Bla bla bla

[nooj]

I'm in the town of Bergara, super cool town - the hometown of the Basque aristocracy - and there's a convent here, Hirutasun Guztiz Santuaren Komentua (Convento de la Santísima Trinidad) occupied by las Hermanas de María Stella Matutina. They're nuns. I don't translate the Spanish name for the following reason, because they themselves don't translate their name on their website, nor is their website in Basque. Spanish, French and English yes, but no Basque, despite them literally living in a Basque town where the majority of the population are Basque speakers.

Yesterday, Sunday, I attended Mass at their convent and was surprised to hear everything done in French. There were 40 or so sisters in habits and all, and although it was hard to see as they were wearing habits and kneeling or bowing and facing the altar, they were clearly from all over the world. A sister came over to whisper the translation into Spanish of the sermon that was given by the priest, an incredible feat of simultaneous translation in my opinion, there was not even a lag time like you normally have with professional interpreters. It was instantaneous. I wanted to explain that I understood French, but I let her do it because it was obvious she wanted to help. A thing I want to emphasise is how young they were, the vast majority of the women were younger than me (I'm 30).

Later after Mass I caught two of the sisters outside as they were going to guitar lessons. We spoke in French. I asked one of the women why everything was in French and was again surprised to learn that the majority of them came from French speaking countries. The woman I spoke to, for example, was 25 years old but had joined when she was 18, and she was Belgian. Her companion was French.

There were people from further afield: Australians, New Zealanders etc, and I know there was at least one South Basque woman there (I saw her chatting in Spanish with a friend - who was not a nun - as they were on their way to the old people's home to visit and give pastoral care) and if it weren't for her habit you'd assume she was just another person hanging out with a friend on a Sunday afternoon.

I guess that the non French speakers, by force of living in the convent, learned French or at least enough to do their daily work.

Let me bring this all the way back to one of my first posts when I was living in Morocco, and a friend of mine was singing a verse of the Qur'an. It was an incredible moment that I still remember vividly. And I had the same experience yesterday watching this congregation - this unified body - of women raising their voice in song. Sneaking a glimpse of these women's faces, smiling, in rapture, how could I not make the connection to my friend as he sung the praise of God? One in classical Arabic, the other in French.

I entered the church a few hours before Mass to check it out and found already a few sisters on their knees, in prayer, and when I came back in after Mass, some were still there praying...their lives are basically revolved around prayer and worship, and whilst every part of my anarchist soul finds the hierarchical nature of the Church antithetical, I can't deny the honesty of religious sentiment in the people I see it in. I find it hard to reconcile the beauty they extract from their religion with the treachery, meanness and brutality of their fellow compatriots who profess nominally the same beliefs and claim to love the same God...

The Belgian woman, for example, with her guitar who I caught as she was going to get guitar lessons (to better worship the Lord of course), with a brilliant smile that lit up her face and absolutely no sign that she regretted consecrating the rest of her life to loving God: how many people outside of the convent are as happy as her?

Bringing this back to language, she at least seemed to have a shaky grasp of Spanish, although she was learning it. Living in a convent with a bunch of French speakers must not be conducive to immersion in Spanish. But I wonder if they any connection or interest in Basque at all...they seem to live in a world as isolated linguistically as they are spiritually.

[DaveAgain]

Yesterday, Sunday, I attended Mass at their convent and was surprised to hear everything done in French.

That order seems to have been established in 2009 by a splinter group of a French order, the Contemplative Sisters of St John.

[nooj]

I forgot to mention that while doing the one Transpyrenaic route (GR-11), I couldn't resist the temptation of passing over to the other one, the GR-10, and see a bit of the North Basque Country. So it is that I crossed from Sorogain to Urepel, home of the famous bertsolari and shepherd Xalbador, purposely to see his home. Actually along the way I got to see where he was born, a hut in the mountain, currently occupied to my surprise by a Valencian shepherd who kindly let me in and photograph the interior and we had a peaceful conversation (in Valencian/Catalan) over coffee. He doesn't get much human visitors and he was happy to talk to someone.

From Urepel I went to other Baxe-Nafarroan towns like Aldude, Banka and finally to Baigorri, from there to other towns like Donibane Garazi and then east into the province of Xiberoa.

