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nooj
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Re: Euskara (berriro)

Postby nooj » Tue Jan 19, 2021 6:53 am

Taken from the FB page of the local radio broadcaster of Cangas del Narcea, a municipality in Asturias :

¿LO HABÉIS SENTIDO? Entre la 1:15 y la 1:30 horas, un estruendo que se hizo sentir en esta parte de la península, León, Asturias, Galicia, Portugal.... Testimonios aseguran que el cielo se iluminó repentinamente durante un par de segundos con una luz y dos minutos después se escuchó un estruendo grave que incluso provocó un pequeño temblor. Se especula con muchas posibilidades, habrá que esperar a que alguna institución oficial confirme qué ha pasado.


The use of sentir to mean oír/escuchar is commonly found in the Spanish spoken in Catalan, Galician, Astur-Leonese and Aragonese speaking lands (the north-west and east part of Spain).

In all four languages sentir regularly has this meaning.

Asturian: Métime la llingua hasta'l gargüelu / déxame sentir les tos palabres bien dientro de mi

Aragonese: si gritas no siento o que dicen en a radio

But the RAE also records this meaning in its Spanish dictionary.

tr. Oír o percibir con el sentido del oído. Siento pasos.
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Re: Euskara (berriro)

Postby nooj » Sun Jan 24, 2021 3:51 pm

tractor wrote:
nooj wrote:Image

I'm curious about what happened in la Franja. More or less the same population size, but a significant drop in the use of Catalan. Is this somehow connected to the LAPAO nonsense?


1) Rural flight of young Catalan speakers
2) The increasing age of the population there, and the lowering birth rate
3) And these are replaced by Spanish speaking immigrants
4) Who have no impetus to learn Catalan because Catalan in the Franja is severely minoritised in the administration, education, health system, media etc.

The population size has remained the same, but the components of this population haven't. For more on this, see: Llengua i societat a la Franja. Anàlisi de l'Enquesta d'usos lingüístics (2004-2014) where this trend was studied.
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Re: Euskara (berriro)

Postby nooj » Sun Jan 24, 2021 3:55 pm

Image

Aragonese is by far the most endangered language in Spain, and quite possibly the most endangered Romance language in Europe. Wikipedia puts the number of speakers at 20,000 but according to the most recent figure I've been able to find from 2018, from the director of the newly created DGPL (Dirección General de Política Lingüística), the true number is around 8,000 speakers, most of them elderly.

Most of the native speakers of Aragonese come from the Pyrenean valleys or the plains, but there are hundreds, if not thousands of speakers (most of whom are new speakers) in Zaragoza, the capital of the autonomous province of Aragon. These Pyrenean valleys were devastated by rural flight as young people left for cities and jobs. If they ever came back, they came back speaking Spanish. This is unfortunately still a pressing problem today, one that puts into jeopardy the continued survival of the language. Why learn Aragonese if there are no jobs in your town and you're not going to live there?

Intergenerational transmission has stopped or nearly stopped, and as a result many dialects are spoken by a couple dozen people or a couple hundred people. To learn and speak Aragonese, whether in one of its severely endangered natural varieties or in its new and vibrant neo-Aragonese form, demands effort and commitment from the learner. The best way to learn one of these natural Aragonese dialects is to move to one of these towns and live there, or move to Zaragoza and Huesca, and connect with a group of new speakers.

Curiously, at its most desperate moment in its history, in these last five or six years Aragonese has also gotten its best political/juridical chance to revitalise the language. I'm talking about the IX Legislature of Aragon, a new government formed by a coalition of PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español) and CHA (Chunta Aragonesista).

The name of the political party CHA is written in Aragonese and that gives you a clue to its position with respect to the Aragonese language. It is an Aragonese nationalist left wing party. It is the only party that regularly uses Aragonese in its public outreach. It is the only party that I think is for the normalisation and recuperation of Aragonese and Catalan.

Thanks to this coalition between PSOE and the CHA, they overturned the previous right wing policies and undertook unprecedented steps towards the recuperation of Aragonese.

For example, the creation of the Dirección General de Política Lingüística del Gobierno de Aragón (DGPLA) in 2015, the body to direct language revitalisation efforts for Aragonese as well as for the other Aragonese language, Catalan. In 2016, this body received a budget of 532 000 euros, in 2018 this was bumped up to 734 000 euros. That's not enough money when you have to cover the two Aragonese languages, but it's a start.

Among its many initiatives the most important is undoubtedly in education, where up until now Aragonese has had a testimonial presence (= almost nothing). In a matter of years, they created curricula for Aragonese as a subject for primary, high school and bachillerato levels, they created a trial programme in collaboration with the University of Zaragoza to make Aragonese the language of immersion in infant education, which was applied in 2016-2017 with 130 children in 7 locations in the Pyrenean part of Aragon...and given that there is no standard Aragonese, each course had materials created in the varieties spoken in each region.

The Johan Ferrández d'Heredia seat for Aragonese studies was created at the University of Zaragoza, to encourage research into Aragonese, which is important because a great deal of the theory and critical reflection on the current revitalisation of Aragonese comes from the university ambit. Kind of like the critical role played by the Università di Corsica Pasquale Paoli in Corsican language revitalisation.

