Bla bla bla

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nooj
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Wed Aug 25, 2021 11:08 am

The change of /j/ into > [f] is super interesting and happens in a couple of other Basque dialects, geographically not connected to each other. For example in the Sakana valley in western Nafarroa, which I walked through (I must talk more about this later!). This happens when the consonant occurs next to /u o/ vowels, like joan > fan, as well as historically and more generally in Basque such as *gauhari > *auhari > afari (dinner).


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As I said I walked through the beautiful Sakana valley, well worth visiting for the nature alone. There's about 20 thousand people who live there all up. Sakana is split into three valleys, Burunda, Ergoiena and Arakil. Of these I only got the chance to see the Burunda valley, after hitchhiking from Lizarra to the town of Etxarri-Aranatz and walking west until I eventually crossed into Araba. Etxarri-Aranatz (very much a Basque speaking town) and everything east of it speaks a western Navarran dialect, whereas everything west of Etxarri-Aranatz, in the Burunda valley, used to traditionally speak its own unique transitional dialect, at the crossroads of Araba, Navarra and Gipuzkoa.

Here's a picture I took of a mural in Ziordia, I think it was, imagining the Valley as a spine and the towns as its vertebrae. There's also various symbols here. The yellow one is the symbol for 'Alde Hemendik', meaning 'Get out', and is used to reovindicate the removal or expulsion of the occupying French and Spanish police or military forces. There's the purple feminist symbol at the top. The white one with the outline of the Basque Country is to demand the end of the policy of dispersing Basque prisoners throughout the country, ostensibly to avoid the concentration of terrorist forces. This policy no longer has any purpose given that ETA disbanded years ago.

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Unfortunately, the Burunda valley lost its natural dialects of Basque in the last century, except for the town of Urdiain, population 677. It's the only one to have kept its unique dialect.

If you want to learn more about the dialects of the Burunda valley, or learn to speak it, this book is obligatory reading, Sakanako euskara. Burundako hizkera (2010) by the omnivorous and omnipresent linguist Koldo Zuazo. You can download it for free here. Zuazo studied intensively the dialect of Urdiain, as well as the remaining native speakers of neighbouring towns. It's written in Basque, as most Basque grammars are.

Naturally I visited the town itself, but not only the town itself but the surrounding area. In particular I recommend the town swimming pool, located up in the mountains and in the middle of some beautiful forests.

When I was there, the swimming pool and the attached bar were run by four young guys from Altsasu, with the aim of earning some money during summer. The food is excellent, the ambiance is peaceful, and
naturally all four were Basque speakers. Because Altsasu lost its natural dialect, they spoke standard Basque (nothing wrong with that!). Supposedly the water for the pools comes straight from the mountains, so it's quite cold when swimming... perfect for summer.

The facade of the town hall of Urdiain:

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Prominently featured are the Navarran flag, as well as the coat of arms of all 7 Basque provinces. Baxe-Nafarroa's coat of arms is not there, it's subsumed under the one of Navarra. And you have as well the ikurriña, the Basque flag. All this lets you know that you're dealing with an administration of Basque nationalists. It says "hauek bai gureak", meaning "THESE (symbols) are ours". There's no Spanish flag.

The following picture is from the Twitter account of a young woman from Urdiain. Showcasing a trait that I mentioned before which seems to have been independently (?) formed in both Oñati and in the Burunda valley, the /j/ -> [f] change. Note also the super cool use of bekela (like, as) instead of bezala, which is the standard form.

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In standard Basque:

Sekula joango ez den batek bezala
Esaten dut agur
Joan nahian
Eta geratu ezinean


Out of curiosity, here's how it would look like in the dialect of my town:

Sekula jungo ez dan batek bezala/lez
Esaten dot agur
Jun [ʒun] nahijan ['najʒan]
Eta geratu/lotu exinian. [eʃi'nijan]


Meaning:

Like someone who will never leave
I say good-bye
Wanting to leave
And not able to stay
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Thu Aug 26, 2021 9:32 am



Lazkao Txiki (1926-1993), his true name being Joxe Miel Iztueta, was a great bertsolari. And in this video from 1989 we see him in his natural element, not in front of a grand audience, although he did competitions too, but in one of the more intimate settings where you hear bertsoak composed, with friends.

The theme setter gave him a mirror and tells him to sing to it.

Oso ispilu eder polit bat
didate aurrera ekarri,
eman duenak jakingo zuen
mutilzahar zahar honen berri,
gazte dan arte hau izaten da
gazte guztien pozgarri,
zahartutakoan ez da beiratzen
gaztetan hain bezin sarri.


A very beautiful mirror
They have brought in front of me
The one who gave it probably knew
All about me, this old bachelor.
So long as one is young, this (the mirror)
Is the joy of every youth
But when one has grown old
It's not looked at as often.

Aizak nik hiri bota behar dit
bertso koxkor bat edo bi,
behingoan jarri geranez gero
biok aurpegiz-aurpegi,
neri begira hortik daduzkat
alperrikako bi begi,
hik ez nauk noski ni ikusiko,
baina nik ikusten haut hi.


Listen mirror, I have to sing to you
One or two nice verses
As at last, we find ourselves
Facing face to face
Looking at me I see
Two useless eyes
You obviously won't see me,
But I see you.

Neri begira jarrita, motel,
zertako hago honela,
ta pentsatzen dit aspalditxotik
ezagututzen hautela,
mutilzaharraren moko horrekin
ez dek ematen motela,
azal zimurtzen ari haiz, motel,
Lazkao-Txiki bezela.


