Bla bla bla

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nooj
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Sat Apr 16, 2022 1:00 am

Xatiana says that it would be a shame for the traditional pronunciation to be lost, as it is something typical of Basque, and distinctive from French as well, but offers no guideline or solution. It's not up to her anyway, there needs to be something worked between the whole society.

That interview was made in 2017 and since then, I'm not aware of any novelties on the front.


I was wrong. There are things being done!

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Last year the Sü Azia group, a small group of Zuberoans who work to spread knowledge of their dialect through publishing Zuberoan books and music, started a podcast. The podcast is aimed first and foremost to Zuberoans but also to Basques of all dialects who want to familiarise themselves with the Zuberoan variety. The podcast is called XiberoKazt. Among the contributors was the late Allande Socarros (I will never stop praising this man) who explained in this article that one of the motives for the creation of the podcast was to correct non-traditional errors that they saw among Zuberoan speakers:

«Haatik, badira mintzaera ez-egoki batzuk gero eta zabalduago direnak: hala, aho mintzozko h-ak ez ahoskatzea, r bikoitza ia-ia frantsesezkoaren moduan erratea, azken aurreko silaban zubereraz egin ohi den zapadura edo azentu tonikoa ez errespetatzea». Akats horiek belaunaldi gazteetan nabari direla iruditzen zaio Sokarrosi, baina ez horietan bakarrik: «Adinez aurreratuagoak diren euskaldun batzuen ahoetan ere hauteman daitezke. Eta bilakaera kezkagarri hori ez da, batzuek erran izan duten bezala, idazkera arautuaren ondorioz gertatzen. Gertatzen da zuberotar askok eta askok euskara ez dutelakotz nahikoa baliatzen».


There are forms of speech that are ever more widespread, for example, not pronouncing the /h/, or saying the /r/ in the French manner, or not respecting the accentual system in Zuberoan Basque where the accent falls on the penultimate syllable. Socarros thinks that these errors are prominent in the young generations, but not only: You can find these errors among some older Basque speakers as well, and this concerning development is not happening, as some people have said, as a result of the standardised writing system. It's happening because many, many Zuberoans don't use Basque enough.

Socarros, at least, sees the change in the realisation of the /r/ as an error, and so too the loss of the glottal fricative /h/. This phoneme was in fact common to all Basque dialects a few hundred years ago, but was lost in the dialects in South Basque Country and until recently was more or less conserved in the North Basque Country, although as far as I know it is also being lost there, with it being best conserved as you go further east. Zuberoa is where it is consistently preserved. Losing the glottal fricative is hardly something that is rare among world languages, so it's possible it is a natural language change, but I don't think it's coincidental that the two languages that are most impacting Basque don't have /h/ in their phonologies either.

Socarros mentions the denaturation of the accentual system. Zuberoan Basque has a general rule of penultimate accentuation on words. It's one of the most immediately distinctive aspects of this variety to speakers of other Basque dialects. It's very different from French accentuation which places the stress on the final syllable of a word or the final word of an intonational phrase. From a completely non-scientific, purely subjective perspective, what I notice when I listen to some new speakers of French minoritised languages like Breton, Alsatian or Basque, is that the accentuation of their first language comes through. They may do everything else by the book, but the accentuation gives them away. For me, getting the accentuation right is more important than whether you pronounce [r] or not. Native Basque speakers speaking their native dialects have an accentuation, intonation and even rhythm that is quite different from that of Spanish/French speakers, at least speakers of those varieties of Spanish/French that aren't influenced by Basque.

Sü Azia means ember. It is a compound of (fire) and azia (seed) or hazia in standard Basque. Let's hope that the young generations of Zuberoans blow on these embers. The podcast is updated every two weeks. Right now they're reading through old Zuberoan texts and authors and commenting on them, but the plan is to eventually study contemporary Zuberoan material. I'm not sure how attractive this is going to be young people. Reading old texts doesn't bother me, but the members of Sü Azia are people from a different generation...perhaps they should have gotten a more diverse team to help them.

Since we've just talked about bees, here's one broadcast from the podcast. It's a short dialogue written by a Zuberoan author Emmanuel Intxauspe (1815-1902). It is read by Allande Socarros and Jean Bordaxar who play two characters called Basilio and Antonio. Even if you don't understand anything, please have a listen and get a feel for what Zuberoan Basque spoken by two native speakers sounds like.

The text is taken from the Basque literature archive Armiarma, but has not been updated for modern Zuberoan orthography. For example, deiküie would be written deigüe today. In standard Basque, digute. Dian would be written düan today. In standard Basque, duen.