The shepherd hut where Xalbador was born:



Xalbador's family home in Urepel:



In Urepel I met Jean-Claude Lafitte and his wife Marie. Both retired, for many years owners of a restaurant that is now closed that also serves as their home. As it happened they invited me to spend the night and also have dinner. Marie understands Basque but does not speak it, although she isn't a native of Urepel, I can't recall from where exactly. Her parents were Basque speakers but as she explains, speaking Basque was considered 'not sophisticated' in her time.

Jean-Claude is a native speaker of Basque, and speaks Basque preferentially - especially with his wife who has no other choice but to understand him! He only switched to French with her when Marie didn't understand something we were saying, but she understood a great deal.

They had to retire in part for health reasons. Jean-Claude has had multiple serious heart attacks, and he looks after the garden now where they grow their food. I'm a bit afraid for his health, I want to go back and visit them soon. One of their sons died in a tragic traffic accident when he was 16 years old, and a member of Xalbador's family composed for them a bertso in his honour, which I post below and I'll post a translation later.



Jean-Claude plays the trikitixa (the accordion), has a beautiful singing voice and animates Basque music events. He's also a Basque nationalist, an abertzale. Not as an ideologue who fights on Twitter or in the hallways of political power but from the ground up, in his fibre, he lives and breathes Basque culture. He's widely travelled across the Basque Country, including in the South where they used to go for vacations, he has met a bazillion Basques (in part thanks to the restaurant!), and in my discussions with him, he positions himself clearly as Basque in opposition to French or Spanish national identity.

They are wonderful, kind people and I felt sorry to intrude on their retirement, but they practically forced me to stay! Basque for me has passed from being a language I learn from books to being indelibly linked with people like Jean-Claude and Marie, in lived experience.



The interior of the now-closed restaurant (notice the Arrano Beltza flag behind Jean-Claude):



Jean-Claude and Marie:



Finally let me say that the Urepel dialect of Basque - indeed, the many dialects of Baxe-Nafarroa - were a pure delight to listen to. If you know standard Basque, there's hardly a leap, and if you interest yourself in learning a bit about Baxe-Nafarroan Basque before you go, you'll have a fun time.

[nooj]

This is from yesterday's Berria newspaper showing the movies currently available to see in the cinemas of the Basque Country. Everything is in Spanish or French, except for one movie dubbed (?) or with subtitles in Basque. If you can't find it, it's in Iruñea, Space Jam: Aro Berria. One available hour.

I could take this opportunity to complain about the negligence of the various governments that rule over the Basque Country, something easy to do, but since we're on a language learning forum, instead I have a different question.

Would you learn a language that you will practically never see or read (with subtitles) in the movies? You won't be able to play the latest videogames in this language...you won't see the Netflix shows you like in this language, ever. Does that make you feel motivated to learn this language?

[iguanamon]

Would you learn a language that you will practically never see or read (with subtitles) in the movies? You won't be able to play the latest videogames in this language...you won't see the Netflix shows you like in this language, ever. Does that make you feel motivated to learn this language?

Yes, I have already done so. There is almost nothing available on netflix with Haitian Creole. Nothing for Lesser Antilles Creole French and, I doubt there's anything available for Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol.

Video games? Nope. Movies? Nope. Harry Potter? No.

I'm not in the fortunate position to be able to travel around and hang out in TL countries for an extended period of time. Visiting Haiti right now, in the midst of the violence and gangs controlling the streets, for a leisure traveling "blan (foreigner)" would be pure insanity. To get to St Lucia or Dominica to pratice LAFC? Well, first I have to fly north to Miami... then back south to the islands. Again, I don't have the ability to take much time to spend there because of work and family obligations... and then... there's still the pandemic going on. Fortunately for me, there are people here who speak the Creoles. Ladino is alive in the diaspora through social media, the ladinokomunita forum and what's going on at the university level. There are no dubbed/subtitled mainstream films that I know of available in these languages. There's only one or two in Ladino. Oddly, there is a Hollywood film with a significant amount of Ladino within it- "Every Time We Say Goodbye" starring Tom Hanks.

La pel·lícula té la particularitat de tenir parts en judeocastellà; segons dades de gener de 2013, solament hi ha cinc pel·lícules en IMDb parcialment parlades en aquest idioma

So, what can you do with it? Well, I meet people and talk to them. I read what I can. I listen to what I can. I make my way. I learn a lot from them about their homelands and outlooks on life that come from that unique context. It's like a window opening up to me that I wouldn't get in English.