Friend, why are you there
Staring at me like that?
I think that I know you
From a while back
With that bachelor's mug
You don't look like a slow one
Your skin is wrinkling, friend
Like Lazkao Txiki.

hautela - haudala in standard Basque (nik-hi). Not to be confused with the homophonous haute of haiek-hi, in that case in both dialects it would look the same, hautela.

dit - diat in standard Basque. Despite the appearance it has nothing to do with the standard Basque dit (hark niri zerbait).

daduzkat - dauzkat in standard Basque. The diphthongisation in standard Basque is obligatory, dadukat>da(d)ukat>daukat, but for metrical purposes (3 syllables vs 2) it's very useful for Lazkao Txiki to keep the original form that still exists in his dialect.

Lazkao Txiki was from Lazkao, a town in the region of Goierri in the province of Gipuzkoa. Sometimes thought of as the heartland of Gipuzkoa. Here you can see how even if the standard language was partly based on the literary Gipuzkoa dialect, the varied and various natural dialects of Gipuzkoa are not identical to the standard language.

Yesterday I was reading a Basque book about oral art in other countries and I found a section about oral improvisitational poetry among the Amazigh. This one is also about mirrors, by a poet called Ali Widda. And has a Basque translation:

Usigh kem a tisit
Ur ek ktigh a yighef inu
Ur ek ukizegh allig sawelegh

Ispilua hartu dut, naiz ohartu ni neu nintzela
Hitz egin dudanean baino ez dut antzeman neure burua

I took the mirror
And I realised that it was me
Only when I'm speaking
Am I conscious of myself
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Thu Aug 26, 2021 4:56 pm

Here's a mural of Lazkao Txiki in the town of Ordizia, also in the Goierri region.

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At the top, a quote from the bertsolari, which in my opinion should serve as one of the guiding lights of the Basque language revitalisation movement:

Martxa honetan aurki erdaraz hitz egingo dugu, euskaraz ari garelakoan


At this rhythm, we'll soon be speaking in Spanish/French all the while believing that we're speaking in Basque.

Are we thinking and speaking in Basque? Because if we're not careful about the quality of our language, we will speak euskañol or euskançais, all the while thinking we're still speaking 'Basque'. And soon not even euskañol and euskançais, just Spanish and French.

It's quite insidious actually. And I'm not even talking about gross mistakes that comes from calquing, or the very frequent code-switching...all this has been talked about. The fact that Basque is a minoritised language affects pragmatics. The fact that many many Basque speakers don't use the (abundant!) swear words that already exist in Basque, instead replacing them with French or Spanish swear words is one example. Or it affects stylistics. Even a text that is technically perfectly grammatical in Basque can be written in a way that sounds very French or Spanish.
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Fri Aug 27, 2021 5:48 pm

Rummaging around in the library I stumbled upon an interesting little book 'Bakartasunaz bi hitz' (Two words about isolation) published in 2004 by Filipe Bidart (1953-), born in Baigorri, so in the North Basque Country.

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Bidart was the founding member of Iparretarrak (the Northerners), a North Basque terrorist group that was active in Iparralde between 1973 and 2000. The South Basque terrorist group ETA was also around, but they used the North Basque Country as a place to hide out and restock. They generally didn't pick fights with the French. Iparretarrak however were natives of the North Basque Country, so their self proclaimed goal was to liberate the North Basque Country from France. Their lema was 'Herriak bizi behar du' (the Basque country needs to live), which you can see painted on the mural behind him.

He was imprisoned in 1988 and served 19 years, convicted of having murdered several French police officers. The book is about the first two years of his prison sentence, which were spent in isolation, without contact with other prisoners. After a public campaign, he was moved into the general prison population in 1990, and today France does not usually use this technique of isolation, except for short periods of around 10 or 15 days. Bidart writes about the psychological impact of this isolation technique, meant to wear down the prisoner mentally.

Gizakia ez da bakarrik bizitzeko sortua, arnasa bezain beharrezkoa du bere kideen berotasuna, soa, harremana. Bakarrik ez daiteke bizi. Gizakia bere kideekin harremanean eraikitzen, handitzen, garatzen, osatzen da, landare bat lur on, ongailu, iguzki, aire eta urarekin edertzen den bezalaxe. Hortako da erraiten bakartasuna tortura xuria dela. Zendako xuria? Oharkabea baita. Landare bat eihartzen den bexalaxe, emeki-emeki, egunez egun, lehenik kolorez aldatuz, gero hostoak galduz, gero idortuz, arrunt murriztu eta lurreratzeraino.


Man was not created to live alone, he needs the relationship, the glance, the warmth of his fellow men like he needs to breathe. Man cannot live alone. Man is built, grows, develops and is fulfilled by relating to others, like a plant is beautified by good soil, fertiliser, sun, air and water. That's why isolation is said to be 'clean torture'. Why clean? Because it isn't noticeable. Like a plant that withers, slowly, day by day, first changing colour, then losing its leaves, then drying out, pruned...and then falls to the ground.

Here he describes the first day he's allowed into the general population to meet with fellow Basque prisoners in the courtyard.

Ze plazera! Eta jendea! Preso andana bat, mundu bat enetzat, hainbeste denboraz bakarrik egon ondoan...sekulako jendezionea. Eta ni haien artean, arrunt galdua, hainbeste berrikuntzaren artean galdurik, xoraturik, liluraturik. Kalakan denekin, kalakan denetan, sekulako burrunba beharrietan! Ohiturarik ez gehiago. Jendeen artean izaiteko usuaia galdua. Oren erdi baten buruan, sekulako buruko mina nuen. Ibilaldia bururatu zenean, oren eta erdiren buruan, gogotik sartu nintzen berriz zeldara, begiak zeru urdin eta iguzki argiz beterik, beharriak kalakaz beterik, ibiltokiko burrunbatik urrun, hainbeste jenderen artetik berritz ihesi ene zeldako bakartasunera. Baina lasai, laster ohituko naiz ene bizitza berriari, eta laster detentzioneko ibiltokia ere ttipiegia idurituko zait, arrunt mugatua, eta oren bat eta erdiko ibilaldia, laburregia. Nahiz eta kaiola handiago batean izan, beti kaiola batean halere.