The audio: https://vocaroo.com/1dDBdI7Xq8LB


BASILIO. Egün erlez mintzatü behar nitzaizü.
ANTONIO. Haziendatto baliusak dira erliak: hoiek emaiten deiküie eztia.
BASILIO. Ez bakhoizki eztia, bena ere emaiten deiküie ezkoa.
ANTONIO. Nola ezti-khoi beniz ezinago, e-nintzan ezkoaz orhitzen.
BASILIO. Eztia, jateko bezaiñ hon da sendogarritako. Marhanta denian hartzen da eztia hurareki nahasirik. Atxeterrek janerazten die zonbait aldiz barazkal aitzinian khorpitzetik librerazteko. Bestalde orano, zonbat gaizarentako ez-ta hon ezkoa! Huneki egiten dira tortxak, oihal ezkostatiak eta herxkaillü mota hanitz. Erliak sortzen dira jinkolloak bezala, eta jaten die eztia. Lilietan edireiten die eztiaren eta ezkoaren geia. Liliaren irinareki egiten die ezkoa, eta eztia aldiz liliaren kokoxetik elkhitzen dian zühatzareki. Irina biltzen die lilien gañen gibeleko aztaparren herresta erabiltez. Zankhoetan badütie galtzak bezalako batzü, eta ez-tira ükhüratzen horik bethe artino. Zühatza hürrüpatzen die müthürrian dien trunpa bateki. Zühatzarentako badie sabel bat, eta han ezti egiten da. Irinarentako badie beste bat eta han ezko bilhatzen da. Gero, ahotik eztia egotxiz, egiten die orrazia. Eginik denian orrazia, hunen xiloak eztiz bethatzen dütie.
ANTONIO. Xiloa deitzen da thegittoa?
BASILIO. Orraziarena bai.
ANTONIO. Zorobilatzen naie ni gaiza hoiek orok.
BASILIO. Ez-tüzü zertzaz zorobila.
ANTONIO. Zer! ez-ta zorobilatzeko gaiza, lilien gañen den irinaren ezkotürik ikhustia?
BASILIO. Eta e-tzütü xorotzen gük jaten dütügün gaizen ikhustiak gure odoletara khanbiatzen?
ANTONIO. Egia diozü, enündüzün ohartzen.
BASILIO. Egün behiak jan dian belharra bihar eznetürik jaten dügü.



BASILIO. Today I need to speak to you about bees.
ANTONIO. Bees are precious animals, they give us honey.
BASILIO. Not only honey, but they also give us wax.
ANTONIO. As I'm a honey-lover, wax didn't enter my head.
BASILIO. Honey is as good to eat as it is for medicine. When one has a cold, one takes honey mixed with water. Before lunch, physicians prescibe the eating of honey several times, in order to free our body from the cold. And what isn't wax useful for! With wax, you make candles, waxed canvases and many types of bandages. Bees are created like butterflies, they eat the honey. They find the raw material for honey and wax on flowers. With the pollen, they make the wax, whereas they extract the honey from the flower cups with the nectar. They collect the pollen on top of the flower by using the 'rake' of their back legs. On their legs, they have some kind of 'spats', or stockings, and they don't stop until they fill them. They suck the nextar through a proboscis that they have at the end of their head. For the nectar they have ine stomach, and there they make the honey. For the pollen, they have another stomach, and there the pollen turns into nectar. Later in excreting the honey from their mouth, they make the honeycomb. When the honeycomb is done, they fill the holes with honey.
ANTONIO. That's what you call a beehive?
BASILIO. Yes, the one made out of honeycombs.
ANTONIO. All these things are marvellous to me.
BASILIO. There's no reason to marvel.
ANTONIO. Oh? Isn't it something to marvel at, seeing the creation of wax from pollen on flowers?
BASILIO. And you don't marvel when you see that the things that we eat change into our blood?
ANTONIO. True, I didn't realise.
BASILIO. The grass that the cow eats today, will be the milk that we drink tomorrow.

Atxeterrek - Socarros explains that this word is an old word for doctor. It comes from Latin archiater. In contemporary Zuberoan, the doctor is called the bedezi. It's a borrowing from Gascon medecin .

Liliaren irinareki - the pollen of the flower. In Eastern dialects, the word for flower is lilia. All flowers, not just those that belong to the genus of Lilium. And the pollen is described as the irina, literally the 'flour' of the flower.

jinkolloak - the butterfly. Literally, Jainkoaren oiloa, meaning the chicken of God. In the same episode, Socarros explains that many young Zuberoans now call butterflies papilluak, taken straight from French, but I like the chicken of God more.