Another step forward was taken in 2018, now one's level of Aragonese can be certified according to the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) in annual tests.

Aragonese is also being prepared to be introduced into the official schools of languages (EOI) in Aragon. These are publicly funded schools specially dedicated to teaching languages, run by the education department of each autonomous community of Spain. If carried out it would be a significant step towards offering Aragonese education to all Aragonese citizens. Right now if you're an Aragonese person who wants to learn Aragonese you either have to learn Aragonese by yourself or take courses given by associations. And the DGPLA also gives out grants to businesses and organisations that promote Aragonese amd funds literary prizes.

These and many other inciatives were unimaginable only six years ago, when the right wing government had control. But it comes very late. If Aragonese governments had done this as soon as the Spanish dictatorship fell, four decades ago, when the number of speakers was still in the tens of thousands, Aragonese would not be in this position.

And it's not a case of 'hindsight is 50/50', even back then there were calls for Aragonese to be made an official language (something that CHA advocates for today). The Spanish constitution of 1978, adopted just after the dictatorship, gives each community the opportunity to officialise its language(s), an opportunity eagerly taken up in Galicia, Valencia, Navarra, Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, the Basque Country...

But status quo political parties in Aragonese had no desire to challenge Spanish supremacy. It took 27 years after Aragon became an autonomous community in 1982 for the first law governing the Aragonese languages to be legislated, in 2009, thanks to (again) a left wing coalition of PSOE-CHA.

Which was then abrogated in 2013 as soon as the right wing coalition of PP-PAR (Partido Popular and the Partido Aragonés) came into power. They replaced the 2009 law with another one that for example refused to call Aragonese and Catalan by their own names, marking them in the legislation as 'lengua aragonesa propia de las áreas pirenaica y prepirenaica' and 'lengua aragonesa propia del área oriental' respectively. These designations were consequently popularised as 'LAPAPYP' and 'LAPAO' ironically of course, mocking the fact that some segments of the Aragonese political class are so allergic to any language other than Spanish that they prefer to call them anything but Aragonese and Catalan.

The problem is that it's all dependent on politics. If the right wing Aragonese parties whose attitudes towards Aragonese and Catalan you can only describe as contempt come back into power, all this progress comes to a screeching halt. The whole history of Aragonese political history is that of parties playing football with the language.

Imagine if the right-wing really wished to see the Aragonese languages thrive. Then it wouldn't matter who was in power, Aragonese would get support all the same, and language activists could work in some order. Unfortunately that's not the case, and there's not much hope of getting the Spanish right wing, inveterate Spanish nationalists, to see eye to eye on this issue with "commie pinkos". More than anything, you need political continuity. The left wing needs to win and keep winning. Even one electoral change, one more obstacle in the introduction of Aragonese into schools, could strike a fatal blow for Aragonese.
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Re: Euskara (berriro)

Postby nooj » Sun Jan 24, 2021 4:02 pm

It's not farfetched to speak of a Pyrenean civilisation (in the sense of cultural continuum) that manifested itself differently in the Basque, Aragonese, Gascon, Catalan languages. People on both sides of the Pyrenees used to live similar lifestyles, herding and pasturing cattle, agriculture and there were a lot of inter-border contact and trade. As late as the 20th century, thousands of Aragonese workers went to Zuberoa to work seasonally.

I'm reading some stuff in the Benasquese dialect. It is spoken in several towns in the valley of Benás. It has between 1000-2000 speakers, but no one knows. Numerically it is one of the biggest Aragonese varieties, but the intergenerational transmission stopped several decades ago for most families in the valley.

Image

Here is a short story entitled Viento 'Wind' from a Benasquese high school student in 2nd of ESO. So she'd probably be 14 years old. And already a good writer! I'm assuming she got other, older native speakers to revise it:

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. En ixe bonico llugá, de repente, la mia mirada se ba sentrá dan un bonico caball beis. Els caballs son la mia debilidad, son grans, fors, fiels, cariñosos y de postura imponente. Tienen tot lo que me fa goy.

Mirando iste caball ba vinre a la mia cabesa, el recuerdo de aquels tems en els que yo tamé teniba caballs. El mío se dibe Viento. Yere alto, for, de coló marron, casi nero, pelo nero, molt llargo y güels marrons. A vegades paresebe pelirrollo, sobretot cuan la llum le dabe en el pelo.

Els dos creixeban chuntos y ben compartí la nuestra chuventu. Mientres ell creixebe, yo creixeba, cuand yo apreneba, ell tamé. Ben aprenre moltes coses, Viento de yo y yo de ell, pero sobretot yo.

El tems que ben está chuntos, me ba a mostrá lo que ye está una persona leal, una persona segura. Me ba amostrá, sin palabres, a está la persona mes segura del mon y la confiansa que teniba dan ell yere especial.