What a feeling! And what people! A bunch of prisoners, for me, an entire world, after so long being alone...an incredible multitude. I was among them, quite lost, lost amongst so much novelty, amazed, dumbstruck. Chatting with everyone! Chatting about everything! An incredible buzz of conversation in my ears. I didn't have the habit anymore. I'd lost the habit of being with people. After just an hour and a half I had a massive headache. When the time was up, I went back happily to my cell, my eyes full of the blue sky and the sun's rays, ears ringing with noise, far from the buzz of the courtyard, back to the silence of the cell. But no worries, soon I'll get used to it, and to my new life as well, and soon even the courtyard will seem too small to me, too limited, and an hour and a half of free time will seem too short. Even a bigger cage remains a cage.

The last lines of the book:

Etsaia beti entseatzen baita, handik eta hemendik, denboraren poderioz gure higaztera...Baina euskal presoen elkartasunari esker eta gure herriaren sostenguari esker, ezin garaituak gira....

Gora Euskal Herria!


The enemy always tries to grind us down through the medium of time... but thanks to the solidarity of Basque prisoners and to the support of our country, we cannot be defeated...

Long live the Basque Country!

After having read quite a lot of 'heavily' written Basque literature and prose, it's quite a relief to read a very simple book with no overweaning literary pretensions. It reads easily and I got very wrapped up in his descriptions of the minutiae of prison life as well as the interior mental life to which a prisoner must turn inwards to. And it's also written in Bidart's delicious Baxe-Nafarroan dialect.
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Sun Aug 29, 2021 1:11 pm

Walinator wrote:
nooj wrote:If these people won't understand the cultural and social reasons behind learning and speaking the language of the country, by God they'll understand the monetary reason. Let's be honest the amount of money they'll lose for not knowing Basque is miniscule, the waves of French tourists more than outweighs the purchasing power of some Basque speaking farmers enjoying their retirement, but they have to KNOW that it's not okay. I'm not saying make a giant fuss and flip tables. But they need to have it exposed to their face, someone needs to push it into their nose, they need to be pricked by an annoying mosquito. Whether in the South Basque Country or in the North Basque Country.


I understand the pain, although the situation is a little bit different in my case. My parents and most of my family are immigrants from Afghanistan and have been living in the US for nearly 40 years now. While all the adults can speak and read fluent Persian, the children vary depending on age (at least in my family anyways). It seems like the older/first-born children are better at Persian than the younger ones because, for the older/first-born children, they had no one to talk to except their parents when they were young, so they were exposed to Persian at home. However, as the number of children would increase in the family, the kids would find it easier to just speak in English instead of Persian with each other. Meanwhile, the adults would either not care and force the kids to speak Persian or would just speak in English as well. This has led to an interesting situation where the older kids have near native level Persian, but the younger ones can barely speak it (although they do understand). Its starting to be the case where the really young ones (around 3-4 years old) dont even understand the language anymore.

Witnessing this definitely pains me and while I cant do anything about it with my non-immediate family, I have been been pushing my younger siblings to learn the language more and, let me tell you, its not easy. Sadly, my efforts seem to be an outlier and no one else cares that the next generation will know nothing of our native language. Nonetheless, I dont understand why this is "not okay?" Unfortunately, this is how life is and history is proof of this. Languages ebb and weave in and out of existence, however much it pains me, that is reality.


The loss of language within an immigrant family and the loss of a language in the entire speaker community of said language is a bit different, not only in terms of its potential consequences but also the reasons for said loss.

If you lose Persian in your family, or even if it was lost in every diaspora family outside of Afghanistan, Persian in Afghanistan is not seriously affected. That's not the case with Basque in the Basque Country. If Basque dies here, it'll die everywhere, full stop, end of story.

Whilst you seem to think that the language loss in your family is natural (and that's debatable, what natural means here), it's clearly not natural in the Basque Country, but due to extreme institutional and socioeconomic pressures. I don't see in what possible sense the replacement of Basque by French and Spanish can be said to be due to the ebbing and weaving of life, as opposed to the ferocious monolingual pressures of France and Spain.

In other words, yours may be a personal tragedy (if you consider it to be as such), but at least it's not the wiping out of a community's language, which would make it a people's tragedy.
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Tue Aug 31, 2021 5:18 pm

Earlier this year the French translator André Markowiscz wrote this about the Breton language. I read it then, thought it interesting and he makes valid points with which I agree (and have agreed already in this forum in discussion notably with guyome), but he also has some really bad opinions at the same time. He's not an outright vicious French supremacist, the ones that speak out of total ignorance of the subject matter, but all the same, for a translator, he has some very...um, surprising, views.

A propos du débat sur les langues régionales, — le breton.
Chronique I, un rappel du contexte (qui reprendra un certain nombre de mes anciennes chroniques).

On parle beaucoup des langues régionales et de leur enseignement et du fait qu’il faut les sauver, et de la loi Molac qui a été retoquée par le Conseil Constitutionnel. Et je voudrais parler de ça. Je voudrais en parler d’une façon aussi posée que possible, parce que j’ai l’impression que, là comme ailleurs, les débats sur les langues sont posées en termes faussés, — et que, finalement, ça arrange tout le monde que les termes soient faussés. Et donc, avant de parler de ce qui se passe dans l’actualité, je voudrais, dans une espèce de chronique de préface, faire une espèce de tableau de l’usage des langues régionales en France aujourd’hui. Pas des langues régionales en général, bien sûr. De celle que je connais un peu, le breton. — Ce sera, comme d'habitude ici, une suite de chroniques personnelles.