In fact, there is an incredible number of words for the butterfly in the Basque language. This following linguistic map gives a fair representation, but I'm sure there are more than was collected. Some of them are onomatopoeic names, but others have distinguishable etymons, like jaingoiko+mandaturi (messenger of God) or atxiyamatxi, where you can distinguish amatxi (grandmother) or sorgimitxi, which you can distinguish sorgin (witch).

What I want to know is...why? We have basically one word for cat in Basque which is similar across all dialects, but we have a hundred words for the butterfly. Do Basque speakers just like butterflies or something?

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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Sun Apr 17, 2022 1:36 pm

Today is Aberri Eguna, the Day of the Basque Homeland.

It's also the 90th anniversary of the first Aberri Eguna celebrated in 1932:

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I have a story to share with you, from the Bizkaian bertsolari Balendin Enbeita (1906-1986). He fought in the Basque Army during the Spanish Civil War. After the victory of the Spanish Nationalists, he was imprisoned. He tells of a man called Frantzisko Losada with whom he was imprisoned. He writes in the Bizkaian dialect, with one curious lexical concession to Gipuzkoan/Nafar-Lapurtera tradition, the use of hazila (azaroa 'November' in standard Basque), which is a month name that is not used in Bizkaia. Also check out zinopa 'martyr'. It's a neologism, one of those lexical inventions by Arana, but that is rarely used today. Straightforwardly from zin 'oath' + opatu 'to offer, to promise'. A martyr is someone who gives their oath and is faithful to it.

Santoñako kartzelako gomuta ahaztu ezina daukat eta, nik legez, han egon ziran hiru mila Euskadiko gudariek ere bardin izango dabe, bizi diranak behintzat.

Hogeitamazazpiko urtea zan, hazilaren hogeitabosta, Arana Goiri-tar Sabin hil zan eguna; hau da, Sabin 1903ko hazilaren hogeitabostean hil zan, eta jazoera hau 1937an zan. Pasaiako mutil gazte bat zan Frantzisko Losada. Mutil hau komunisten batailoi bateko kapitana zan. Gernika erre aurretik, Gipuzkoako frente batean zaurituta, oso txarto egoan. Gernikako Karmeliten komentuan (komentu hau gaiso-etxe bihurtuta egoan) neskatila gazte batek zaintzen eban, eta berak esaten ebanez, ondo zaindu ere. Gernika erretan egoala, neskato harek esan ei eutson:

— Gure Gernika hondatu dabe eta ez bakarrik hori, nire gurasoak eskonbro artean geratu dira. Umezurtz geratu naz. Baina oraindik niretzat Euskadi geratzen da, Euskadi odolez gorritua.

Begietatik negar malkoak eriozala, ixildu ei jakon. Orduan Frantzisko Losadak esan eutson:

— Entzun gazte, zer adierazi nahi dozu Euskadi geratzen jatzula esatean?

Neska harek ikusi eban Losadak Euskadiren kondairaren barri ez ekiala eta euskaldunok zer ginan eta zer gura genduan edasi eutson. Neskato honen jokaera ikusi ebanean, gure idazti batzuk eskatu eutsozan; baita behingoan ekarri ere. Orduan bihurtu ei zan eusko abertzale.

Frantzisko Losada hau Dueson, Santoñan, egoan, baina osatu barik, eta ez eutsoen jaramonik egiten. Ba ziran han Pereirotarrak, lau anai, Algortakoak, Getxokoak semez. Heuretariko bat osalaria zan eta honek garbitzen eutsozan zauriak; baina halan eta guztiz ere oso txarto egoan, osagairik ez egoalako.

Losada hau oso argia zan, mutil ikasia eta gizon legez gitxi lakoa. Sarritan esaten euskun, Bizkaiko eta Gipuzkoako mutilak Naparroako neskatilekin ezkondu behar leukeela Euskadi osoa abertzaletuteko. Oso begiko egin jakun Dueson mutil jator hau.

Hona hemen zer jazo zan beragaz:

Losadak ez ekian euskeraz. Hazilaren 23an, honela esan euskun:

— Mañana os voy a dar una sorpresa.

Guk ez genkian zergaitik esan nahi eban hori. Goizean, bederatzietan, bandera aurrean zin egiten eroaten ginduezan, baina Frantzisko ez zan joaten. Egun horretan gurekin zan. Bandera jazotzean, hitz honeek esan beharra egoten zan:

— «Viva España», «viva Franco», «arriba España».