I've been following your travels with great interest and envy, nooj. I admire that you learn minority languages like the many Basque dialects; Catalan dialects; Galego; Asturiano; and Aranés. I admire that you use them with people. Who needs movies, Harry Potter, series and sci-fi when there's a rich well of cultural knowledge diversity waiting to be drawn from the speakers of these languages. There is such a wealth of language opportunity on the Iberian peninsula!

[nooj]

So, what can you do with it? Well, I meet people and talk to them. I read what I can. I listen to what I can. I make my way. I learn a lot from them about their homelands and outlooks on life that come from that unique context. It's like a window opening up to me that I wouldn't get in English.

Of course I agree with you, these languages and the speakers who own them are valuable, with or without Netflix shows.

But to be clear, loving someone who is in a minoritised, vulnerable or oppressed state doesn't mean that I love them because they're minoritised, or even less that I'm happy that they're in this situation. I'd do anything to see Basque splashed on every cinema and every TV screen in the Basque Country. If I have ever given the impression that I'm a sort of masochist who enjoys not being able to use the languages I learn with the same normality as other languages, I want to say, actually most of the time I'm miserable, angry and combative!

The other thing I want to point out is that while you and me we learn these languages despite the situation they're in, I think it's only a very small minority of people who would do so. The hundreds of thousands of young Basque kids who grow up in a situation of Spanish or French language dominance, will they think the same? A 14 year old Basque teenager who goes to the cinema and wants to see a movie in Basque has no choice, and what lesson will he take away from that?

Apart from the fact that speakers have every right to have access to the same audiovisual material as speakers of dominating languages and so deserve representation, our languages will only survive if they can challenge Spanish and French in these fields. Maybe 500 years ago it was different, when we didn't 'need' TV or the internet. But the sociocultural and economic shifts have made it obligatory, I think, for Basque to become a public language in all respects. A public language being used in all aspects of society.

I am convinced Basque will never stop being minoritised and probably will keep on going backwards, maybe die, so long as we don't win these spaces.

Basque speakers talk about normalisation, because they want it to be normal...we can argue about whether Basque speakers should actually want to fit into the mold of a dominating language like Spanish and French, instead of keeping Basque in its pure state of indigeneity, which practically means being locked into idealised sheep farms, but that's not really for us (foreigners) to decide. Basque speakers I know by and large have already said what they want, which is full normalisation, i.e. fulfill every role that Spanish and French has.

[nooj]

Here's the Lea-Artibai region. I visited one of these towns recently, Berriatua. Although it's common to say that 'Basque differs from to town', and it's true, rarely do people actually explain in detail what these differences amount to. I'd like to look at a few morphological details between three Basque dialects, the one from Lekeitio, the one from Ondarroa and the one from Berriatua.

Berriatua has about 1250 inhabitants. It's important to note that not all people live in the town proper. When I speak of Lekeitio, Ondarroa and Berriatua as 'towns', I also mean the outlying farms and the whole administrative zone, and that's important because the dialect changes within Lekeitio, Ondarroa and Berriatua as well. Like any other language, actually, you can literally say that the language changes from household to household. As you can see from the map, Berriatua and Ondarroa are close neighbours, and are walking distance from each other (about 2 hours one way from town centre to town centre).

Here's a morphological chart I prepared for the nork-nori-nor verbal argument structure for the auxiliary verb *edun. Nork-nori-nork means ergative-dative-absolutive. First column is Batua (standard Basque), second is Lekeitio, third is Ondarroa and the last one is Berriatua.



As is predictable, the biggest differences are between the standard Basque, whose root is *edun and the Western Basque dialects where the root is taken from eutsi. The three Western Basque dialects are very similar to each other, but not identical. This root eutsi undergoes some modification depending on the exact Western dialect. In Lekeitio it remains the same, e.g. neutzan. In Ondarroa and Berriatua, it is either dropped altogether or when it does appear, in Ondarroa it is reduced to -e- e.g. netzan, in Berriatua it becomes -o- (from eu>ou>o), e.g. n(o)ntzan.

If you look at the hari forms (to him/her/it), you start getting some very cool stuff.

