Universidade Federal de Pernambuco Depto. de Letras, Programa de Espanhol Disciplina: História da Língua Espanhola

Centro de Artes e Comunicação Professor: Dr. João Sedycias Código da Disciplina: ______

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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Basques

Spanish vasco, or vascongado, Basque, Euskaldunak, or Euskotarak, member of a people who live in both Spain and France in areas bordering the Bay of Biscay and encompassing the western foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. In the late 20th century probably about 850,000 true Basques lived in Spain and 130,000 in France; as many as 170,000 Basques may live in emigrant communities outside Europe, mostly in South America and the United States. In Spain their home is the comunidad autónoma ("autonomous community") of the Basque Country, which includes the provincias of Álava, Guipúzcoa, and Vizcaya (Biscay); there are also some Basques in Navarra (Navarre). In France, Basques are the chief element of the population in the département of Pyrénées-Atlantiques; the area mainly occupied by Basques is called informally the Pays Basque (Basque Country). In physique the Basques are not notably different from the other peoples of western Europe; their language, however, is not Indo-European.

The land inhabited by the Basques has a mild and damp climate and is largely hilly and wooded. It contains mines of iron ore, which early on favoured the development of industries, particularly shipbuilding. The Basques traditionally farmed small holdings of bottom land and carefully tended slopes of grass, which they cut by hand and fed to stabled cows. Apple orchards and mountainous sheep pastures were also important to their economy. The farmhouses are loosely grouped into villages or are scattered over the lower slopes. The household (including buildings, farm, and family) was an entity of great permanence that was formerly defended by a traditional law of inheritance which ensured the descent of the property intact to a single heir or heiress. Traditional Basque culture therefore revolved around this individual farmstead, called the caserío, the isolation of which resulted in a strong sense of family kinship among its occupants.

Besides being farmers of small acreages and shipbuilders, the Basques were traditionally seafarers. Basques played a leading part in the colonization of the New World, sailing with the conquistadors and being among the first to exploit the whaling grounds of the Bay of Biscay and the cod fisheries off Newfoundland. The Basques' ethnic solidarity and their position astride the Franco-Spanish frontier also made smuggling one of their traditional occupations. The Basques have a strong allegiance to Roman Catholicism. They were not converted to Christianity until the 10th century, however, and, although they are now among the most observant of Spanish Catholics, animism survives in their folklore.

Traditional Basque culture has declined with the pronounced urban and industrial development of the region, and emigration to France and the Americas has sharply reduced the population living in caseríos. In most of the larger industrial towns, not only Basque customs but also the Basque language tend to be lost. Basque is still spoken in remote inland mountain areas, but in the late 20th century, virtually all Basques spoke French or Spanish, whether or not they spoke Basque.

The early history of the Basques remains a subject for speculation, but Roman authors record the presence of the tribe of Vascones in lands corresponding roughly to the province of Navarra. They appear to have resisted the Visigoths, the Franks, the Normans, and, on occasion, the Moors, who occupied the valley of the Ebro. It was the Basques, not the Moors, as the Chanson de Roland relates, who cut the rear guard of Charlemagne's army to pieces at the Battle of Roncesvalles in AD 778. The territories of the Basques had been incorporated into the kingdom of Navarre by the 10th century, and by the end of the political turmoil of the Middle Ages, the provinces of Alava, Biscay, and Guipuzcoa had become united with Castile and Aragon. However, in both Spain and France the Basques retained a large measure of local autonomy and privileges in matters of trade, taxation, and military service. These privileges were incorporated in bodies of traditional Basque law known as the fueros, or fors, which determined the rights of the Basques' popular assemblies and their rules of inheritance. The Basques showed a fierce attachment to their autonomous status, and in Spain the state's attempts to encroach upon their local privileges prompted the Basques in the 1830s to support the cause of Don Carlos, the conservative pretender to the Spanish throne, with disastrous results. They similarly supported the unsuccessful Carlist rebellion of the 1870s, and as a punishment the government finally abolished the fueros, though the Basques managed to retain some degree of local autonomy.