Baina Frantziskok ez eban holan esan. Pauso bi aurreratu eta ukabila gora jasoaz, hitz honeek esan ebazan:

— «Viva la República», «viva la libertad», «arriba el nacionalismo vasco», «esto no es humanidad».

«Comandante de plaza» egiten ebana etorri jakon eta amurru biziz, begietatik sua eriola, esan eutson:

— Queda detenido.

Frantziskok erantzun:

— Llevo mucho tiempo detenido.

Gure Frantzisko han daroe Francoren soldadu kanarioek.

Biharamon goizean, ordu berean, atara ginduezan banderari zin egitera. Hau eguneroko lana zan. Bezperan legez, bardin egin beharra egoan; baina Losada Francoren bost soldaduren erdian ekarri eben, jaketxo zahar bat lepotik erdi zintzilik, besterik ez eukan eta. Ondotik joian bertako kapeilaua. Guztiok formatuta jarri ginduezan. Hasi zan komandantea esanaz:

— «Viva España», «viva Franco», «arriba España».

Losadak komandantearen deadarrekin batera, bezperan bezala, berba berberak esan ebazan:

— «Viva la República», «viva la libertad», «arriba el nacionalismo vasco».

Amaitu baino ez, bost piketeak Losadaren gorputza zulatu eta hilda itzi eben. Lurrera jausi eta laster, zaku bategaz estalduta, han itzi eben txakurra bailitzan. Handik ordu bira etorri zan morroi bat karretila bategaz eta basurako zaku bat legez bertara bota eta guztion aurrez-aurre eroan eban, ez dakigu nora, kanposantura ala aparteko lekuren batera.

Egun gogoangarria benetan, Sabin hil zanetik 34garren urtea. Euskotar askorentzako ikasbide ederra itzi euskun gure Losada Pasaiarrak. Gerran eta emakume baten bitartez abertzaletu zan hogeitahiru urteko mutil gazte eta euskotar jatorra. Beharbada, Losada abertzaletu eban emakumea bizi izango da. Zorionak berari eta oroitzapen bat Losadari.

Holango hainbat izango dira Euskadiko lurrak iruntsi eta ixilean dagozanak. Izango al da egunen baten, zinopa horreen oroitzapenez jasoriko oroikarri bat ikusteko garaia, hainbat odol ixuri eta ixuriten dagoen gure Aberri maite honetan!


I have an unforgettable memory from my town at the Santoña jail, and like me, the three thousand Basque soldiers who were there as well will remember it, those are still alive anyway.

It was the year 1937, the 25th of November, the day in which Sabin Arana died. That is to say, Arana died on the 25th of November of 1903, and this happen in 1937. Frantzisko Losada was a young man from the town of Pasaia, in Gipuzkoa. This guy was the captain of a community batallion. Before Gernika was bombed, he had been injured at the front line, and he was sick. At the Carmelite convent in Gernika, which they had covnerted into a hospital, a young girl as taking care of him, and according to Frantzsiko, very well as well. While Gernika was in flames, this girl told him:

"They've destroyed our Gernika and not only, my parents as well are among the ruins. I'm an orphan now. But I still have Euskadi, an Euskadi stained with blood."

With her eyes brimming with tears, she fell silent. Then Frantzisko said to her:

"Listen, what do you mean when you say that you still have Euskadi?'

The girl saw that Losada didn't know about Euskadi. She started to tell him about the Basque people, what we were, and what we wanted. When he saw the attitude of the girl, he asked her for some of our Basque nationalist texts, even to bring them to him right away. So, that's how he became a Basque nationalist.

Frantzisko Losada was there at the Deuso concentration camp, at Santoña, but without getting better, and they didn't take care of him. There with him were the Pereiros, four brothers from Algorta, born in Getxo. One of them was a doctor and he cleaned his wounds, but even so, he was still very sick, because there wasn't any medicine.

Losada was very intelligent, he had studied and he was man like very few were. He often used to say to us that the men from Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa should marry with the women from Nafarroa, so as to Basque-nationalise the whole of Euskadi! We liked him at lot at the Dueso prison camp.

Here's what happened to him.

Losada didn't know Basque. On the 23rd of November, he said to us:

"Tomorrow, I'll surprise you."

We didn't know why he said that. The next morning at 9, they took us to swear fealty before the Spanish flag, but Frantzisko did not go. He was with us at that day. When it came time to lower the flag, you were supposed to say these words:

"Long live Spain, long live Franco, Arriba España"

But Frantziko did not say it. He took two steps forward and raising his fist, he said:

"Long live the Republic, long live Freedom, Arriba Basque nationalism" and "This is not humane".

