the long contact with Romance languages, Basque acquired a sizeable number of Romance loans. Initially the source was Latin, later Gascon (a branch of Occitan) in the northeast, Aragonese in the southeast and Spanish in the southwest.
In June 2006, Eliseo Gil claimed to have found at the site of Iruña-Veleia an epigraphic set with a series of 270 Basque inscriptions and drawings from the third century. Some of the words and phrases found were remarkably similar to modern Basque and so were hailed as the first written evidence of Basque. However soon the whole finding came under serious question and the suspicion of an archaeological forgery has become widespread, after an independent team assessed the alleged evidence and concluded in 2008 that it was false.
Hypotheses on connections with other languages
The impossibility of linking Basque with its Indo-European neighbours in Europe has inspired many scholars to search for its possible relatives elsewhere. Besides many pseudoscientific comparisons, the appearance of long-range linguistics gave rise to several attempts to connect Basque with geographically very distant language families. All hypotheses on the origin of Basque are controversial, and the suggested evidence is not generally accepted by most linguists. Some of these hypothetical connections are as follows:
- 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 remains unclassified.
- Georgian: Linking Basque to South Caucasian languages, seems now widely discredited. The hypothesis was inspired by the existence of the ancient Kingdom of Iberia farther east in the Mediterranean. According to J.P. Mallory, in his 1989 book In Search of the Indo-Europeans, the hypothesis was also inspired by a Basque place-name ending in -adze.
- Northeast Caucasian languages, such as Chechen, are seen by some linguists, like Michel Morvan, as more likely candidates for a very distant connection.
- Dene-Caucasian superfamily: Based on the possible Caucasian link, some linguists, for example John Bengtson and Merritt Ruhlen, have proposed including Basque in the Dene-Caucasian superfamily of languages, but this proposed superfamily includes languages from North America and Eurasia, and its existence is highly controversial.
- Vasconic substratum hypothesis: This proposal, by the German linguist Theo Vennemann, claims that there is enough toponymical evidence to conclude that Basque is the only survivor of a larger family that once extended throughout most of Europe, and has also left its mark in modern Indo-European languages spoken in Europe.
Geographic distribution
The region in which Basque is spoken is smaller than what is known as the Basque Country, or Euskal Herria in Basque.
Basque toponyms show that Basque was spoken further along the Pyrenees than today.
An example is the Aran Valley (now a Gascon-speaking part of Catalonia), since haran itself is the Basque word for "valley". However, the growing influence of Latin began to drive Basque out from the less mountainous portions of the region.
The Reconquista temporarily counteracted this tendency when the Christian lords called on northern Iberian peoples — Basques, Asturians, and "Franks" — to colonize the new conquests. The Basque language became the main everyday language, while other languages like Spanish, Gascon, French, or Latin were preferred for the administration and high education.
Basque experienced a rapid decline in Alava and Navarre during the 1800s. However, the rise of Basque nationalism spurred increased interest in the language as a sign of ethnic identity, and with the establishment of autonomous governments, it has recently made a modest comeback. Basque-language schools have brought the language to areas such as Encartaciones and the Navarrese Ribera, where it may have disappeared as a native language in the Middle Ages.
Official status
Historically, Latin or Romance languages have been the official languages in this region.
However, Basque was explicitly recognized in some areas. For instance, 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. However, the use of Basque by Spanish nationals in French courts is allowed (with translation), as Basque is officially recognized on the other side of the border.
The positions of the various existing governments differ with regard to the promotion of Basque in areas where Basque is commonly spoken. The language has official status in those territories that are within the Basque Autonomous Community, where it is spoken and promoted heavily, but only partially in Navarre. Here the "Ley del Vascuence" ("Law of Basque"), seen as contentious by many Basques, divides Navarre into three language areas: Basque-speaking, non-Basque-speaking, and mixed. The support for the language and the linguistic rights of citizens vary depending on which of the three areas you are in.