Yere un caball humilde, se comportabe de manera diferent segun dan qui estabe y podebe está mes tranquilo o mes nervioso. Si estaba enfurruñada, buscaba els suyos güels, ixos güels que solo els tenibe un caball y el miraba perque sabeba que dan ise simple gesto, Viento, el mio caball podebe sácame totes les mies penes y els mios mals. Solo un caball coma ell, podebe fe-lo. Pero coma tot teniba su fin...tamé ista amistad paresebe teni-lo. El mio pai ba querí quedase a viure a un altro puesto y ba desidí venelo. Ise dia plloré coma mai, el mon se me ba vinre ensima. Dispués de tantos compartis dan ell tantísimos momentos, se habe convertiu en mi chermano, en mi compañero, en mi milló amigo, mi paz, mi tranquilidad, le amaba. Y pensá que tot se acababe...Me partibe el corason en mil y un trosos.

Així que en ise mismo momento, deidí luchá per él. Teniba que pensá la milló forma de fe-lo. Lo primero que se me ba ocurrí ba está que teniba que contaselo a la mia mai perque yere la persona dan la que mes confiansa teniba, solo teniba que elegir el moment mes apropiado.

Y chustamente ba coinsidí que ella y yo, al dia siguiente anaban a minchá fora de casa. Be aprovechá durante el disná ta contaselo tot y a la fin, me ba di que le u dixese al mio pai, que no teniba que tinre po, que no anaba a perdé res per intentalo ya que el mio pai, ta ixes coses yere tamé comprensivo. Al arribá a casa, ya mes tranquila, le be contá al mio pai tot lo que estabe pasan, que sin Viento me faltabe una parte de la mia vida y que queriba torná altra vegada dan el mio compañero, dan el mio chermano ta recuperá la mia paz...Be insistí e insistí, no yera felis sin ell.

Puede paresé una tontería, pero me haben separadu del mio caball, no de un caball cualsquiera. Ta yo yere mes que aixó. La conisió que teniba y sentiba dan ell, no la sentiba dan digú.

El mio pai me ba di que ya se veríe, que anabe a fe lo que podese y que me entenebe mol be.

Ixos dies, els mios pais ban encomensá a no está be, discutiben tos els diez y no podeben posasen de acuerdo en casi res. A la fin, se ban separá y ista situasion no me ba aychudá a trovame milló.

No teniba ganes de fe res, ni de aná a la carrera, ni de fe deporte, ni de quedá dan mis els mios amigos y ademes no trovaba una salida. Yere coma un forau al mio peito.

Nesesitaba salre a paseá per el prau dan el mio caball, mirá els suyos güels tan espesials y galopá dan ell durante un bonico atardesé...

Dan bastante esforso, be arribá a sabre qui el tenibe. El mio pai me ba di que yebe un contrato y que podeban intentá recupera-lo. U be intentá y u be lográ. Be podé torná a teni-lo, a vede-lo, sentí-lo una altra vegada y recuperá la suya mirada.

La suya compañía me ba achudá uns dies, pero emosionalment, yo me trovaba mal per la separasió dels mios pais. Seguiba sin tinre ganes de res, ni de aná al instituto y la mia mai sen ba aná de casa.

En isos dies no me be doná cuenta de que no ell be apro-vechá coma teniba que haber-lo feto. No anaba dan ell, no feba res dan ell y no ell cuidaba coma antes. Be chetá a perdé temps, diez y hores que no be aprobechá ta está dan ell. No yera consciente de lo que me estabe pasan. Me trobaba triste y deprimida.

Güe, sigo arrepentida. Podeba está mio, pero no u be sabre fe, així que el mio pai el ba torná a venre.

Dispués de ixos diez, be tinre que apenre a viure sin ell, encara que yere una de les coses que mes emplliegaba y queriba. Me be agarrá a altres coses ta isuplidarme de tot y trobá el costau bueno de les coses y sí, me ba costá molto fe-me a la idea de que ya no estabe dan yo.

No siempre podem tinre lo que querim y per molto que nos fague mal, si u tenim que dixá aná, tenim que fe-lo. No podem anámo-ne ta baixo perque alguna cosa o alguno desa-pareixe de la nostra vida. Per mol importante que sigue yei que segui ta deban...


Some notes to help read the text.

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

dan = with. C.f. Gascon/Occitan damb, embe etc and Catalan amb.

ta = towards or in order to. C.f. Gascon entà, tà.

ban fe pensá = Benasquese constructs its past tense via the periphrastic route, like Catalan.

disná - lunch. C.f. Catalan dinar.

The previous short story was quite easy to read. The next one, entitled La siñal (the sign) is by a Benasquese author and native speaker, Carmen Castán, who packs some information about ethnobotany into her story about a girl who grows up to be a midwife:

Heba amaneixeu un mes de marso ruixau de nubels. Pareixeban ramadas espantadas pel llop. Cuan de’l sielo s’engaldimaban las bolas de cotón, correban de naixé boiras baixèras y, difuminadas istas, tiritiaba lo asul y un ixame de mans invisiblles pintaba cuadros de nubeletas ròyas. El segundo día de marso la lluna se va enroscà en un magnífico diviello de colós de l’arco Sin Chuan y va tardà en despllasà-se dos llargas nits.

Mamai Ramona no deixaba d’observà. Dende chica heba apreneu de la suya yaya que la observasión yeba la base de’l suyo treball.