Je connais par cœur une bonne centaine de chansons bretonnes, je lis et je comprends à peu près tout ce que je lis. Mais je ne parle pas breton, et travailler avec Françoise (elle qui m’a fait découvrir la grandeur de la culture populaire de cette région, et la beauté de cette langue) ne m’a pas fait apprendre à parler breton. Nous n’échangeons avec Françoise, en breton, que quelques phrases furtives quand nous sommes dans une situation où nous ne voulons que les gens autour comprennent ce que nous disons. Parler breton entre nous aurait été artificiel, et aurait supposé que je dise moins bien dans une langue ce que je pouvais dire dans une autre, le français, langue qui, dès le début, avait été notre langue d’échange naturelle.

Je n’ai jamais appris à parler breton parce que je ne me suis jamais trouvé dans une situation où la personne à laquelle je parlais avait besoin pour me comprendre que je lui parle breton. Je veux dire : je vais en Angleterre, si je ne parle pas anglais, la personne à qui je parle ne me comprend pas, et donc, il faut que, d’une façon ou d’une autre, je me débrouille pour lui parler. Mais, en Bretagne, pourquoi est-ce que je parlerai breton ? et avec qui ? Qui ne serait pas capable de comprendre ce que je dis en français ? Et, pire encore aujourd’hui, qui, aujourd’hui, dirait mieux en breton ce qu’il me dirait en français ? Evidemment personne. Et donc, si je décide de parler breton, ce ne sera pas pour parler aux gens (ce qui est le but premier de toute langue), ce sera pour une autre raison. Appelons cette raison "une raison de cœur". C'est une raison essentielle, mais cette raison, en elle-même, rend impossible une revendication première des "militants de la langue", la co-officialité. Tu peux dire deux fois la même chose, écrire deux fois la même chose dans un texte officiel, — mais, pour que la chose soit dite, il suffit d'une seule fois. Si tu l'écris ou tu la dis seulement en breton, personne ne te comprend. Donc, tu la dis en français. Du coup, dans cette logique, le breton devient un double inutile du français, et il ne sert qu'à désigner, par une existence forcée, le fait qu'il est sans usage. — Cela, les militants ne le voient pas, ou ne veulent pas le voir. Mais c'est ce qui me frappe toujours quand je regarde des discours où l'orateur fait traduire ce qu'il dit "dans la langue du pays".... ou, sauf exception rarissime, quand un élu se met à parler breton.... c’est, presque toujours, un spectacle pesant et ridicule. Une espèce de passage obligé pour "faire vivre nos langues". Non, pas pour les faire vivre. Pour montrer leur mort.

*

Ici, une parenthèse, oui, je dis « la » langue, alors que tous les politiques parlent « des » langues de Bretagne qu’il faut développer, « défendre » et tout et tout. En Bretagne, en gros, le débat est centré sur la langue bretonne, et le ratio des subventions publiques est (ou était jusqu’à très récemment), si je ne me trompe pas, de quelque chose comme 90% pour le breton et 10% pour le gallo — avec un mépris instinctif (et généralement insurmontable, même en public) des « militants de la langue bretonne » pour ce « dialecte » français. Bref, donc, le breton.

*

Et donc, que se passe-t-il avec le breton ?

On répète, depuis plus de vingt ans, qu'il y a deux cent mille locuteurs. Ce n'est pas vrai. La pyramide des âges fait qu'en moyenne, tous les ans, nous perdons entre 3000 et 5000 (selon les estimations) locuteurs par an. Et, plus important encore (j'en ai déjà parlé), il n'y a plus aujourd'hui un seul endroit en Bretagne où, pour des gens de moins de cinquante-soixante ans, le breton soit une langue d'usage normale. — La langue peut être d'usage dans une famille, évidemment — mais jamais comme première langue dans un village, et encore moins dans une ville. Les sphères d'usage de la langue se réduisent à la même vitesse que le nombre de locuteurs, et ce qui se réduit aussi, c'est, naturellement, la richesse de la langue : la plupart des bretonnants ne parlent plus qu'une langue, justement, familiale, domestique et chaque génération voit se réduire drastiquement le vocabulaire et l'inventivité propre à toute langue vivante. Il y a, certes, des exceptions, mais ce sont bien des exceptions.

Je l’ai souvent dit. Les nationalistes proclament que, ce qui a « tué » le breton, c’est l’interdiction faite à l’école de le parler. Que cette interdiction a été réelle (et souvent d’une très grande cruauté), c’est indéniable.

Mais il y a deux "mais", dont ces mêmes militants ne parlent pas. L’interdiction a été aussi dure dans le système catholique, et, en Bretagne, l’enseignement catholique a été pendant très longtemps plus important que l’enseignement public. Donc, si « meurtre » il y a eu, il n’est pas dû qu’à « l'Etat français », mais aussi à l'Eglise catholique.