Dialects
The modern Basque dialects show a high degree of dialectal divergence, sometimes making cross-dialect communication difficult. This is especially true in the case of Zuberoan which is regarded as the most divergent Basque dialect.
Between 6 and 9 recent Basque dialects are normally distinguished:
Influence on other languages
Although the influence of the neighbouring Romance languages on the Basque language (especially the lexicon, but also to some degree Basque phonology and grammar) has been much more extensive, there has been some feedback from Basque into these languages as well. In particular Gascon and Aragonese, and to a lesser degree Spanish have been influenced. In the case of Aragonese and Gascon, this has been through substrate interference following language shift from Aquitanian or Basque to a Romance language, affecting all levels of the language, including place names around the Pyrenees.
Although a number of words of alleged Basque origin in the Spanish language are circulated (eg anchoa 'anchovis', bizarro 'bizarre', perro 'dog' etc), most of these have more easily explicable Romance etymologies or not particularly convincing derivations from Basque. Ignoring cultural terms, the most notable exception are perhaps the Pyrenean and Iberian Romance words for "left (side)" (izquierdo, esquerdo, esquerre, quer, esquer) which are arguably derived from Basque ezker to avoid the connotations of the Latin root sinister. The lack of initial /r/ in Basque and Gascon, which both employ prosthetic vowels, could arguably be due to a Basque influence but this issue is under-researched.
The other most commonly claimed substrate influences:
- the Old Spanish merger of /v/ and /b/.
- the simple five vowel system.
- change of initial /f/ into /h/ and a later zero (eg fablar ? hablar, with Old Basque lacking /f/.
However, these alleged influences on Spanish are difficult to maintain for a number of reasons:
- Old Spanish b was almost invariably realised as a bilabial fricative /ß/, making a simple merger between /v/ and /ß/ much more likely. In addition, this shift also took place widely in the Romance world in languages like Portuguese, Galician, Occitan and Catalan, where it is difficult to argue for Basque adstratum or substratum influence.
- 5 vowel systems are amongst the most common in the world and do not constitute any sort of reliable evidence of adstratum or substratum influences.
- There are various issues with the /f/ to /h/ proposal. 1) Spanish did not fully shift /f/ to /h/, instead, it has preserved /f/ before /ue/ and /?/ (cf fuerte, frente). 2) Evidence of Arabic loanwords in Castilian points to /f/ continuing to exist long after a Basque substrate might have had any effect on Castilian. 3) Basque regularly developed Latin /f/ into /b/. 4) The same change also occurs in Gascon, parts of Sardinia, Italy and the Romance languages of the Balkans where no Basque substrate can be reasonably argued for. Hence the position of Castilian /f/ to /h/ developing due to Basque influences is untenable.
Beyond these arguments, a number of traveller groups of Castile are also said to use or have used Basque words in their jargon, such as the gacería, the mingaña and the Galician fala dos arxinas.
Some gypsy communities in the Basque Country spoke Erromintxela, which mixes Romany vocabulary with Basque syntax and morphology (comparable to the Caló of the Spanish-speaking Gitanos).
Basque pidgins
A number of Basque-based or influenced pidgins existed. In the 16th Century, Basque sailors used a Basque-Icelandic pidgin in their contacts with Iceland. Another Basque pidgin arose from contact between Basque whalers and the indigenous inhabitants in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Strait of Belle Isle.
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 any direct object and the indirect object present. Among European languages, this polypersonal system (multiple verb agreement) is only found in Basque, some Caucasian languages, and Hungarian (all non-Indo-European). The ergative-absolutive alignment is also unique among European languages, but not rare worldwide.
Consider the phrase:
- '
- "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 means "he/she (does) them for me". This dizkit can be split like this:
- di- is used in the present tense when the verb has a subject (ergative), a direct object (absolutive), and an indirect object, and the object is he/she/it/them.
- -zki- means the absolutive (in this case the newspapers) is plural, if it were singular there would be no infix; and
- -t or '-da-' means "to me/for me" (indirect object).