The acting commander came, furious, spitting fire from his eyes, and told him:

"You are being arrested."

Frantziko replied:

"I've already been arrested for a long time".

Franco's Canarian soldiers then took our Frantzisko away.

The next day, at the same hour, they took us to swear to the flag. This happened every day. Like before, we had to do the same thing. But they brought Losada in, between five soldiers, he had an old shirt hanging on his back, nothing more. Then came the camp's priest. They put us into formation. The commander started speaking:

"Long live Spain, long live Franco, Arriba España"

Losada spoke at the same time as the commander, like the day before, with the same words:

"Long live the Republic, long live Freedom, Arriba Basque nationalism!"

Before he could finish, the five soldiers shot Losada. He fell to the ground. They covered him with a bag, and left him there as if he were a dog. Two hours later, an underling came with a wheelbarrow and he was thrown in there as if he were a bag of rubbish. In front of everyone, they took him away, I don't know where, to the cemetery or some other out of the way place.

It was a day to remember, the 34th anniversary of Arana's death. Our Losada from Pasaia taught us a good lesson to many Basques. This 23 year old young man, and a fine Basque, became a Basque nationalist thanks to a woman and in war-time. Perhaps the woman who converted him into a Basque nationalist is still alive. Greetings to her and a thought for Losada.

There must be many like him that the soil of Euskadi has swallowed and keeps in silence. May there be one day, a time that will see a memorial made with the memories of those martyrs, who have shed and still shed so much blood in this beloved Homeland of ours!
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Sun Apr 24, 2022 7:44 pm

An old Basque, or at least Zuberoan custom was that when the master of a home died, the bees were informed of their master's death.


Well now I know it's a Basque custom outside of Zuberoa. I learned that in Gipuzkoa as well, when a beekeeper died, their family members had to go and tell the bees the news. And not only the news, they asked the bees for something.

Erlatxuak, erlatxuak, nagusia hil da eta egizue argizaria eleizara eramateko


Little bees, little bees, the master has died, make wax (for a candle) to take to church.

The traditional kind of candle is called an argizaiola, from argizari 'wax' + ola 'plank, board'. It was a thin candle made out of wax and wrapped around a wooden plank. It was to be burned in the church at the funerals, all Sundays and also on All Saints Day, in the memory of the dead:

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Apparently these candles are actually anthropomorphic shapes, representing the head, the arms and the body of the dead person. At one point in time the dead used to be actually buried inside the church, like under the floor, and then the candles were placed on their tomb, inside the church. This practice started in the 16th century. For whatever reason, the bodies stopped being buried inside the churches and were moved to cemetaries, but families continued to light the candles in symbolic family tombs inside the church.

This tradition stopped almost everywhere in the mid 20th century, when the introduction of benches by the Second Vatican Council made it difficult for families to place the candles on the tombs, but it still exists in a few churches, such as the San Bartolome church in the town of Amezketa, Gipuzkoa. The candles were burned by the woman of the house, or the eldest daughter. When unable to do it themselves, they sent a female servant to observe the practice.

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The little phrase that you say to the bees also reveals something very interesting that a Gipuzkoan beekeeper told me, which is that whilst you use hitanoa (the informal allocutive verb forms) when talking to pets or farm animals, with bees you talk to them in zuka, the formal verb forms. They belong to a different social category, a higher category than that of dogs, cats, pigs, chickens etc. Almost like people...
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Mon Apr 25, 2022 12:22 am

Partiendo, entonces, de esa respuesta negativa a la última pregunta formulada, podemos deducir fácilmente que, por ejemplo, el gallego puede ser perfectamente una lengua de comunicación entre todos los ciudadanos españoles en el siguiente sentido. Un gallego o valenciano podría hablar en gallego o en valenciano en todo el territorio del Estado español y ser entendido sin dificultad por todos los castellanohablantes. Esto es perfectamente posible y factible y hasta socialmente razonable y, desde luego, aconsejable.

An old quote from the linguist Juan Carlos Morena Cabrera, from a previous post of mine. I had occasion to test this out this long weekend in Extremadura because whilst I was in the three towns, I only spoke in Galician, and never in Spanish, including with people who it turned out were Andalucian tourists, Extremadurans from outside the three towns, Valencians who had come to Ellas for love (and offered me their mandarins that they were growing in their mandarin grove, of the Valencian subspecies!). All in Galician. Even when they told me eventually they were foreigners, my thought process was, well if they understood me up until now, they'll keep on understanding me and I didn't use Spanish.