Normally the Ondarroa and the Berriatua dialects are closer together, which is natural, but the Ondarroan dialect also allows itself to do some things with its first and second person forms - gentzan, sentzan and sentzen -, which sets it apart from the other two dialects which have eutzagun/tzauen, eutzasun/tzasun, eutzasuen/tzasuen. What happens is that the two other dialects have nori-nork-nor in these two forms, whereas Ondarroa dialect optionally flips the argument structure around, giving nork-nori-nor.

For example, in Lekeitio you say eutzagun where -EU- is the root, -TZA- marks the dative, -GU- marks the ergative. The absolutive argument is null, though present. Thus you would say in Lekeitio, esan eutzagun: we told it to him/her/it, and the Berriatua variant is very similar, tzauen (where you have to imagine a previous form like *eutzaguen > *(eu)tza(g)uen > tzauen). However, in Ondarroa, you have gentzan, where G- is the ergative argument, -E- is the root, -TZA- is the dative and the absolutive is not expressed, c.f. the standard Basque genion. In Ondarroa, you can say esan gentzan: we told it to him/her/it.

Now interestingly enough, this is optional. So in Ondarroa, you can also say it in the other way (but only for the second person forms, the first person plural form stays the same): gentzan remains gentzan, but sentzan can also be said tzasun, and sentzen can be said tzasuen, which is very similar to Lekeitio: eutzasun, eutzasuen and Berriatua: tzasun, tzasuen.

Another thing to keep in mind is the verbal forms that speakers choose can depend on what generation they belong to. Although it's not included in my photo, imagine the guk-zuei-hura form (nork-nori-nor). In standard Basque, genizuen. In Lekeitio, eutzuegun. In Ondarroa, gentzuauen. In Berriatua, the conservative speakers use gontzuen (nork-nori-nor), the younger speakers have started to use something more similar to the Lekeitio forms, tzuauen. In a sentence like 'we told youse it': esan genizuen (standard), esan eutzuegun (Lekeitio), esan gentzuauen (Ondarroa), you can have esan gontzuen OR tzuauen (Berriatua) depending on if you're a conservative or an innovating speaker.

Out of pure interest, if you want to say 'we told youse these things', it would be: esan genizkizuen (standard), esan eutzuegusan (Lekeitio), esan gentzuauen (Ondarroa, no change! here. See below for more information), esan gontzuesan/tzuauesan (Berriatua).

The Ondarroa form gentzuauen is even more special than it might appear at first sight, because it actually repeats the NORK (ergative) argument twice in the same verb: G-entzua-U-en, where U has been reduced from from GU.

I want to remark one thing, it is very common in some verb forms in all dialects for extreme simplification to take place in the arguments. For example, it's possible for the same form to be used for both singular and plural numbers of the NOR (absolutive) argument and to specify whether you're talking about one or many things, you have to explicitly say it in the phrase.

For example, in the Ondarroan dialect, to say 'Miren gave us the book' you can say 'Mirenek liburu erregala sku' (standard: Mirenek liburua erregalatu digu), and to say 'Miren gave us the books' you can say either 'Mirenek liburuk erregala skus' (standard: Mirenek liburuak erregalatu dizkigu) with the plural argument well marked, or you can just say 'Mirenek liburuk erregala sku' with the plural marker absent! This would be a crass error in standard Basque, but is legitimate in some dialects.

This simplification process is quite common and doesn't just affect number agreement, but also the presence of fundamental arguments. So I said that in Lekeitio you would say esan eutzuegun 'we told youse it', but it's actually common to change the trivalent structure of the verb and collapse it down to bivalent: esan saittugun. This last phrase is doubly weird for a standard Basque speaker because it literally means 'we said youse' (as if you all, the people I'm speaking too, were actually sentences or words, a DO and not an IO! Lekeitio dialect, unlike the Berriatua or the Ondarroa dialects, has dative placement shift. In Ondarroa, it would be perfectly normal to say 'we said it' like this 'esan gendun' and specifiy explicitly 'to youse' by adding 'zueri'.

I find this simplification process slightly sad, because it's neat to have all that information nicely wrapped up in one verb form like we have in standard Basque, but obviously the native speakers of their dialects don't seem to find it too troublesome. Ordinary people don't care about the aesthetics of polypersonality in Basque verbs, they just care about whether it sounds good according to their internal grammar and also the efficiency of information structure.

[nooj]

If you want to read Ondarroa dialect, you can read this blog, Turrune! (which means siren) written about Ondarroa matters and for Ondarroa inhabitants. It's one of the rare places where you can see long texts written in this dialect. Here's a recent entry talking about the reopening of the bookshop Zurrumurru (the name of the shop means rumour).