- in this instance there is no suffix after -t. A zero suffix in this position indicates that the ergative (the subject) is third person singular (he/she/it).
The phrase "you buy the newspapers for me" would translate as:
- '
The auxiliary verb is composed as di-zki-da-zue and means 'you pl. (do) them for me'
- di- = direct object, present tense
- -zki- = direct object is plural
- -da- = indirect object (to me/for me)
- -zue = subject (you pl.)
In spoken Basque, the auxiliary verb is often dropped when redundant: "Zuek niri egunkariak erosten ", you pl. buying the newspapers for me. Whenever it is not dropped, the pronouns are almost always dropped: "egunkariak erosten dizkidazue", the newspapers buying be-them-for-me-you(plural). The pronouns are used only to show emphasis: "egunkariak zuek erosten dizkidazue", it is you (pl.) who buy the newspapers for me; or "egunkariak niri erosten dizkidazue", it is me for whom you buy the newspapers.
Modern Basque dialects allow for the conjugation of about fifteen verbs, called synthetic verbs, some only in literary contexts. These can be put in the present and past tenses in the indicative and subjunctive moods, in three tenses in the conditional and potential moods, and in one tense in the imperative. Colloquial Basque, however, only uses indicative present, indicative past, and imperative. Each verb that can be taken intransitively has a nor (absolutive) paradigm and possibly a nor-nori (absolutive-dative) paradigm, as in the sentence Aititeri txapela erori zaio ("The hat fell from grandfather['s head]"). Each verb that can be taken transitively uses those two paradigms for passive-voice contexts in which no agent is mentioned, and also has a nor-nork (absolutive-ergative) paradigm and possibly a nor-nori-nork (absolutive-dative-ergative) paradigm. The last would entail the dizkidazue example above. In each paradigm, each constituent noun can take on any of eight persons, five singular and three plural, with the exception of nor-nori-nork in which the absolutive can only be third person singular or plural. (This draws on a language universal: *"Yesterday the boss presented the committee me" sounds at least odd, if not incorrect.) The most ubiquitous auxiliary, izan, can be used in any of these paradigms, depending on the nature of the main verb.
There are more persons in the singular (5) than in the plural (3) for synthetic verbs because of the two familiar persons—informal masculine and feminine second person singular. The pronoun hi is used for both of them, but where the masculine form of the verb uses a -k, the feminine uses an -n. This is a property not found in Indo-European languages. The entire paradigm of the verb is further augmented by inflecting for "listener" (the allocutive) even if the verb contains no second person constituent. If the situation is one in which the familiar masculine may be used, the form is augmented and modified accordingly; likewise for the familiar feminine.
(Gizon bat etorri da, "a man has come"; gizon bat etorri duk, "a man has come [you are a male close friend]", gizon bat etorri dun, "a man has come [you are a female close friend]", gizon bat etorri duzu, "a man has come [I talk to you]")
Notice that this nearly multiplies the number of possible forms by three. Still, the restriction on contexts in which these forms may be used is strong since all participants in the conversation must be friends of the same sex, and not too far apart in age. Some dialects dispense with the familiar forms entirely. Note, however, that the formal second person singular conjugates in parallel to the other plural forms, perhaps indicating that it used to be the second person plural, started being used as a singular formal, and then the modern second person plural was formulated as an innovation.
All the other verbs in Basque are called periphrastic, behaving much like a participle would in English. These have only three forms total, called aspects: perfect (various suffixes), habitual (suffix -t[z]en), and future/potential (suffix. -ko/-go). Verbs of Latinate origin in Basque, as well as many other verbs, have a suffix -tu in the perfect, adapted from the Latin -tus suffix. The synthetic verbs also have periphrastic forms, for use in perfect tenses and in simple tenses in which they are deponent.
Within a verb phrase, the periphrastic comes first, followed by the auxiliary.
A Basque noun-phrase 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, with two levels of recursion, a Basque noun may have 458,683 inflected forms.