-Tú para molta cuenta siempre lo que veigas fè -l’aconsellaba la yaya- y no se te’n done rès si bella cosa se te fa bell poco rara.

Pero mamai Ramona nena no trobaba cap d’extrañesa en que la yaya fese secà tantas pllantas a’l sòl u repllegase podrigons de caprichosas royuras u resase tanto u mirase dan tanta fruisión el comportamén d’alguns animalons y l’anà y vinre de las estrellas y altros astros de’l cosmos. La nena nomès sentiba la curiosidat propia de la mainada y le preguntaba a la yaya.

-Madrina, ista hierba ta qué la fa secà?

-Hu fago perque així cura el mal de quixals -le contestaba la madrina tot apatricàn els grans de hierballoca a un saquet de llino. Ista pllanta se diu hierballoca y cuan uno tiene un doló de quixals mol fòrt, coma tú la semana pasada, s’i posa un granet a’l dien querau y iste se queda atroncau igual qu’els gats a’l sòl.

A mamai Ramona nena se l’entrefeba qu’el dien teniba uells, naso u lluenga y ya el vedeba prenén-se la medesina y adormiu coma un tisón.

-Pero, madrina, y si el quixal s’aduerme, no se porà ni minchà ni beure rès ta no despertà-lo.

A la yaya casi le va tentà la risa y va abrasà a la suya nieta. Va reconeixé que la nieta teniba una gran sensibilidat, tanto u mès qu’ella misma. Ya hu heba visto escrito un día a las nubels y a’ls roldes alats de la lluna y alavegada va sabre que a la fin tinría alguno a qui traslladà tot lo qu’ella heba apreneu y que rès no se quedaría enrelligau a la memoria suya.

Tapòc mamai Ramona nena se sorpreneba cuan la yaya le ragonaba de la existensia real de sers chiquerrins que yeban adichós de’ls suyos podrigons ròis u de’l trefolio de cuatre fuellas y de las asusenas.

-Trata be a tots els animals y a totas las pllantas. Si te portas mal dan ellas u no las respetas coma cal, totas achuntaràn el suyo podé y te faràn mal. Hasta las pèdras, que dirías que no sienten, tiens qu’escultà, y cuan mates un conill u un altro animalonet, demana-le perdón y ells te contaràn que ya han feto la suya misión a iste món.

-Madrina, usté sabe ragonà dan els animals? -preguntaba la chicòta en uns uells ubierts coma pllats- me n’amostrarà, madrina?

-Yo no ragono dan els animals ni dan las pllantas lo que se diu ragonà, encara conservo un lenguache común de fa molto tèmps. Ye el lenguache de’l còr y de l’amor, filla mía. Si de tot lo que t’amostro, arribo a que aprengas ista verdat, porè morí-me tranquila.

Mamai Ramona nena se va colà ben adintro ista amostransa y totas las que la suya madrina le ba donà: se miraba dan ella com las calendas marcaban el tèmps de tots los mesos de l’an; se le feba vere que, despús d’una tardi de nubels ròyas, en l’altro de’l día l’asul de’l sielo sería pura transparensia u que, si i heba boira a bell puesto demaitino, detardada pllouría. Se le indicaba de quins barrancs yeba bueno beure aigua, quino teniba salamandras, quin altro provocaba torsons de tripa… Se le diba que la tuara yeba mortal y que hasta mataba a vacas y mulas mès grans qu’ella. Y mamai Ramona nena se sentaba a mirà-se la pllanta, tan presiosa, tan asul y dan aquellas fllos que yeban coma els cascos d’un guerrèro qu’ella heba visto a bella entrada de las casas buenas que visitaba en la yaya.

La nena Ramona va creixé corrén de casa en casa y de parto en parto, dende las palas de regalisia hasta las pradinas de chansana, aprenén totas las virtuts de l’arnica, de la hierballoca, de l’oregano, de’l sauquèro, de la oliarca u de’ls pinàs en fllo. De tota la chen de’l llugà va apenre a agafà culèbras ta’l mes de mayo. Las preneba per sorpresa en la man esquèrra y, entre que mentalmen le demanaba perdón, la voltiaba sinc u sies vegadas hasta que l’animal se moriba. La acuriosaba be y la penchaba a la falsa ta que se secase rebosada de farina. Cada an, cuan s’asercaba la pasa, tot el món se’n feba caldo y tots llevaban un escapulari dan culèbra ta que les guardase de tots els mals.

Se le va amostrà a posà ventosas t’alivià las coradas cargadas. Va vere com a alguns que malutiaban se’ls sangraba en sangonèras y, cuan mamai Ramona nena va asistí a’l primèr parto, va sentí tanta emosión que va està ella misma y no la suya madrina la que va achudà ta que la cabesichona sallise sinse esgarrà la pèll y, coma si hese naixeu ya apreneda, va llimpià a’l resién naixeu y l’i va entregà a la mai mentre que la yaya maliaba en la expulsión complleta de’l llit. Se’n va fè el cargo de com treballaba la yaya y desde ixe momén va sabre quina sería la prinsipal mision suya a iste món: achudà. Achudà a naixé, a està felís, y a morí. Va sabre que a’ls qu’estaban ta morí les ragonaría d’anchels y de llums fantasticas de bellesa incomparablle, y que tancarían els uells dan una sonrisa dolsisima.

