Basque leid

Family transmission o Basque leid (Basque as initial leid)

Location o the Basque-leid provinces athin Spain an Fraunce

Basque (Basque: Euskara, pronounced [eus̺kaɾa]) is the ancestral leid o the Basque fowk, who inhabit the Basque kintra, a region spannin an aurie in northeastren Spain an soothwastren Fraunce. It is spaken bi 25.7% o Basques in aw territories (665,800 oot o 2,589,600). Of these, 614,000 live in the Spainyie pairt o the Basque kintra an the remainin 51,800 live in the French pairt.

In academic discussions o the distribution o Basque in Spain an Fraunce, it is customary tae refer tae three ancient provinces in Fraunce an fower Spainyie provinces. Native speakers are concentratit in a contiguous aurie includin pairts o the Spainyie Autonomous Communities o the Basque Autonomous Community (Spainyie: País Vasco; Euskara: Euskadi) an Navarre an in the wastren hauf o the French Département o Pyrénées-Atlantiques. The Autonomous Community o País Vasco/Euskadi is an admeenistrative entity athin the binational ethnographic Basque Kintra incorporatin the traditional Spainyie provinces o Biscay, Gipuzkoa, an Álava, which retain their existence as politico-admeenistrative divisions.

These provinces an mony auries o Navarre are hivily populatit bi ethnic Basques, but the Euskara leid haed, at least till the 1990s, aw but disappeared from maist o Álava, wastren pairts o Biscay an central an soothren auries o Navarre. In soothwastren France, the ancient Basque-populatit provinces wur Labourd, Lawer Navarre, an Soule. They an ither regions wur consolidatit intae a single département back in 1790 unner the name Basses-Pyrénées, which name persisted till 1969.

A standardized form o the Basque leid, cawed Euskara Batua, wis developed bi the Basque Language Academy in the late 1960s. Euskara Batua is mainly uised in the Spainyie Basque Kintra. In France the Basque leid school Seaska an the association for a bilingual schoolin Ikasbi meet a wide range o Basque leid educational needs up tae the Saxt Form, while aften strugglin tae surmount financial an admeenistrative constraints.

Apart from this standardized version, there are sax main Basque dialects, corresponding to the above mentioned historic provinces populated by Basques: Bizkaian, Gipuzkoan, and Upper Navarrese in Spain and Lower Navarrese, Lapurdian, and Zuberoan (in Fraunce). However, the dialect boundaries are not congruent with political boundaries.

Names o the language

In Basque, the name o the leid is offeecially Euskara (alangside various dialect forms). There are currently three etymological theories o the name Euskara that are taken seriously bi linguists an vasconists which are discussed in detail on the Basque fowk page.

In French the leid is normally cawed basque or, in recent times, euskara. There is a greater variety o Spainyie names for the leid. Today, it is maist commonly referred tae as el vasco, la lengua vasca or el euskera. Baith terms, vasco an basque, are inheritit frae Latin ethnonym Vascones which in turn goes back tae the Greek term ουασκωνους (ouaskōnous), an ethnonym uised bi Strabo in his Geographica (23 AD, Book III).

The term Vascuence, derived frae Latin vasconĭce, haes acquired negative connotations ower the centuries an is no well liked amangst Basque speakers generally. Its uise is documentit at least as far back as the 14t century when a law passed in Huesca in 1349 statit 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 penalizin the uise o Arabic, Hebrew or Vascuence (Basque) wi a fine o 30 sols.

History an classification

Though geographically surroondit bi Indo-European Romance leids, Basque is classified as a leid isolate. It is the last remainin pre-Indo-European leid in Wastren Europe. Consequently, its prehistory mey no be reconstructible bi means o the comparative method except bi applyin it tae differences atween dialects athin the leid. Little is kent o its oreegins but it is likely that an early form o the Basque leid wis present in Wastren Europe afore the arrival o the Indo-European leids tae the aurie.

Latin inscriptions in Aquitania preserve a number o wirds wi cognates in reconstructit proto-Basque, for instance the personal names Nescato an Cison (neskato an gizon mean "yung girl" an "man" respectively in modern Basque). This leid is generally referred tae as Aquitanian an is assumed tae hae been spoken in the aurie afore the Roman conquests in the wastren Pyrenees. Roman neglect o this aurie alloued Aquitanian tae survive while the Iberian an Tartessian leids became extinct. Through the lang contact wi Romance leids, Basque adoptit a sizable number o Romance wirds. Initially the source wis Latin, later Gascon (a branch o Occitan) in the northeast, Navarro-Aragonese in the sootheast an Spainyie in the soothwast.

Freemit airtins

• Deustuko:Basque leid course (spainyie)
• Schools o leids o the Basque kintra that teach Basque
• Euskaltzaindia (The Royal Academy o the Basque Leid) offeecial web
• Ethnologue haes reports on Basque (ISO 639-1: eu), Navarro-Labourdin (ISO 639-3: bqe) an Souletin Basque.
• Center for Basque Studies at University o Nevada, Reno
• Basque language at Buber.net
• Basque Studies Program Newsletter · Issue 18, 1978. Miguel Echegaray shares several suggestions of possible etymological connections between Basque and English words.
• Linguistic maps o Basque Kintra
• Euskara Kultur Elkargoa-Basque Cultural Foundation
• Basque in the Rosetta Project
• Depairtment o Leid Policy o the Basque Government
• Basque Culture Institute
• Dictionnaire étymologique basque by Michel Morvan. (interactive dictionary, non standard, with idiosyncratic etymological theories and no references).

Basque media

• Berria: Newspaper (Basque)
• EiTB: Tv an radio (Basque)
• Argia: Weekly magazine (Basque)

Dictionaries

• Elhuyar Basque Spanish Dictionary
• Morris Basque-English Dictionary
• Hiztegia 3000 Online bidirectional Spanish-Euskara dictionary

Grammar

• University o the Basque Kintra: A Brief Grammar o Euskara, the Basque Leid
• Basque Verb Tables

Classification

• History of the Basque Language by Manfred Owstrowski)
• A Final (?) Response to the Basque Debate in Mother Tongue 1 by John D. Bengston (scanned pages)

Basque letterin

• Basque alphabet accordin tae Euskaltzaindia
• Arquitectura popular y grafía vasca, bi P. an J. de Zabalo, Biblioteca de Cultura Vasca, Editorial Vasca Ekin, Buenos Aires, 1947. Designs for a naitional typography derived frae Medieval an Modern-Age inscriptions.
• Tipografías vascas, a blog post reviewin Basque-style computer fonts.
• Grafía vasca, in the Spainyie-leid Auñamendi Encyclopedia.

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Basque language