Basic syntactic construction is Subject-Objects-Verb (unlike Spanish, French or English where Subject-Verb-Objects construction is more common). The order of the phrases within a sentence can be changed with thematic purposes, whereas the order of the words within a phrase is usually rigid. As a matter of fact, Basque phrase order is topic-focus, meaning that in neutral sentences (such as sentences to inform someone of a fact or event) the topic is stated first, then the focus. In such sentences, the verb phrase comes at the end. In brief, the focus directly precedes the verb phrase. This rule is also applied in questions, for instance, What is this? can be translated as Zer da hau? or Hau zer da?, but in both cases the question tag zer immediately precedes the verb da. This rule is so important in Basque that, even in grammatical descriptions of Basque in other languages, the Basque word galdegai (focus) is used.
In negative sentences, the order changes. Since the negative particle ez must always directly precede the auxiliary, the topic most often comes beforehand, and the rest of the sentence follows. This includes the periphrastic, if there is one: Aitak frantsesa ikasten du, "Father is learning French," in the negative becomes Aitak ez du frantsesa ikasten, in which ikasten ("learning") is separated from its auxiliary and placed at the end.
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 voiceless apicoalveolar fricative is written s; the tip of the tongue 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 Zuberoan 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, indicating a strong influence from French.
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 (and for historical comparisons not very useful); 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; an adoption 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 pronunciation that is considered substandard; e.g., pronouncing nire ama ("my mum") as nire áma (- - ´ -), instead of as niré amà (- ´ - `).
Vocabulary
By contact with neighbouring peoples, Basque has adopted many words from Latin, Spanish, Gascon, among others. There is a considerable number of Latin loans (sometimes obscured by being subject to Basque phonology and grammar for centuries), for example: 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 Cc, Qq, Vv, Ww, Yy except for loanwords; nevertheless, the adopted Basque alphabet (established by Euskaltzaindia) does include them.
- Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Ññ Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz
The phonetically meaningful digraphs dd, ll, rr, ts, tt, tx, tz are treated as double letters.
All letters and digraphs represent unique phonemes. The main exception is when l or n are preceded by i, that in most dialects palatalizes their sound into /?/ and /?/, even if these are not written. Hence, Ikurriña can also be written Ikurrina without changing the sound, while the proper name Ainhoa requires the mute h to break the palatalization of the n.
H is mute in most regions, but in the Northeast is pronounced in many places, the main reason for its existence in the Basque alphabet.
Its acceptance was a matter of contention during the standardization since the speakers of the most extended dialects had to learn where to place these silent h's.
In Sabino Arana's (1865-1903) orthography, ll and rr were replaced with l and r, respectively.
A typically Basque style of lettering is sometimes used for inscriptions.
It derives from the work of stone and wood carvers and is characterized by thick serifs.
Number system used by millers
Basque millers traditionally employed a separate number system of unknown origin. In this system the symbols are either arranged along a vertical line or horizontally. On the vertical line the single digits and fractions are usually off to one side, usually at the top. When used horizontally, the smallest units are usually on the right and the largest on the left.
The system is, as is the Basque system of counting in general, vigesimal. Although the system is in theory capable of indicating numbers above 100, most recorded examples do not go above 100 in general. Interestingly, fractions are relatively common, especially 1/2.
The exact systems used vary from area to area but generally follow the same principle with 5 usually being a diagonal line or a curve off the vertical line (a V shape is used when writing a 5 horizontally). Units of ten are usually a horizontal line through the vertical. The twenties are based on a circle with intersecting lines.
This system is not in general use anymore but is occasionally employed for decorative purposes.
Phrases
Basic phrases
- Bai = Yes
- Ez = No
- Kaixo! = Hello
- Agur! / Aio! = Goodbye!
- Ikusi arte = See you!
- Eskerrik asko! = Thank you!
- Egun on = Good morning (literally: Good day)
- Egun on, bai = Standard reply to Egun on
- Arratsalde on = Good evening
- Gabon = Good night
- Mesedez = Please
- Barkatu = Excuse (me) (when asking for something)
- Barkatu = I'm sorry.