Tamé mamai Ramona va apenre a curà en la misma maña que la suya yaya. Curaba nafras, cascaduras, llepras, huesos trencats, dolós de feche u bronquitis. Curaba dan empllastros, hierbas y saliva, y cada día acudiba a’ls suyos saquets medesinals ta airià’ls u bochà’ls, repllenà’ls u vudà’ls.

Antes que la yaya expirase en un amaneixé de chelo, mamai Ramona va resibí totas las intrucsions que caleba ta repllegà antiguas sabidurías y a la fin va intuyí -perque la duda l’apretaba coma un viello corsè- com sabría a quí fè’ls-ie arribà.

-Busca a’l sielo, Ramona, entre las nubels y la lluna te diràn quí ha d’està la tuya heredèra.

Y cada vegada que a’l llugà u per els rededós quedaba priñada una dòna, mamai Ramona buscaba siñals que mai se van manifestà. Ara, la dòna de’l suyo fillo n’estaba, y esperaba donà a llum ta la fin de marso. Teniba una pancha mol gorda y casi se poría asegurà qu’en portaba dos.

Cada maitino y cada nit, a’l cambià la lluna, miraba mamai Ramona el sielo dan selo d’amada, hasta que a prensipes de marso va ocurrí: la lluna va salre en un diviello de colós y las nubels van invià un mensache.

Ta la Encarnasión de’l ventisinc de marso van encomensà els dolós de la partolianta. El parto no veniba fasil, pero mamai Ramona va podé dominà la situasión coma nomès ella sabeba fè. Primèro va naixé un nen colorau coma una panereta de sirèras. Mamai Ramona tremolaba perqu’els dolós anunsiaban una altra estrena. Cuan la segunda cabesa va encomensà a apuntà, va sabre deseguida qu’estaba naixén la persona que continuaría las amostransas qu’ella heba resibiu. Hu va sabre perque va tinre una visión goyosa y mol fugàs de la suya yaya amostràn-le, en els brasos estenets, a la chicòta.

Així que, dan el meligo palpitàn encara, la chicòta pllena de sanc y embolicada de llims va està alsada al sielo per els brasos de mamai Ramona que, en una silensiosa y emosionada orasión, la va presentà a’ls suyos antepasats
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Re: Euskara (berriro)

Postby nooj » Thu Jan 28, 2021 1:43 am

Two videos of Benasquese.



Guinea en Patués is a documentary available in three parts on YT about the immigration of Benasquese workers to Equatorial Guinea, which was then a Spanish colony.

This fact was not totally unknown to me, because I had previously watched a major Spanish film production, Palmeras en la nieve (2015), where the love story has precisely to do with a Benasquese man and a Guinean woman.

In the opening of the film, you hear Benasquese being spoken (!), memorised by the actors from a script. It was undoubtedly the first and unfortunately the only exposure for millions of Spaniards of the Aragonese language.

And it's not a surprise that Benasquese has a presence in the film because the screenplay is based off the book of the same name...written by a Benasquese author and former mayor of Benás, Luz Gabás.

In this documentary you can hear Benasquese being spoken with naturality by most of the speakers who recount their experiences as Spanish colonists or their family who went amd lived there. Because of the subject matter, naturally they're all old people, but that's also the age group to which Aragonese has been relegated.

One thing you'll immediately notice is the heavy Spanishisation of the language, both because they left the Benás valley and lived elsewhere, and also because Spanish has been the dominant language in the valley for decades.

For example, in 8:45. Excuse the orthography, I don't know how to write Aragonese just yet:

va creà coma unas posessions, tota una carrera de construcciones que no solament ye coma digamos la casa senyorial que vivian ells, sinó buen dia porian benre-se.


For construcciones, I personally hear the [θ] whereas Benasquese is a seseo variety of Aragonese, meaning here it's probably construcciones, just a Spanish word dropped into the conversation. If however it were the Benasquese word, the plural would be costruzions like posessions that he says just before.

Buen dia looks like a straight Spanish calque of Benasquese bell dia (some day). Bell/bella and similar variants are the way to mark indefinites in Aragonese, like in Gascon, bèth dia. You could say un buen día in Spanish, which means something similar, but I've never heard buen día without the article used.



The second video is of the Benasquese linguist José Antonio Saura Rami. He is of the opinion, which is a minority one, that Benasquese is its own Romance language, albeit closely related to Aragonese and Catalan with which it forms a transitional language. The majority linguistic opinion is that it is indeed a transitional variety towards Catalan, but of Aragonese. He also happens to be a native speaker.

In the video he recites a poem of his creation. It is a defense of his language. He calls Benasquese the 'mark of the soul', like the particular symbol of each household that was used to mark their cattle, tools etc. Also, how freaking cool are the stone houses in the Pyrenees!

Hem estramasiau al tòrt y al dret, hem mirau punto per agulla els llibres y les cases, hem demanau a la chen y als llugars, hasta mos han arribau a dir que això yere cherar llum per les armaris… Pero tapòc hem sabeu trobar un siñal mès fòrt de les nuestres venes, de la nuestra identidat y de la nuestra manèra de compenre el mon que el patués.