In fact I'm on the bus back with monolingual Spanish speaking Extremadurans, and because I can't be arsed speaking in Spanish, I speak with them in Galician as well and they don't raise so much as a fuss. In 'deep rural Spain'.

Why the hell do we speak in Spanish? Why is Spanish our 'common language', in Spain, if Spanish and Valencian speakers understand Galician? Wouldn't it be better if everyone spoke in the language we wanted, and let each other speak in the language we wanted?


I've had discussions with some Spaniards about this.

I don't consider it to be rude if I speak in Galician, Catalan or Aranese or whatever other Iberian Romance language outside of the traditional areas where they are spoken. They ask me if I can speak Spanish. Yes, I can. Then they tell me, well, if you can speak Spanish, why are you speaking Galician in Madrid? My answer is because I can. Because I want to. Because you can't make me speak Spanish in Spain if I don't want to. And because Madrid people can and do understand me. I know, I've tried.

It seems stupid to me that if I was a Portuguese tourist who only spoke Portuguese, that they'd give me a pass for speaking Portuguese in Madrid: given the relationship between Spanish and Portuguese, the intercomprehension is good, and there are very many instances in which it is more desirable for both parties to speak in their native languages rather than going for a third language like English (which neither party may understand) or for some kind of Portuñol, with the weight of responsibility falling on the Portuguese to make the transition, because Spanish speakers in Spain rarely try to approximate to Portuguese.

If I were a Portuguese citizen using Portuguese in Madrid, I'd be an eccentric or cute tourist. If I were a Spanish citizen, but I chose to speak Galician or Catalan in Madrid, I'd be some kind of fundamentalist, a freak of nature, a rude arsehole for speaking in Catalan to get my tickets at the museum of the Prado...

It's similar with French people when I tell them I do my umost not to speak French when I go to the North Basque Country, they look at me like I have two heads. But it's not quite the same, because French monolinguals can't really understand Basque, whereas that's not the case for closely related Romance languages in Spain. I'm not going around speaking Basque or Korean in Madrid.

These Spaniards would accept the challenge of a tourist using English with them, a language which is much more difficult for a Spanish monolingual to use even after years of schooling, but they'd be offended that a fellow citizen uses a Spanish language with them, a language in which they need no formal education to mostly understand...
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Sun May 01, 2022 12:31 am

I read something from a Sardinian speaker which could so perfectly be transferred over to the language dynamics in Spain. In fact I'll translate it to Catalan (Mallorcan).

Resùmene de su bilinguismu:
- Si preguntas in sardu e rispondent in italianu, est bilinguismu.
- Si preguntant in italianu e rispondes in sardu, ses unu maleducadu.



Resum des bilinguisme:

Si tu demanes en sard i ells te responen en italià, és bilinguisme.

Si te demanen en italià i els respons en sard, ets un maleducat.


Summary of bilingualism:

If you ask a question in Sardinian and they reply to you in Italian, that's bilingualism.

But if they ask you something in Italian and you reply to them in Sardinian, then you're being rude.

It's curious that Sardinian uses preguntare, a Spanish borrowing from the time of the Aragonese domination of Sardinia, whereas Mallorcan Catalan uses demanar for the verb. But strangely enough, there is no such thing as *demana for the noun meaning 'question', instead in Mallorcan Catalan you use pregunta! So in Mallorca, you don't use preguntar but you do use pregunta, whereas you do use demanar but there's no such thing as demana. In the Catalan spoken in Alguer, which tends to preserve some interesting archaisms, the verb used is demanar, despite being surrounded by Sardinian and its preguntare...

The summary of the unequal bilinguism that Sardinian speakers are forced into reminds me of this funny little drawing I saw in Galician:

Image


Spanish speaker: It's rude to reply in Galician when they speak to you in Spanish.
Galician speaker: So let me speak first, then we'll see who's the rude one...
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Sat Jul 16, 2022 7:13 pm

Where has my post gone?
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby rdearman » Sat Jul 16, 2022 10:32 pm

nooj wrote:Where has my post gone?

I have sent you a private message.
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:07 pm

Well, the log is back, with a formal warning to keep politics out of it at the risk of getting banned or my log removed.

I don't really know how to make a language log without including politics. Pretty much every one of my posts here has something to do with politics in some way or another.

For me, language learning and linguistics are a political act. I won't promise that I'll keep politics out of it, because it's impossible. If you want to read a log where I note down the resources I'm using etc, then you wouldn't be reading this log, because I rarely if ever talk about my language learning routine, or techniques, or resources.

