Basque language

Basque
euskara
PronunciationIPA: [eus̺ˈkaɾa]
Native toSpain, France
RegionBasque Country
EthnicityBasque
Native speakers
806,000 (2021)[1]
434,000 passive speakers[2] and 6,000 monoglots[3][4]
Early forms
Dialects
Official status
Official language in
Spain


France

Regulated byEuskaltzaindia
Language codes
ISO 639-1eu
ISO 639-2baq (B)
eus (T)
ISO 639-3eus
Glottologbasq1248
Linguasphere40-AAA-a
Dialect areas of Basque. Light-coloured dialects are extinct. See § Dialects
Basque speakers, including second-language speakers[5]
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
PersonBasque (Euskaldun)
PeopleBasques (Euskaldunak)
LanguageBasque (Euskara)
Culture of Basque Country
History
People
Languages
Traditions
Mythology
Cuisine
Festivals
Literature
Music and performing arts
Sport
Symbols
Family transmission of Basque language (Basque as initial language)
Percentage of students registered in Basque language schools (2000–2005)
Location of the Basque-language provinces within Spain and France

Basque (/ˈbæsk, ˈbɑːsk/;[6] euskara [eus̺ˈkaɾa]) is a language spoken by Basques and other residents of the Basque Country, a region that straddles the westernmost Pyrenees in adjacent parts of northern Spain and southwestern France. Basque is classified as a language isolate (unrelated to any other known languages) and the only language isolate in Europe. The Basques are indigenous to and primarily inhabit the Basque Country.[7] The Basque language is spoken by 806,000 Basques in all territories. Of these, 93.7% (756,000) are in the Spanish area of the Basque Country and the remaining 6.3% (50,000) are in the French portion.[1]

Native speakers live in a contiguous area that includes parts of four Spanish provinces and the three "ancient provinces" in France. Gipuzkoa, most of Biscay, a few municipalities on the northern border of Álava and the northern area of Navarre formed the core of the remaining Basque-speaking area before measures were introduced in the 1980s to strengthen Basque fluency. By contrast, most of Álava, the westernmost part of Biscay, and central and southern Navarre are predominantly populated by native speakers of Spanish, either because Basque was replaced by Spanish over the centuries (as in most of Álava and central Navarre), or because it may never have been spoken there (as in parts of Enkarterri and south-eastern Navarre).

In Francoist Spain, Basque language use was discouraged by the government's repressive policies. In the Basque Country, "Francoist repression was not only political, but also linguistic and cultural."[8] Franco's regime suppressed Basque from official discourse, education, and publishing,[9] making it illegal to register newborn babies under Basque names,[10] and even requiring tombstone engravings in Basque to be removed.[11] In some provinces the public use of Basque was suppressed, with people fined for speaking it.[12] Public use of Basque was frowned upon by supporters of the regime, often regarded as a sign of anti-Francoism or separatism.[13] Overall, in the 1960s and later, the trend reversed and education and publishing in Basque began to flourish.[14] As a part of this process, a standardised form of the Basque language, called Euskara Batua, was developed by the Euskaltzaindia in the late 1960s.

Besides its standardised version, the five historic Basque dialects are Biscayan, Gipuzkoan, and Upper Navarrese in Spain and Navarrese–Lapurdian and Souletin in France. They take their names from the historic Basque provinces, but the dialect boundaries are not congruent with province boundaries. Euskara Batua was created so that the Basque language could be used—and easily understood by all Basque speakers—in formal situations (education, mass media, literature), and this is its main use today. In both Spain and France, the use of Basque for education varies from region to region and from school to school.[15]

Basque is the only surviving language isolate in Europe. The current mainstream scientific view on the origin of the Basques and of their language is that early forms of Basque developed before the arrival of Indo-European languages in the area, i.e. before the arrival of Celtic and Romance languages in particular, as the latter today geographically surround the Basque-speaking region. Typologically, with its agglutinative morphology and ergative–absolutive alignment, Basque grammar remains markedly different from that of Standard Average European languages. Nevertheless, Basque has borrowed up to 40 percent of its vocabulary from Romance languages,[16] and the Latin script is used for the Basque alphabet.

  1. ^ a b "The Basque Language Gains Speakers, but No Surge in Usage – Basque Tribune".
  2. ^ (in French) VI° Enquête Sociolinguistique en Euskal herria (Communauté Autonome d'Euskadi, Navarre et Pays Basque Nord) Archived 21 August 2018 at the Wayback Machine (2016).)
  3. ^ (in Basque) Egoera soziolinguistikoa, Euskal Herriko Soziolinguistikazko II. Inkesta (1996).
  4. ^ (in Basque) Berezko hiztunak, Berria.eus.
  5. ^ The data is the most recent available:
  6. ^ "Basque". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.); [bæsk] US; [bask] or [bɑːsk] UK
  7. ^ Porzucki, Nina (16 May 2018). "How the Basque language has survived". The World from PRX. theworld.org. Retrieved 16 October 2022.
  8. ^ Santiago de Pablo, "Lengua e identidad nacional en el País Vasco: Del franquismo a la democracia". In 'Le discours sur les langues d'Espagne : Edition français-espagnol', Christian Lagarde ed, Perpignan: Presses Universitaires de Perpignan, 2009, pp. 53-64, p. 53
  9. ^ See Jose Carlos Herreras, Actas XVI Congreso AIH. José Carlos HERRERAS. Políticas de normalización lingüística en la España democrática", 2007, p. 2. Reproduced in https://cvc.cervantes.es/literatura/aih/pdf/16/aih_16_2_021.pdf
  10. ^ See "Articulo 1, Orden Ministerial Sobre el Registro Civil, 18 de mayo de 1938". Reproduced in Jordi Busquets, "Casi Tres Siglos de Imposicion", 'El Pais' online, 29 April 2001. https://elpais.com/diario/2001/04/29/cultura/988495201_850215.html.
  11. ^ See Communicacion No. 2486, Negociado 4, Excelentisimo Gobierno Civil de Vizcaya, 27 Octubre de 1949". A letter of acknowledgement from the archive of the Alcaldia de Guernica y Lumo, 2 November 2941, is reproduced in https://radiorecuperandomemoria.com/2017/05/31/la-prohibicion-del-euskera-en-el-franquismo/ Archived 20 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine
  12. ^ See for example the letter from the Military Commander of Las Arenas, Biscay, dated 21 October 1938, acknowledging a fine for the public use of a Basque first name on the streets of Las Arenas, reproduced in https://radiorecuperandomemoria.com/2017/05/31/la-prohibicion-del-euskera-en-el-franquismo/ Archived 20 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ^ "Francisco Franco". HISTORY. A&E Television Networks. 9 November 2009.
  14. ^ Clark, Robert (1979). The Basques: the Franco years and beyond. Reno: University of Nevada Press. p. 149. ISBN 0-874-17057-5.
  15. ^ "Navarrese Educational System. Report 2011/2012" (PDF). Navarrese Educative Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 June 2013. Retrieved 8 June 2013.
  16. ^ "Basque Pidgin Vocabulary in European-Algonquian Trade Contacts." In Papers of the Nineteenth Algonquian Conference, edited by William Cowan, pp. 7–13. https://ojs.library.carleton.ca/index.php/ALGQP/article/download/967/851/0