Som del pareixer que malmeter-lo y esbalsar tot astò que guarde, estrafollar-hue, serie ixopllidar el sentir dels pairs, dixar calmonir el pensar dels llollos d’antes, serie perder l’esme, borrar la memòria, allerar el rastro per la nèu que ajunte ahiere y hué y que ya mès que mai se va delint…

Y ye ara quan me vienen al pensament –coma el que s’hi torne a escunsar urta per urta– les paraules d'un hòme de Grist uno d’aquells díes que puyabe tal cabo del llugar y que per caso va trobar la marca de la casa, fèbe tèmps trafegada.

–Asò ye la marca de la casa, asò no se puede perder, –me va fèr.

Així tabé el patués, coma la marca de la casa, la marca als dits, la marca de l’alma.


estrafollar-hue - here, hu/hue is the Benasquese equivalent of the neuter clitic ho in Catalan and the neuter clitic lo in Spanish (not to be confused with the homophonous masculine Spanish clitic lo). Hu/hue suffers some changes depending on its position.

In proclitic position, it is hu.

me hu sè tot = m'ho sé tot = me lo sé todo

In enclitic position it takes the form hue.

Quero fèr-hue = vull fer-ho = quiero hacerlo.

Hu/hue doesn't always behave the same way as Spanish. There are important syntactic differences which approach it closer to Catalan. For one example:

Spanish: no se lo diré
Catalan: no li ho diré or no l'hi diré, depending on dialect
Benasquese: no le hu diré

In the previously posted short story La siñal, Carmen Castán puts in the mouth of her character a simpler, but equally beautiful affirmation of Benasquese, her language, which she calls 'a language of the heart and of love'.

-Madrina, usté sabe ragonà dan els animals? -preguntaba la chicòta en uns uells ubierts coma pllats- me n’amostrarà, madrina?

-Yo no ragono dan els animals ni dan las pllantas lo que se diu ragonà, encara conservo un lenguache común de fa molto tèmps. Ye el lenguache de’l còr y de l’amor, filla mía. Si de tot lo que t’amostro, arribo a que aprengas ista verdat, porè morí-me tranquila.


Note: I haven't been translating, in the expectation that anyone reading this log probably knows an Iberian-Romance or Occitano-Romance language and so can simply figure out most of Aragonese by themselves. However I do try to translate Basque because Basque is not readily intelligible to anyone who doesn't know it.
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Re: Euskara (berriro)

Postby nooj » Sat Jan 30, 2021 6:31 pm

Image

Here is a very boring administrative letter talking about water collection and treatment. If anyone wants it, I can translate it but I assure you it's a standard letter you'd get from your local government. The interesting thing is in what language it's written in. On this side you have both Basque and Gascon. On the other side of this sheet is the French version.

Legally both Basque and Gascon have no official status in France, French being the sole official language. That doesn't mean that you can't send trilingual notices, even if only the French version is legal.

Receiving notices from your government in Basque is something prosaic in the South Basque Country but nothing short of revolutionary in the North Basque Country, which in 2017 was regrouped into the administrative unit Euskal Hirigune Elkargoa (thanks in large part due to the support and activism of Basque nationalists). And as for Gascon, its institutional presence is non existent in Gascony.

It's ironic that Gascon has more of a public presence in the North Basque Country, where there are a couple thousand people who speak it, than in Gascony, the heartland of the Gascon language! To give a purely symbolic example, as soon as you leave the North Basque Country and enter Senhans (Seignanx) in the far south west corner of Gascony, the trilingual signs disappear like magic.

Thanks to this new territorial organisation, coordinated measures can be taken with regard to language policy on a North Basque Country scale, even if Basque and Gascon cannot be made official on the same level as French, and the actions you can take in favour of the language are consequently limited.

For example, according to several people I've talked to, it is impossible (illegal) in France to ask for Basque or Gascon knowledge in job applications, because that would constitute linguistic discrimination. I was surprised, because even if French is the sole official language of France, something that seems impossible to change constitutionally given the French political scene, why couldn't you favour the hiring of people who have language skills in demand, for example?

When I inquired about this, an Alsatian told me that it is illegal to privilege, not even make obligatory, just privilege, the knowledge of Alsatian in hiring people to work in retirement/old people homes in Alsace. That's incomprehensibly dumb if you take into consideration that most Alsatian above 70 years of age are native speakers of this language, and speaking their language can be extremely useful in looking after them.

I was also told that you can privilege the knowledge of foreign languages like German or English, because they're considered foreign languages, whereas languages like Breton or Basque are considered to be languages you are necessarily born with, and thus to favour the knowledge of Breton and Basque in jobs is considered discriminatory in a way that foreign languages aren't.

Of course it's not true that they're languages you're necessarily born with. Loads of people learn Basque and Breton. The Euskal Hirigune Elkargoa has put into place a administrative process to help its civil servants learn Basque by offering them courses of Basque. But precisely because it is considered discriminatory, it would be entirely on an individual, voluntary basis. You can't privilege Basque speakers in the employment process, but you can't make Basque learning obligatory either...