Et, surtout : l’interdiction a été absolue entre 1880 et 1960 (parce qu’en 1960 il n’y avait quasiment plus d’enfants qui entraient à l’école en ne parlant que le breton). Et, entre 1880 et 1945, le nombre de locuteurs du breton est resté plus ou moins stable, avec, même, une légère augmentation dans les années trente, parce que les gens vivaient un peu mieux sur les fermes (pas beaucoup !...) et qu’ils avaient plus d’enfants qui survivaient. Et donc, pendant 65 ans, l’interdit a été absolu, et, partout en dehors de l’école, les gens parlaient breton. Parce que le breton était la langue et de l’église, et de la vie quotidienne, de l’économie locale. Et puis, entre 1945 et 1955, il y a une rupture absolue, radicale, d’une violence réellement inouïe, dont peut témoigner un de (anciens) mes amis, avec lequel j’ai travaillé sur une anthologie de la poésie russe en breton. Lui, né en 1947, parlait breton à ses parents. Sa sœur, née en 1949, n’a parlé que français, et... elle ne parle pas le breton. Elle le comprend, mais ne le parle pas. La langue, avec l’apparition de l’électricité partout, de la radio, avec, lentement, la libération des mœurs, avec la disparition, tout aussi radicale et soudaine, du rôle de l’Eglise, et, surtout, la disparition des petites fermes, a cessé d’être transmise. Et on est passé, en dix-quinze ans, à un taux de transmission de, disons, 8 sur 10 à 1 sur 10.

*

Dans un mouvement inverse, un groupuscule de nationalistes bretons, issus des mouvements maurrassiens, naturellement d’extrême-droite (et considérant que la masse doit être dirigée par une élite), a essayé de construire une langue nationale, aussi unifiée que possible, alors que le breton parlé par les paysans et les marins était, tout aussi naturellement, un breton dialectal, et que les gens parlant breton, passant d’une région à une autre, à part quelques exceptions très rares passaient plutôt par le français : ainsi, dès le XIXè siècle, le folkloriste trégorois (au nord) François-Marie Luzel, voyageant dans le pays vannetais (au sud) ne parle que le français, — et ce n’est pas qu’il ne comprend pas le dialecte local : il pourrait comprendre, s’il faisait un effort, mais comme ses interlocuteurs (des bourgeois ou des notables locaux) parlent tous français, c’est juste plus simple et plus rapide.

Les nationalistes (par un long processus sur lequel je ne vais pas revenir — Françoise l’analyse avec précision dans « Le Monde comme si ») ont élaboré une langue normée, exactement sur le modèle français.— L’idée était très simple : il fallait, en dehors du (et, à vrai dire, contre le) peuple, et la langue du peuple, établir une langue de la nation, puisque, les nationalistes bretons étant d’abord et essentiellement français, ils considéraient que l’indépendance ne pouvait être donnée qu’à une nation — nation qu’ils voyaient comme supérieure à la France, parce que totalement de race celtique. Je ne veux pas épiloguer, mais l’élaboration de la langue a d’abord été une entreprise politique et une entreprise d'imitation : à une langue française normalisée devait répondre une langue bretonne aussi normalisée, qui en était comme le décalque et l'opposé. Et je vous passe les débats imbéciles, mais d’une violence stupéfiante, pour proclamer que les dialectes du breton sont le résultat de la « colonisation » française et de la situation de soumission du breton, et des Bretons. Toutes les langues, sans aucune exception, sont dialectales, et seules certaines, pour telle ou telle raison particulière, finissent par être unifiées.

*

Le vœu de l'enseignement de la langue bretonne en Bretagne est très ancien. Les années trente ont connu une grande campagne de demandes de cet enseignement, campagne lancée, d'ailleurs, par le nationaliste Yann Fouéré, et soutenue au final par des centaines de maires à travers tout le territoire bretonnant. L'Etat avait fini par opposer une fin de non-recevoir. — Mais il s'agissait, d'abord et avant tout, d'une demande évidente : de donner quelques heures par semaine pour apprendre aux enfants non pas à parler breton, mais à lire et écrire la langue qu'ils parlaient. Les quelques tentatives faites par des nationalistes pour enseigner aux enfants une langue bretonne "standard" (standard qui ne commençait alors qu'à s'ébaucher) se terminaient sur des échecs. Ainsi le père de Mona Ozouf, Yann Sohier, se plaignait-il au début des années 30 de ce que les élèves de son école, dans le petit bourg de Plouha, ne voulaient rien apprendre, et ne reconnaissaient pas un mot de leur langue dans son breton à lui, — un breton qu'il avait appris, lui, en suant chair et eau. Ils ne voulaient pas l'apprendre, parce qu'ils parlaient déjà leur breton, et que ce qu'ils voulaient de l'école, c'était apprendre le français, et donc, potentiellement, quitter l'état de misère qui était celui de leurs parents en partant à la ville.

La question de la standardisation de la langue s'est posée avec une acuité encore plus grande quand il s'est agi d'envisager cet enseignement : combien de manuels devait-on faire ? De là, après de longs débats qui ont commencé dans les années 30, et qui se sont achevés sous l'Occupation, "sur ordre" des Allemands, selon l'expression de Roparz Hemon lui-même (qui était le chef, disons ça comme ça, des militants pendant la guerre), l'idée de créer d'abord une orthographe unifiée : le ZH (les dialectes du nord disant "breiz" et le vannetais disant "brec'h" pour Bretagne). Il existait déjà une norme pour les dialectes du nord (dits KLT) et une autre pour le vannetais, deux orthographes différentes. L'uniformisation de l'orthographe, éloignant davantage encore l'orthographe de la prononciation réelle (là encore, on pourrait croire, sur le modèle français) a néanmoins atteint son but. Aujourd'hui, le sigle BZH est devenu l'emblème de la Bretagne. Sauf que la situation a changé du tout au tout.