You know what I'm going to post about when you open this log. It's going to be a mix of current events, language revitalisation, language standardisation, some linguistics oddities that I notice in the languages that I'm learning, translations (usually of political stuff), songs (usually of political stuff) and so forth. I suspect it's the reason why any one reads anything I post here, because you probably won't be able to find many other people on the internet posting English translations of Basque texts, or English translations of Galician protest songs. Not to say that there aren't, there are. But there's not a lot of us.

Of course, I don't do anything to purposely provoke people. In this log, I put what I consider interesting to me. I suggest that if you're one of those people who reported me, to just not enter into the log.

At any rate, given that I'm not going to censor myself, I'm going to take it for granted that my time here is limited and that my log could be deleted at any moment if from this moment on someone doesn't like what I post. I'll act accordingly and back up some log entries that I consider especially interesting.
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Sat Jul 23, 2022 10:30 pm

This is the video that accompanied my post that was deleted. Unlike the last time, I'm not going to take the opportunity to talk about current migratory politics in Europe, because the images of the video and the poem itself does it. If you have a problem with that, I don't care, go ahead and report me.

The poem is by the Galician poet Celso Emilio Ferreiro from his fantastic work Longa noite de pedra (1962), but the song itself is from the 1970s group Fuxan os ventos. The last verse, I think, is an addition from the band itself. Ceslo Emilio Ferreiro uses the words irmáu 'brother' and mau 'hand', which are the forms of his area of Celanova, Ourense...meaning that the last irmán, which I had previously interpreted as a Western Galician form of irmau (brother), as as the entire poem was talking to a metaphorical brother, is in actual fact, Eastern Galician irmán (sister). So in this last verse, we switch interlocutors, from talking to the anonymous men (brothers) of the entire world...to the anonymous women (sisters) of the entire world.

Image




Camiñan ao meu rente moitos homes.
Non os coñezo. Sonme estranos.
Pero tí, que te alcontras alá lonxe,
máis alá dos desertos e dos lagos,
máis alá das sabanas e das illas,
coma un irmáu che falo.

Si é túa a miña noite,
si choran os meus ollos o teu pranto,
si os nosos berros son igoales,
coma un irmáu che falo.
Anque as nosas palabras sean distintas,
e tí negro i eu branco,
si temos semellantes as feridas,
coma un irmáu che falo.

Por enriba de tódalas fronteiras,
por enriba de muros e valados,
si os nosos soños son igoales,
coma un irmáu che falo.

Común temos a patria,
común a loita, ambos.
A miña mau che dou,
coma un irmáu che falo.

Se sintes en probeza,
se sofres inxusticia,
se cheo de rabexa
encirras á cobiza
do teu peito o can,
pra tí chea de forza
vai miña mau, irmán.


Many men walk by my side
I don't know them. They're strangers.
But you, far away from me
Beyond deserts and lakes
Beyond savannahs and islands
Like a brother I speak to you

If your night is my night
If my eyes weep your tears
If our scream is the same
Like a brother I speak to you

Although our words may be diferent
And you black, me white.
If our wounds are similar
Like a brother I speak to you

Above and over all borders
Above and over all walls and fences
If our dreams are the same
Like a brother I speak to you

We have a homeland in common
In common we have a struggle
I give you my hand
Like a brother I speak to you.

If you feel yourself to be in poverty
If you suffer injustice
If you rouse to jealousy
The dog, full of rage,
In your chest
Then my hand
Goes to you,
Full of strength,
my sister.
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Re: Bla bla bla

Postby nooj » Sat Jul 23, 2022 11:24 pm

I want to talk about one special word in a Galician-Portuguese cantiga by the 13th century troubador Nuno Fernandes/Fernandez Torneol. We know practically nothing about him, so I'm not going to bother with a biography.

I'm going to post a cleaned up version of the Galician-Portuguese text and then the English translation of the text:

Vi eu, mia madr', andar
as barcas eno mar,
e moiro-me d'amor.
Foi eu, madre, veer
as barcas eno lez,
e moiro-me d'amor.
As barcas [e]no mar
e foi-las [a]guardar,
e moiro-me d'amor.
As barcas eno lez
e foi-las atender,
e moiro-me d'amor.
E foi-las aguardar
e non'o pud'achar,
e moiro-me d'amor.
E foi-las atender
e non'o pud'i veer,
e moiro-me d'amor.
E non'o achei i,
[o] que por meu mal vi,
e moiro-me d'amor.