Herriko dendan aldeko hautu aspaldiku de TURRUNIN. Denda txikixak herrixe bixik mantentzen dabela pentsaten dou eta liburo denda bat zabaltzi ospatzeku dela ereisten gasku guri, beraz ZURRUMURRU barrixai ongi etorrixe emoteko han eongo gaz. Gogoratu ongoxe baixakun arratsaldeko 8,30 xetan ZURRUMURRUko eskaparate aurrin.

Written in standard dialect:

Herriko dendaren aldeko hautua aspaldikoa da TURRUNEAN. Denda txikiak herria bizirik mantentzen duela pentsatzen dugu eta liburudenda bat zabaltzea ospatzekoa dela iritzen zaigu guri, beraz ZURRUMURRU barriro ongi etorria emateko han egongo gara. Gogoratu oraingo barikuan (ostiralean) arratsaldeko 8:30etan, ZURRUMURRUko eskaparate aurrean.

Gasku [gasku] is super interesting. In standard Basque, zaigu [sajgu]. In Lekeitio, jaku [ʒaku]. In Berriatua, jaku [χaku]. In Ondarroa, original Basque /ja/ somehow or other became [ga]. As another specifity, in all first person forms, it uses another root, gas-, like in gasku (to us), or standard Basque zait, Lekeitio jat, Berriatua jate, but Ondarroa gasta (to me).

[nooj]

On the EasySpanish channel they put up a video of interviewing people in the streets of Gernika about what they think about Basque. I understand it's for a Spanish language channel but I find it disappointing they didn't use the time to actually show what Basque sounds like to their legions of viewers. I'm sure most of them have never heard the Basque dialect of Gernika.

Anyway there's several people in the comments section asking for an EasyBasque channel and whilst I'm all for it (it's basically how I'm learning Greek after all!), I wonder how a hypothetical EasyBasque would handle Basque dialects.

Basque is far from being the only language to have dialects that have an important presence in daily life, but the EasyLanguage channels I've seen usually interview people or show people who keep to the standard or something approximating it. Take EasyGerman. Although they have a few videos showcasing usually in the sense of comparing it to the standard, they only have a few where they interview people who speak the dialects in question, namely in Switzerland and in Austria. But their pedagogic videos i.e. "how to say x or y" are strictly in standard, and these 'dialect videos' are more akin to excursions than anything.

If there were to be an EasyBasque would they only teach standard Basque dialect? But unless they choose very carefully, they'd have to show speakers of other dialects, there's just too many not to. So let's assume they do it like in the Swiss German videos, with subtitles in 'eye-dialect'.

At that point, I think it's illogical to not also start explicitly teaching the differences between the standard dialect and other dialects. The people behind EasyGerman can afford not to, because the amount of German learners wanting to learn Swiss German dialects is miniscule and they seem to very much have a Germany focus, Switzerland being an excursion trip for them.

But it'd be ridiculous for a hypothetical EasyBasque channel to only focus on standard Basque speakers, the moment you start interviewing more than like the same five people (or step outside of your town/region) you'll start running into other Basque dialects. Similarly if they ever start an EasySwissGerman channel, they'd have to start with exposing learners to several Swiss German dialects from the start. What did they do with EasyNorwegian?

Given the high dialectical variety situation of Basque, I'd prefer an EasyBasque channel that teaches standard and then concurrently also has videos that points out the salient differences between standard and the various dialects they come into contact with. But to do this well they might need linguists to assess and help. As far as I know all the EasyLanguage channels are made by laymen and women, and I frankly don't trust them, as well intentioned as they may be, to do it well beyond the facile list of comparisons of vocabulary and expressions. Personally I'd love that with EasyGerman, but they've never done that, systematically, for German varieties.

Anyway it's a pipe dream. Who knows if we'll ever get an EasyBasque. I'm at a point in my life where I can just consume native media or you know talk to my neighbours...but I think it'd be good for people just starting, because I remember when I was beginning that I was frustrated that there wasn't (and still isn't) hardly any audio material that has subtitles.

[David27]

I am a big fan of the EasyLanguages team and series. It would be great to have an EasyBasque to have more Basque content out there. Regardless of however they hypothetically decide to logistically handle regional variations and different accents, I would be excited for it!