Salazarese dialect

Salazarese
Zaraitzuko uskara
Native toSpain
RegionSalazar Valley, Navarre
Extinct2000s[citation needed]
Language codes
ISO 639-3
GlottologNone
  Salazarese

Salazarese (locally Zaraitzuko uskara) is the Basque dialect of the Salazar Valley of Navarre, Spain.

In English it is also known as Zaraitzu Basque, the Zaraitzu dialect or Salazar dialect; in Spanish as salacenco and in Basque as Zaraitzuko euskara.

Basque was spoken in the Salazar valley until the first half of the 20th century; ever since, the number of speakers started a dramatic decline. At the time of the 2002 linguistic census,[citation needed] there were only two native speakers, both with ages over 85, and within a few years Salazarese became extinct.[1] However, its features had been documented over the 19th and 20th centuries.

From the 1980s there has been a revival of the Basque language in Spain. As a result, roughly a quarter of the valley's inhabitants now speak Standard Basque. It would be possible to revive the Salazarese dialect to some degree by teaching its features to Batua speakers.

  1. ^ "Ekialdeko nafarra (Euskalkia)". Ahotsak.com.