- Aizu! = Listen! (To get someone's attention, not very polite, to be used with friends)
- ' = Can I have a coffee?
- ' = Can I have a macchiato?
- Kafesnea nahi nuke = Can I have a café latte?
- Garagardoa nahi nuke = Can I have a beer?
- Komunak = Toilets
- Non dago komuna? = Where are the toilets?
- Non dago tren-geltokia? = Where is the train station?
- Non dago autobus-geltokia? = Where is the bus station?
- Ba al da hotelik hemen inguruan? = Is there any hotel around here?
- Zorionak = Happy holidays (During Christmas and new year's), congratulations or could be Happy birthday.
- Zer moduz? = How are you?
Advanced phrases
- Eup! = The colloquial way of greeting someone on the street, also apa or aupa or iep!.
- Kaixo aspaldiko! = Like Kaixo, but adds "Long time, no see"-meaning.
- Eskerrik asko = Thank you (very much).
- Ez horregatik = You're welcome (response to Eskerrik asko).
- Ez dut ulertzen = I don't understand
- ' = I don't speak Basque
- ' = Do you speak English?
- Neska polit(t)a / Neska ederra = (You're a) beautiful girl
- Zein da zure izena? = What is your name?
- Pozten nau zu ezagutzeak = Nice to meet you
- Ongi etorri! = Welcome!
- Egun on denoi = Good morning everyone!
- Berdin/Hala zuri ere = The same to you (E.g. after Kaixo or Egun on)
- Jakina! / Noski! / Bai horixe! = Sure! OK!
- Nongoa zara? = Where are you from?
- Euskalerrikoa naiz = I am from the Basque Country.
- Non bizi zara?=Where do you live?
- Non dago...? = Where is...?
- Badakizu euskaraz? = Do you speak Basque?
- Bai ote? = Really? Maybe?
- Bizi gara!! = We are alive!!
- Bagarela!! = So we are!! (Answer to the above)
- Topa! / Txin-txin = Cheers!
- Hementxe! = Over/right here!
- Geldi! = Stop
- Lasai = Take it easy
- Ez dut nahi = I don't want it
- Kaka zaharra! = Crap! (Literally old crap)
- Emak bakia! (Emak bakea! in Standard Basque) = Leave me alone! (Best known for being used by the artist Man Ray as both the title of a film and a sculpture). It can also be interpreted as "The female [gives] the peace".
Numbers
The Basque numbering system is vigesimal.
| 0 | zero, or huts | | 1 | bat | | 2 | bi | | 3 | hiru | | 4 | lau | | 5 | bost | | 6 | sei | | 7 | zazpi | | 8 | zortzi | | 9 | bederatzi | | 10 | hamar | | 11 | hamaika | | 12 | hamabi | | 13 | hamahiru | | 14 | hamalau | | 15 | hamabost | | 16 | hamasei | | 17 | hamazazpi | | 18 | hemezortzi | | 19 | hemeretzi | | 20 | hogei | | 21 | hogeita bat | | 22 | hogeita bi | | 23 | hogeita hiru | | 30 | hogeita hamar | (literal meaning split: hogei-ta-hamar = twenty-and-ten = 20+10) | | 31 | hogeita hamaika | (hogei-ta-hamaika = twenty-and-eleven = 20+11) | | 40 | berrogei | (ber-hogei = two times-twenty = 2×20) | | 50 | berrogeita hamar | (ber-hogei-ta-hamar = two times-twenty-and-ten = 2×20+10) | | 60 | hirurogei | (hirur-hogei = three times-twenty = 3×20) | | 70 | hirurogeita hamar | (hirur-hogei-ta-hamar = three times-twenty-and-ten = 3×20+10) | | 80 | laurogei | (laur-hogei = four times-twenty = 4×20) | | 90 | laurogeita hamar | (laur-hogei-ta-hamar = four times-twenty-and-ten = 4×20+10) | | 100 | ehun | | 200 | berrehun | | 300 | hirurehun | | 1000 | mila | | 2000 | bi mila | | 1,000,000 | milioi bat | | number _____ | _____ zenbaki (train, bus, etc.) | | half | erdi | | less | gutxiago | | more | gehiago |
Examples
The blacksmith slave
Captive in the rainforests of the West
they brought you to Rome, slave,
they gave you the blacksmith work
and you make chains.