I saw, mother, the boats
In the sea
And I die of love.

I went to see, mother
The boats in the sea
And I die of love.

The boats in the sea
And I went to wait for them
And I die of love

The boats in the sea
And I went to wait for them
And I die of love

I went to wait for them
But I could not find him
And I die of love.

I went to wait for them
But I could not see him
And I die of love.

And I did not find him there
He who I saw
For my ruin (i.e. he who caused my ruin when I saw him)
And I die of love


The poem, as usual, is written by a man, but takes the perspective of a woman waiting for her lover.

Next I'm going to post a manuscript (B 645) of the same text, taken from the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional, a compilation of Galician-Portuguese poetry that was copied, studied and held for hundreds of years in Italy. This might be a little known fact, but Galician-Portuguese poetry was famous all around Europe during the Middle-Ages, including Italy. Today Italy is one of the hotspots for academic study of Galician-Portuguese, including the (modern) Galician language!

Image

There is one special word in this poem, lez that I want to talk about.

If you read modern Galician-Portuguese critical editions, it is corrected by many editors as ler. Ler is a near hapax legomenon, only appearing in this poem and in another poem by the troubador Joan Zorro. In the photo of the manuscript I posted above, there it is written lez. Editors have various reasons for changing this word (rhyme structure, the parallelism between lines), but also because it was very easy for <z> to be corrected in the Italian manuscripts at the end of the word. In the manuscripts you easily see things like <poz> for <por>, for example.

Now this word, ler, if it is indeed the correct word, must mean something like 'sea', because of how the semantic parallelism works out:

Vi eu, mia madr', andar
as barcas eno mar,
e moiro-me d'amor.
Foi eu, madre, veer
as barcas eno ler


Quite a lot of ink has been spilled by philologists on this one word. The word only shows up in a few mid 20th century Galician dictionaries, which could easily have been the result of lexicrographers copying a word that itself only shows up in the ancient Galician-Portuguese cantigas, making it worthless to prove anything.

It is certainly unknown by the majority of Galician speakers today. In fact, much of this philological uncertainty on what the correct word should be, lez or ler, is only attributable to the fact that modern Galician doesn't use ler. If it was a standard word today in modern Galician, you can be sure that no one would question the 'correct' editorial choice, because the other option, lez, presents just as much difficulties as the other option (where does it come from? what does it mean? etc).

Many philologists have justified their choice of ler by connecting it to Celtic languages, c.f. Old Irish ler 'sea', Middle Welsh llŷr 'sea, ocean, water course', thereby suggesting a Celtic origin to the Galician word, which is possible, given the ancient presence of Celtic languages in Galicia. However, that linguistic presence was almost completely overwritten by the Romanisation. Modern Galician has very few Celtic loanwords.

And yet, recently I read a fascinating account from a Galician person, who had a first hand experience with a Galician speaker who used ler.

Em 1995 ouvi em Mogia, na Costa da Morte a palavra "Ler" como sinónimo de "Mar" da boca duma senhora que naquela altura devia ter uns 85 anos aproximadamente. A senhora contava-me com era a vida dos marinheiros quando ela era jovem e falava-me de como "...iam morrer lá no "ler"...".


In 1995 I heard in Muxía, on the Costa da Morte, the word 'ler', used as a synonym of 'sea', from a woman who must have been around 85 years old around then. The woman told me what the sailors life was like when she herself was a young person, and she told me how 'they would go die there in the 'ler'.

Now of course one has to be skeptical, one has to admit the possibility, however remote, that the woman read or heard the medieval Galician-Portuguese cantigas and adopted the word, or that someone else read or heard the medieval word and passed it on to her. But, if it's a genuine Galician word, then it's survived some 700 years without being recorded in any dictionary.

It's funny, the philologists poring over ancient manuscripts tore their hair out trying to secure the correct manuscript reading, but if someone had bothered to go out and ask native speakers, "have you heard this word before?", they might have found a real surviving example of the word. However, you can't really blame them though for thinking that if the majority of Galicians don't know this word and it doesn't show up in most dictionaries, then it probably doesn't exist. It is interesting, however, that the word was used in a sea town, by the daughter of fishermen.

Here is the cantiga being sung by a Polish musicologist, Paulina Ceremużyńska, who fell in love with Galicia, learned the Galician language and studies/sings Galician-Portuguese cantigas. She uses the ler reading.



You can compare that to a modernised version (1978) by the Galician singer Xosé Quintas Canella. I can't say which I like more, I like them both.

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