*

Aujourd'hui, la plupart du temps, quand on doit enseigner le breton, en Bretagne même, on doit le faire comme une langue étrangère, parce que la plupart des enfants qui l'apprennent ne le parlent pas dans leur famille (ni ailleurs), et un grand pourcentage des parents n'en connaît simplement pas un mot. — Et c'est l'école qu'on charge de la sauvegarde de la langue, en considérant que les enfants qui suivent une scolarité en breton, ou incluant une grande part de breton, seront capables de parler breton une fois leur scolarité achevée. C'est malheureusement faux. Non seulement il n'y a que très peu d'élèves (je reviendrai plus tard sur les chiffres), mais il y a une statistique que je n'ai jamais trouvée : parmi les quelques milliers d'élèves qui ont appris le breton à l'école, combien l'utilisent encore une fois adultes, et, s'ils l'utilisent, quel est leur niveau de breton ?... Si je n'ai pas trouvé de statistique sur le sujet, c'est pour une raison très claire : les chiffres seraient catastrophiques. Il n'y en aura pas 20% (et je suis très optimiste) qui le parleront vraiment — pas comme les français parlent anglais, avec cet accent si caractéristique, et tellement moqué. Parce que, dans un grand nombre de cas, le breton enseigné est une espèce de langue sans vie, un décalque du français, enseigné par des gens qui, trop souvent, n'ont eux-mêmes que peu de pratique réelle de la langue. Certes, ils ont appris à parler du monde moderne en breton, parce que le monde des locuteurs historiques a disparu ou est en train de finir de disparaître, — et c'est très bien qu'on parle d'économie ou d'ordinateurs en breton. Mais quand j'écoute la mélodie de leur langue, ce que j'entends, la plupart du temps, c'est la mélodie du français, avec juste des mots différents, et, souvent, des fautes de construction, de grammaire, des fautes, tout bêtement, d'usage. Des fautes, au demeurant, qui n'ont aucune importance, puisque personne n'est là pour les corriger — dès lors que ce n’est pas la langue qui compte.

La langue, dans l'usage officiel, est devenue non pas un moyen de communication, mais le moyen de l'affirmation d'une différence, et , trop souvent, seulement ça. Et j'ai souvent l'impression que ce n'est pas la langue que veulent défendre ses militants, mais cette affirmation de la différence. Il s'agit d'affirmer l'existence d'une entité qui n'a d'existence que ça : la différence. Et, quand on regarde, de différence, il n'y en a pas du tout.

Ce constat posé, ces questions évoquées, on fait quoi ? Parce que, oui, évidemment, il faut enseigner le breton. Mais enseigner quoi ? et comment ? et pourquoi ? — Et il y a tellement, mais tellement à faire, pour transmettre les trésors de ce qui a existé et de ce qui existe encore.

La suite plus tard.


Let me quote this part (in English translation below):

Je n’ai jamais appris à parler breton parce que je ne me suis jamais trouvé dans une situation où la personne à laquelle je parlais avait besoin pour me comprendre que je lui parle breton. Je veux dire : je vais en Angleterre, si je ne parle pas anglais, la personne à qui je parle ne me comprend pas, et donc, il faut que, d’une façon ou d’une autre, je me débrouille pour lui parler. Mais, en Bretagne, pourquoi est-ce que je parlerai breton ? et avec qui ? Qui ne serait pas capable de comprendre ce que je dis en français ? Et, pire encore aujourd’hui, qui, aujourd’hui, dirait mieux en breton ce qu’il me dirait en français ? Evidemment personne. Et donc, si je décide de parler breton, ce ne sera pas pour parler aux gens (ce qui est le but premier de toute langue), ce sera pour une autre raison. Appelons cette raison "une raison de cœur". C'est une raison essentielle, mais cette raison, en elle-même, rend impossible une revendication première des "militants de la langue", la co-officialité. Tu peux dire deux fois la même chose, écrire deux fois la même chose dans un texte officiel, — mais, pour que la chose soit dite, il suffit d'une seule fois. Si tu l'écris ou tu la dis seulement en breton, personne ne te comprend. Donc, tu la dis en français. Du coup, dans cette logique, le breton devient un double inutile du français, et il ne sert qu'à désigner, par une existence forcée, le fait qu'il est sans usage. — Cela, les militants ne le voient pas, ou ne veulent pas le voir. Mais c'est ce qui me frappe toujours quand je regarde des discours où l'orateur fait traduire ce qu'il dit "dans la langue du pays".... ou, sauf exception rarissime, quand un élu se met à parler breton.... c’est, presque toujours, un spectacle pesant et ridicule. Une espèce de passage obligé pour "faire vivre nos langues". Non, pas pour les faire vivre. Pour montrer leur mort.


I've never learned to speak Breton, because I've never found myself in a situation where the person I was speaking to needed me to speak Breton in order to understand me. What I mean is this, if I go to England, if I don't know English, the person I'm speaking to doesn't understand me, so I have to speak to him, one way or another. But in Brittany, why would I speak Breton? And with who? Who wouldn't understand what I have to say in French? And even worse, in our days, who could say what they wanted to say in Breton better than they'd otherwise say it in French? There's no one obviously. And so if I take it upon myself to learn Breton, it wouldn't be to speak to people (which is the primary goal of every language), it'd be for another reason. Let's call this reason 'a reason of the heart'. It's an essential motive, but this motive by and in itself renders impossible the main demand of the 'militants of the language', which is co-officiality. You can say the same thing twice, write the same thing twice in an official text - but if the goal is for the thing to be said, you only need to say it once. But if you write it or if you say only once in Breton, no one will understand you. Therefore you say it in French. So according to this logic, Breton becomes a useless repetition of French, and by virtue of its forced existence, it only serves to point out that it doesn't have a use. The language militants don't see this, or they don't want to see it. But it's what I'm always struck by when I watch speeches where the speaker translates what he says 'in the language of the country'. However, unless very seldomly, when a politician speaks Breton...it's almost always an awkward and ridiculous spectacle. A kind of obligatory conduct to 'revive our languages'. No, not to revive them. To demonstrate their death.

You can attack this point from several angles.