The red iron that you carry out the oven
can be adapted as you want,
you can make swords
in order that your people could break the chains,
but you, this slave,
you make chains, more chains.
:Joseba Sarrionandia |
Esklabu erremintaria
Sartaldeko oihanetan gatibaturik
erromara ekarri zinduten, esklabua,
erremintari ofizioa eman zizuten
eta kateak egiten dituzu.
Labetik ateratzen duzun burdin goria
nahieran molda zenezake,
ezpatak egin ditzakezu
zure herritarrek kateak hauts deitzaten,
baina zuk, esklabu horrek,
kateak egiten dituzu, kate gehiago.
:Joseba Sarrionandia |
See also
Dictionaries
Etymological dictionaries
- M. Löpelmann, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der baskischen Sprache, Berlin, 1968.
- R.L. Trask edited for web publication by Max W. Wheeler (University of Sussex, 2008). An edition of the unfinished etymological dictionary of the late R. L. Trask.
External links
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- Ethnologue has reports on (ISO 639-1: eu), (ISO 639-3: bqe) and .
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- · Issue 18, 1978. Miguel Echegaray shares several suggestions of possible etymological connections between Basque and English words.
- from
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- in the Rosetta Project
- of the Basque Government
- incl. sound file
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Grammar
Dictionaries
- (67,000 headwords + 120,000 expressions and idioms)
Classification
Basque lettering
- , by P. and J. de Zabalo, Biblioteca de Cultura Vasca, Editorial Vasca Ekin, Buenos Aires, 1947. Designs for a national typography derived from Medieval and Modern-Age inscriptions.
- , a blog post reviewing Basque-style computer fonts.
- , in the Spanish-language Auñamendi Encyclopedia.
Basque media
Bibliography
- BENGTSON, John D., 2004. "Some features of Dene-Caucasian phonology (with special reference to Basque)." Cahiers de l'Institut de Linguistique de Louvain (CILL).
- BENGTSON, John D., 2006. "Materials for a Comparative Grammar of the Dene-Caucasian (Sino-Caucasian) Languages."
- BENGTSON, John D., 1997. Review of "The History of Basque". London: Routledge, 1997. Pp.xxii,458" by R.L. Trask.
- BENGTSON, John D., 1997. "Ein Vergleich von Burushaski und Nordkaukasisch". In "GEORGICA (Zeitschrift für Kultur, Sprache und Geschichte Georgiens und Kaukasiens)."
- BENGTSON, John D., 1996. "A Final Response to the Basque Debate in Mother Tongue 1."
- HUALDE, José Ignacio & ORTIZ DE URBINA, Jon (eds.): A Grammar of Basque. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003. ISBN 3-11-017683-1.
- MORVAN, Michel, 1996. The linguistic origins of basque (in French). Bordeaux: Presses universitaires. ISBN 2-86781-182-1
- ORPUSTAN, Jean-Baptiste, 1999. The basque language in the Middle Ages (in French). Baigorri. ISBN 2-909262-22-7.
- SOTA, M. de la, et alii, 1976: Diccionario Retana de autoridades de la lengua vasca: con cientos de miles de nuevas voces y acepciones, Antiguas y modernas, Bilbao: La Gran Enciclopedia Vasca. ISBN 8424802489.
- TRASK, R. Larry: History of Basque. New York/London: Routledge, 1996. ISBN 0-415-13116-2.
- MORVAN, Michel: Etymological Dictionary of the Basque Language (forthcoming).
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