What I find frustrating is that when I went to Ainhoa or Uztaritze in the North Basque Country, I couldn't get served in Basque in the tourism office nor in the town hall. Whereas when I went to Trebiño, which is legally and administratively a part of Castilla y León, I could find Basque speakers working in public spaces, because their Basque knowledge is judged useful for their job. Even though Basque is not official in Castilla y León!

Or in Iruñea where all three workers at the tourism office were native Basque speakers. And yet the percentage of Basque speakers in Iruñea is far lower than in Ainhoa! Yes Basque is co-official in Iruñea and not in Ainhoa, but there are more Basque speakers proportionally in Ainhoa, why can't we see that represented in public positions? Why aren't you allowed to hire people from the town in question? Why privilege competence in some languages (foreign) but not others? That, I find truly discriminatory .

The other thing I want to mention is that the Gascon in the letter is Bearnese. That's also true for the signs and other things that you'll find in Baiona, they're all written in Bearnese.

The question is why the Euskal Hirigune Elkargoa chose the Bearnese dialect as the model to talk to its citizens, given that in the Basque Country the Gascon that's spoken (or was spoken) are varieties closely related to the Gascon spoken in the Lanas. In the Middle Ages the Baiona dialect was the standard Gascon used for this region.

True, there is no standard Gascon, but that doesn't mean you can choose any Gascon variety...or does it? Perhaps there are simply too few of these speakers in Baiona to use the Baiona dialect to communicate with them. But the more endangered a dialect, the more urgent it is to put it into value, or at least that's the way I feel about it. Still, any Gascon is better than no Gascon. The Basque is in standard Basque.
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Re: Euskara (berriro)

Postby guyome » Sat Jan 30, 2021 7:32 pm

Bearnese has kind of been the closest thing to Standard Gascon for quite a long time (Miquèu de Camelat chose it as a literary medium instead of his native Lavedand dialect), maybe that's why they used it. Or maybe it just has to do with the fact that the person in charge knows Bearnese but not the Baiona dialect...
Like you, I'd prefer for these things to be done in the/a local variety of the language but I guess it's another case of beggars can't be choosers.

64, the magazine edited by the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, has one page in Basque and Occitan. As far as I can see, the Occitan is always Bearnese (although in this case it is less incongruous since Bearn is part of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department).
Interesting things:
- there are two Occitan sections (with a different content), one in Classical spelling, the other in the Febusian spelling as promoted by the IBG
- the section is called "Langues d'ici", which I like better than "langues régionales".
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Re: Euskara (berriro)

Postby nooj » Sat Jan 30, 2021 8:46 pm

Once you asked me about Basque students from the North coming to the South to continue their studies. Here's an interview I read recently with a young man called Kepa Garat from Ziburu (Ciboure).

He graduated from the Basque bilingual school Bernart Etxepare in Baiona and is the first alumini from this school to go study medicine in Euskal Herriko Unibertsitate, the University of the Basque Country.

The EHU have recently changed their admission/grading process allowing North Basques to come much more easily, although Kepa did not want to come originally nor was the opportunity to keep studying in Basque his original motivation. Instead he wanted to study aeronautics, and to be close to home.

Here's the important part for me:

Medikuntzako fakultatean ikasgai guztiak euskaraz dituzu?

Bai dena euskaraz da. Ariketa batzuetan, psikologian adibidez, gaztelerazko bideo batzuk ukan ditugu, baina orokorrean dena euskaraz egiten dut. Nire gaztelerazko maila oso txarra da, baina hala ere moldatzen naiz. Uste dut hirugarren urtera arte dena euskaraz dela.

Ikasturte hasieran bilkura bat ukan genuen dena azaltzeko. Esan ziguten dena euskaraz zela, salbu laugarren urtean bazirela gauza batzuk gazteleraz. Erran ziguten espero zutela gu laugarren urtera heltzean dena euskaraz izango zela.


Are all the subjects in the Faculty of Medicine in Basque?

Yes, everything's in Basque. For some exercises, like in Psychology, we have a few videos in Spanish, but in general I do everything in Basque. My Spanish level is very bad, but I manage. I think until the third year, everything's in Basque.

At the start of the school year we had a meeting to clear everything up. They told us everything was in Basque, except in the fourth year when some things were in Spanish. However they told us that they hoped that when we reached the fourth year, everything by then would be in Basque.


It's of course not enough to reduce the administrative hassles to a minimum. To encourage North Basques to study in Basque the South Basque Country, you also have to eliminate Spanish as an intrusive presence in university, which is a language that you can't expect North Basques to know, and anyway you shouldn't expect them to know Spanish.

Basque should be our only common language.

Also, even if it weren't for the North Basques, Spanish should be eliminated from Basque-language study streams, if only for the benefit of South Basques who deserve to study what they want in their language.

Thankfully we're at the point in the South Basque Country where you can do your university studies without having to use any Spanish, for most subjects anyway.

Here's a similar story about Margot Canal, a young North Catalan woman from Perpinyà (Perpignan), who studies physiotherapy at the Universitat de Girona (University of Girona) and juggles her studies with her rugby playing career. She learned Catalan in the immersion school La Bressola. Also note that her own physiotherapist did the same thing, he went to South Catalonia, and studied physiotherapy in Catalan.