He asks who in our day doesn't understand French, or even worse, who could say what they have to say in Breton better than in French. I suppose it's a rhetorical question, implying that there are no such people, or that if there are such people, they're not important. If the former, that's factually incorrect. If the second, and that they're not important, that's just a value statement.

Among the admittedly reduced number of Breton native speakers, there are indeed people who speak better Breton than French (not all bilinguals are equally competent in both languages), but I imagine to Markowiscz, these few are not important enough. That is, the fewer they are, the less justifiable to him it is to learn the language in order to accomodate them and speak to them in the language they're most comfortable in. If Markowiscz wasn't a famous translator, for example, and instead were a nurse at a hospital or working in a nursing home, it might actually be very useful. But he might argue, even there, the supremacy of French would rear its head, because let's be honest, many or most nurses won't learn the language of their patients because the communication in French, even if not completely sufficient, might be considered by them to be 'good enough' in order to do their job. Therefore prioritising their job needs over the needs of the patients. Rare are the people who put the patients needs completely before their own to this extent. I have no argument against this, except to appeal to the sympathy and empathy of people: even IF you can do your job acceptably in French, you should go above and beyond and do it in Breton to make people feel at home, to precisely ask about the needs and pains of your patients, and most appropriately treat it. Better yet, you should be paid by the government (in a fantasy world) to learn Breton so you COULD do this.

He talks about the uselessness of repetition, using Breton as a kind of useless counterpart to the French text, as an argument against co-officiality. Because he says that if you say or write it in Breton alone 'no one understands it'.

First, that's factually wrong. Just because the Breton speaking community is small doesn't mean you can qualify it as 'no one'. There is SOME one to understand a text or a speech that is done only in Breton. Markowiscz knows that, so it must be a judgement call again, the tiny minority of Breton speakers is equivalent to 'no one' in his mind, because they're just not important. Or worthy of importance.

And that's the thing that he doesn't seem to understand. That the point of language revitalisation (including co-officiality) is to give importance to people who we or the majority have not considered important. It is to 'make useful' what the historical socio-political, institutional framework had made useless or which keeps on making useless. The fact that we in New Zealand made Māori an official language, although it is spoken by 'only' 4% of the NZ population and dropping every year, would be incomprehensible reasoning to this man, because to him it would just be repeating what could already be said in English. But that's not the point of officiality. Efficiency is not our point.

He doesn't go beyond Brittany, but this same argument could be used against the very use of French in Canada in official contexts outside of majority Francophone areas (what's the point of offering French versions of the same text in areas where French speakers are a tiny minority and even if they existed, they'd be bilingual anyway in those regions?), or indeed here in Spain, where proportionally the vast majority of Basque speakers are bilingual in Spanish and Basque, or West Frisian in the Netherlands where all Frisian speakers are bilingual in Dutch and Frisian. The translator is arguing for the benefits of monolingualism. I think Markowiscz is arguing that Breton as an official language would be literally only useful in a hypothetical Brittany where the majority of the population had Breton as its only and sole language. I think he's saying that because it's minoritised, officiality should not be supported, which is getting it all wrong, officiality should be supported because it's about to go extinct.

There's a difference between simply pointing out that a language has few domains of usage, which is an unfortunate but factual statement, and wanting to actively keep the language in its subordinate state. That shit is evil.

There's also the bizarrity of a translator - whose entire job is to 'repeat' what has already existed - in another language, saying that this is useless. Not sure if he's in the right profession ideologically, or if he only cares that he's getting paid when he's translating Dostoyevsky into the umpteenth French translation.

The thing is that Markowiscz's views are why some people are rightly afraid of 'bilingualism' in minoritised language situations, as simply the antechamber to monolingualism. A Trojan Horse. In the 19th century the vast majority of Bretons were Breton speakers, often monolinguals, and it was indeed useful - if not obligatory - to learn Breton, in the same way it is useful - if not obligatory - to learn English today to travel and live in England (unless you were of a certain socioeconomic class, in which case you could afford not to). Looking back fondly on that time, you could argue that learning French for these people was an act of kindness, a way to integrate into a French state that promised richness and social development, but if the idea was 'we're going to make you bilingual, so that we can later justify making you into monolinguals', well I repeat, that shit is evil.
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Thu Sep 02, 2021 12:12 pm

This is a poem by an anonymous poet in the Western dialect of Basque, but it is quoted by the Zuberoan writer Arnaud Oihenart in his treatise L'art poétique basque (1665). He wrote it in French originally. In it, Oihenart compared French, Spanish, Italian and Basque models of poetry.

I find it interesting that this Basque author from the farthest eastern point of the Basque Country uses a poem from the far western point of the Basque Country. In a dialect different from his own, no less.

Atseyn andia da amore eutea
Eta bere bada gustiz firmea
Ecin essan leydis ondo munduac
Cein andiac diren aren gustuac
Glorias beteric layo nindia
Icussias guero ceu, ene egusquia


Here's a 'translation' into modern Western dialect.

Atsegin handia da amore izatea
Eta bere bada guztiz firmea
Ezin esan leikez ondo munduak
Zein handiak diren haren gustuak
Gloriaz beterik jaio nendin (nintzen)
Ikusiaz gero zeu, nire eguzkia

eutea - from *edutea from the root *edun. Today the participle *edun is replaced by ukan (only in Eastern dialects, in which case here instead of izatea it would be ukaitzea) and izan (everywhere else).