The advent of the Spanish Republic in 1931 divided the political aspirations of the Basques: Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya, and, to a certain extent, Álava were prepared to work for a status of relative autonomy within the republic, and for this reason they remained loyal to it in spite of its anti-Catholic policy. Navarra, on the other hand, was eager to see the republic overthrown and furnished one of the strong points of the Nationalist rebellion in 1936 and some of its best Carlist troops. The city of Bilbao, which had always been a stronghold of liberalism against the Carlists, became at the same time the centre of republican government and also of Basque nationalism. The fighting lasted until September 1937 and outside Spain is chiefly remembered for the bombing, supposedly by German aircraft, of Guernica, the traditional assembly place of the provincia of Vizcaya and a symbol of the Basque nation in Nationalist eyes. After the war, many Basques went into exile as Francisco Franco's government abolished the Basques' special privileges.

After the death of Franco and especially after the establishment of the liberal Spanish monarchy in 1975, the Basques engaged in vigorous demonstrations for local autonomy, which the Spanish government granted in some measure in 1978-79. The increased freedoms and home rule, however, did not satisfy the more militant separatists, such as the hard-line "military" wing of the Euzkadi Ta Azkatasuna (ETA; Basque for "Basque Homeland and Liberty"), a terrorist liberation organization seeking Basque self-determination and secession from Spain. The Basques thus continued on an unsettled course in their relations with the dominant Spaniards.

Basque Language: Overview

Basque, Euskara, a language spoken by a largely bilingual people called Basques, or Euskaldunak, living either in northern Navarre (Navarra) comunidad autónoma ("autonomous community") of the Basque Country (which includes the provincias of Guipúzcoa, Biscay [Vizcaya], and Álava) in Spain or in the western region of the French département of Pyrénées-Atlantiques. The French Basques have further subdivided the Basque area in France into the provinces of Soule, Basse-Navarre, and Labourd (Basque Zuberoa, Nafarroa Beherea, and Lapurdi), but these designations are not recognized by the French government. In all, the majority of Basque speakers are concentrated in a narrow area of approximately 10,000 square km (3,900 square miles).

Basque has constantly struggled for survival against the more popular and widespread Spanish and French languages. In the pre-Christian era, the Basque country extended across the Pyrenees Mountains as far east as the Aran Valley in northeastern Spain, along the French border. During the Roman administration, however, the eastern Basque settlements were cut off from more populated Basque colonies to the west and were assimilated into Roman culture, abandoning the Basque language. In the Middle Ages, the influence of Basque, an unwritten language, steadily declined when it could not compete against the influx of literary Latin and its successors, Navarrese Romance and Provençal. The advent of the first printed Basque book in 1545, however, initiated a literary tradition that continues to the present day.

Basque is the only remnant of the languages spoken in southwestern Europe before that region was Romanized. The origin of the Basque language remains a mystery. The German philologist Hugo Schuchardt (1842-1927) hypothesized that Basque had a genetic connection with the now-extinct Iberian and that both languages evolved from the Afro-Asiatic (formerly Hamito-Semitic) language group. The existence of a connection seems unlikely, however, since Basque and the Afro-Asiatic languages do not really share common linguistic characteristics. Although Basque and Iberian are similar, the knowledge of Basque could not help decipher ancient Iberian inscriptions discovered in eastern Spain and on the Mediterranean coast of France. This incongruity led to the theory that the similarities between the two languages arose from a close geographic proximity rather than a genetic linguistic tie. Basque is also linked with Caucasian, the ancient language spoken in the Caucasus region. Again, there are parallels between the two languages; but, without conclusive evidence of a tie, Basque remains a language without linguistic relatives.

The system of Basque speech sounds is interesting in opposing an apico-alveolar sibilant (i.e., a Castilian-type s) to a predorsal one (i.e., an English-type s), spelled z in Basque. Both have corresponding affricates, spelled ts and tz. Palatals, like English sh and ch, also exist in Basque; they are spelled x and tx. Furthermore, Basque has two vibrant phonemes: a flapped r and a trilled rr. Like the similar sounds in Spanish, they contrast only when occurring between vowels, but unlike in Spanish, neither of them can begin a word (as in, for example, Erroma Rome').