Of course, it would have been nice if all these students could have stayed home in the North Basque Country and North Catalonia, and studied what they wanted in Basque and Catalan.

Anyway, by securing the place of Basque and Catalan in the South, not only is one helping South Basques and Catalans, one is also helping North Basques and Catalans.
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Re: Euskara (berriro)

Postby nooj » Sun Jan 31, 2021 12:55 pm

Image

This is a scary graph. It shows the demographic increases and decreases in the entire Basque Country between a ten year period, 2010-2020.

You can see the Pyrenees has suffered a massive demographic drop, from rural flight, natural death, low birth rates. Yes the services are bad there...but unless we do something about this (create new jobs, offer better services), this is just going to get worse, and it's going to kill off Basque, Aragonese, Gascon, Catalan etc in these regions.

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.

Image

Look especially at Estadilla, Val d'Echo, Graus, La Fueva, Fonz etc. Benás has increased but what kind of increase? It has become popular in recent decades as a place of transit for skiing, how much of these increase can be credited to internal demographic growth and how much to outsiders looking for a place to ski? It wouldn't be a problem if Spanish speaking outsiders learned Aragonese (or the same, if locals wanted to teach outsiders Aragonese which apparently they don't like doing), but that simply isn't the case.

If you look at this map (data from the Instituto Aragonés de Estadística), ironically the place in Spain with the greatest concentration of Aragonese speakers could be Barcelona...but hundreds of Aragonese speakers living in Barcelona doesn't really help the Aragonese language. Aragonese will live or die in Aragon, its home.

Image

Going back to the Basque map, there have been increases in other parts of the Basque Country like Baxe Nafarroa and Lapurdi but that's not necessarily a good thing for Basque, because the demographic increase in these parts of the North Basque Country is mostly motivated by immigration from outside the Basque Country, i.e. French speakers from France who have little desire or incentive to learn Basque and integrate into the culture.

I mean this is why making Aragonese official, at least in the Pyrenees, and making Basque official in the North Basque Country is critical. Where are you going to get your speakers from if you are having less and less children, the old people are dying, and outsiders are coming who don't need or want to speak your language?

The steep drop in the sparsely populated west part of Araba (2.912 inhabitants in total) is not sustainable. They're probably all moving to Gasteiz, the capital of Araba.

The north part of Garaia Nafarroa, which is the most Basque speaking part, has seemingly lost population, and this is not a good trend. It's likely that many Navarrans are living in Iruñea and heading out to the northern towns to work, I know several who do this already, as it's only an hour drive to reach most of these towns. Even if it's not a permanent migration, and they usually move back once they get older, it does affect the daily life of a town.

There's also a drop of population in Zuberoa, which is not helping their unique Basque dialect which is endangered.
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Re: Euskara (berriro)

Postby guyome » Sun Jan 31, 2021 2:17 pm

Anyway, by securing the place of Basque and Catalan in the South, not only is one helping South Basques and Catalans, one is also helping North Basques and Catalans.
Indeed. The language doing well (or reasonably well) in the south kind of throws a lifeline to the north.
On the other hand, I don't think Alsatian benefits from some kind of Alemannic synergy but that may be due to the fact that the language/dialect is probably not doing too well in Germany either and doesn't have the status Basque or Catalan have in their respective areas.
Going back to the Basque map, there have been increases in other parts of the Basque Country like Baxe Nafarroa and Lapurdi but that's not necessarily a good thing for Basque, because the demographic increase in these parts of the North Basque Country is mostly motivated by immigration from outside the Basque Country, i.e. French speakers from France who have little desire or incentive to learn Basque and integrate into the culture.
To me, the immigration question is a bit the elephant in the room. A language spoken by, say, 20% of the population and already under huge pressure from a "bigger" language is probably not going to do well if the area sees a large influx of people from the outside, who have objectively no real incentive to learn said smaller language.

I remember seeing some news about Welsh language activists (maybe politicians even, Plaid Cymru?) discussing the possibility of limiting the number of non Welsh speakers buying homes in Welsh speaking areas. Not sure anything came out of it since it quickly runs into philosophical (can you really forbid some people from buying a house anywhere in their own country based solely on the language they speak?) and economical problems (real estate development and people moving in supposedly bringing much needed money to the area).

The Occitanist political positions I have seen on this question seem a bit schizophrenic and ineffective (detrimental even?). Occitanists are generally left leaning so their discourse sometimes look a lot like: "Immigrants welcome (except if you're a French speaker from Northern France)!".
Pushing for immigration, cultural diversity, and minority rights is also seen (by some) as a tool to break the French Jacobin position and gain increased rights and space for Occitan. That may work up to a point but what I observed in many cases is that it leads to some leveling, with Occitan being just one among many languages promoted. And since it usually has far less speakers than many languages spoken in the same area, it can lead to Occitan language and culture taking a backseat.

All in all, not an easy topic, a potential minefield even, and one that has so many ramifications in various fields as to be very difficult to handle (for me, at least!).
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