*edun exists in modern Basque only via its transitive auxiliary forms such as dut, nuen, nuke etc. In the 17th century however, as shown by eutea, the nominalisation of *edun at least was around.

egusquia, gustiz, Icussias - already very early in the Western dialect, the sibilants /s̻/ and /s̺/ have merged. This trait has now reached into traditional Gipuzkoan dialect areas.

leydis - from the root *edin, which gives le-di-z, or the modern version le-di-ke-z > leikez. Also just like today's Western dialect, the plural argument is marked by [s].

nindia - nendin, from the same *edin root as leydis. It's subjunctive! In modern Basque you wouldn't be able to use the subjunctive in this context, replacing it with the indicative nintzen...the dropping of final -n is characteristic of the Bilbo (Bilbao in Spanish) dialect, which in the 17th century was still alive and well. Until the 19th century Basque was spoken by most of the population of Bilbo.

And English translation:

It's a great pleasure to be loved.
And if that love is completely secure
The world cannot say
How great are its pleasures
I would be filled with glory
If I were to see you, my sun
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Thu Sep 02, 2021 2:03 pm

Something to keep in mind. Despite my interest in Basque linguistics, you don't need to be so interested in these matters to learn and enjoy Basque.

You don't even need to learn any Basque dialect other than the standard dialect (although you will need to learn how to understand the other dialects if you want to speak and travel around the Basque Country). If you're reading this, don't let all this stuff about politics, terrorism or sociolinguistics and language revitalisation make Basque seem like it is only for a certain kind of person. Basque is easy and fun and you can do many other things with it than what I'm doing with it.
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby David27 » Sat Sep 25, 2021 2:21 am

nooj wrote:If you're reading this, don't let all this stuff about politics, terrorism or sociolinguistics and language revitalisation make Basque seem like it is only for a certain kind of person..


It’s a hard sell when you lead with “politics, terrorism or sociolinguistics and language revitalization” Lol. But in seriousness I find this to be true of some other minority languages as well. I have been reading about the Celtic languages a lot recently, visiting forums or website articles about them, and I frequently see discussions about standard vs dialects and language policy. But far more important for them is to protect and build up the local speaking community, not necessarily try to attract a language enthusiast living on another continent
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Sun Oct 24, 2021 9:39 pm

Rural flight affects some languages more than others. The fact that much of deep Spain (Castilla y León etc) is emptying out of its population won't put into danger the continued survival of Spanish in Spain. Aragonese however is at the point of extinction in part because of this issue. It's lost 90% of its speakers in a century.

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Was this demographic devastation a natural phenomenon? Was Aragonese doomed to die? No.

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If you look at some of these charts for Aragonese towns in the Pyrenees, you'll note that a pronounced dip starts to occur after the 1930s (in the 1960s there was another blow as people started to move into the cities en masse). What happened in the 1930s?

The Spanish Civil War of course. Thousands of Aragonese inhabitants of these towns were displaced by the warfront, fled or evacuated (see the retreat of Republican forces after the battle of the Bielsa Pocket), and in the post-war dictatorship era, many continued to stay in exile in France. What would they return to? Towns that were both physically in ruins from bombardment by Nationalist forces and economically devastated with stolen or killed livestock. Today you have French tourists coming to Aragon, visiting the towns of their grandparents who never came back.

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Of course the Franco dictatorship had no space or time for the Aragonese language, which was completely excluded from education and public space in general. At the same time the dictatorship brutally neglected the development of the Pyrenees, causing that mass depopulation I mentioned in the 60s. I'm not just talking about closing coal mines with no replacement of industry, but things as simple as the only public school in a town like Serveto closing down, and the parents deciding to move to the cities to offer their children an education instead of sending them to a (religious) boarding school.

When people speak of languages 'naturally' dying, I want to know what they're talking about, because destroying the socioeconomic tissue of a people doesn't sound very natural to me.



Jorge Pueyo is a speaker of an eastern dialect of Aragonese, and he recently gave a very interesting talk in the prestigious cultural centre Ateneu Barcelonès in Barcelona.

The talk is entirely in Aragonese but to a Catalan speaker, 90% of his Ribagorçan dialect is comprehensible.

He presents a very good overview of the Aragonese language's history and current situation, along with a dash of hope.

Some of the people in the audience are curious Catalans, some are the descendants of Aragonese immigrants, some are Aragonese people currently living in Barcelona as you'll have occasion to hear in the Q&A section. A point that Pueyo makes is that Aragonese is their birthright. Even if they don't speak it. But not only of the Aragonese people. Aragonese - like any language - belongs to all of mankind. If Spain finishes its extermination of Aragonese, we all lose something.

Un día, per el maitino estaba miran desde la ventana de mi instituto, contemplaba un hermoso prau vert, montañes nevades y colós mol fors, que me ban fe pensá en que ya estabe asi el agüerro. Al mich de isto paisache, dos presioses cases de madera entre els abres, cuyo coló contrastabe perfectament dan el del paisache.

agüerro - autumn. No cognates with other Romance languages. Apparently it comes from the Basque agor, which apart from meaning dry, by metonymy is also one of the words used for the month of September. In standard Basque this month is called iraila. See:

Image


We've entered autumn now, so let's see a bit of what the autumn/agüerro described in the story actually looks like in Aragon.

To my mind, one of the most beautiful places in the whole of the Pyrenees is the Val d'Ordesa. And you have plenty of places to choose from in the Pyrenees, so that's saying something!

I was so happy to spend some days hiking through these enchanted forests and mountains. I felt like I was in heaven. I was in heaven.

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In Aragonese, there is another name for autumn aside from agüerro, it is Sanmigalada. The name comes from the fact that the patron's day of San Miguel is on the 29th of September, and it officially ushers in autumn.

I strongly believe that among the many reasons to learn Aragonese, the fact that it's spoken in a land that is incredibly beautiful, is one of them. If you want to speak to native speakers you're almost obliged going to go to where they live, and where they live is awesome. It's like the benefits that some people have in mind when they start to learn French: it'll mean I get to visit France! Well, it's the same for Aragonese.
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