Basque is an almost purely suffixing language. Suffixes are used to indicate the function of nominals within a sentence: Ijitoa Jonengatik dator elizara The Gypsy is coming to church because of John,' where the suffix -engatik corresponds to the English phrase because of,' and the suffix -ra after the noun eliza church' matches the English preposition to.'

Because phrasal order is rather free, suffixes also serve to keep subject and object distinct. In the sentence Jonek ijitoa dakar John is bringing the Gypsy,' the subject (Jon) rather than the direct object (ijitoa) is marked by the suffix -ek. Basque has a special case form, the ergative, which marks the subject of a transitive verb. The direct object is left unmarked, and thus occurs in the same form as the subject of an intransitive verb: ijitoa dator the Gypsy is coming.'

Finite verb forms can be quite complicated in that a single form may contain up to four person markers. The word bazekarzkionat I am bringing them to him' can form a sentence by itself and indicates, among other things, the presence of a first person singular subject (-t), third person plural direct object (ze . . . -zki-), third person singular indirect object (-o-), as well as a female addressee of the utterance (-na-).

The order of constituents within a clause is determined by pragmatic factors, with a topic position at the beginning of the sentence and a focus site immediately before the verb. The basic order appears to be subject-indirect object-direct object-verb, but this order is far from rigid, and, in fact, all 24 possible permutations can be found.

Relative clauses and genitive phrases precede the noun: Jonen eliza John's church,' whereas adjectives and demonstratives follow: ijito eder hori that beautiful Gypsy.'

Basque grammar remains markedly different from that of the surrounding Romance languages, despite the massive influence of the latter in the realm of vocabulary.

Basque Language: Introduction

Basque is a language isolate, the only remnant of the languages spoken in southwestern Europe before the region was Romanized. The Basque language is currently used in a narrow area of approximately 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 square miles) in Spain and France. The number of Basque-speaking persons outside that territory, in Europe and in the Americas, however, is far from insignificant. In Spain the Basque-speaking region comprises the province of Guipúzcoa, parts of Vizcaya and Navarra, and a corner of Álava, and in France the western region of the département of Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Although few statistics are available, the number of speakers, who are largely bilingual, might be judiciously estimated at 1,000,000. Most of them live in the highly industrialized Spanish part of the Basque country. The Basques have derived their name, Euskaldunak, from Euskara, the native word for their language. According to the classification of the 19th-century philologist Prince Louis-Lucien Bonaparte, there are eight modern dialects of Basque. Dialectal division is not strong enough to mask the common origin or to preclude mutual understanding. Basque attained official status for a short period (1936-37) during the Spanish Civil War, under Basque autonomous government. In 1978, Basque and Castilian Spanish became the official languages of the autonomous Basque Country, which includes Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya, and Álava provinces of Spain.

Basque Language: Origins and Classification

Basque remains an isolated language with no known linguistic relatives. The hypothesis of the German philologist Hugo Schuchardt (1842-1927), which once had wide currency, posited an intimate genetic connection between Basque and Iberian (see below) and the Hamito-Semitic (Afro-Asiatic) language group. This theory was superseded by attempts to establish a more or less close link between Basque and Caucasian, the language group indigenous to the Caucasus region. A lack of common linguistic characteristics between the Basque and Hamito-Semitic languages makes Schuchardt's hypothesis extremely dubious. There are, however, some common features that favour the relationship between Basque and Caucasian. Still, proof of a genetic relationship beyond reasonable doubt appears remote. Perhaps the most promising theory involves the comparison of Basque with the long-extinct Iberian, the language of the ancient inscriptions of eastern Spain and of the Mediterranean coast of France. But, despite amazing phonological coincidences, Basque has so far contributed next to nothing to the understanding of the now-readable Iberian texts. Therefore, it is possible that the similarity may have resulted from close contact between Basques and Iberians and not from a genetic linguistic relationship.

History of the Basque Language

At the beginning of the Christian Era, dialects of Euskarian (Basque) stock were probably spoken north and south of the Pyrenees and as far east as the Valle de Arán in northeastern Spain. It is likely that only the disruption of Roman administration in these regions saved the Basque dialects from being completely overcome by Latin. It is also likely that the Basque tongue, which had a firm foothold in the country that then began to be called Vasconia, experienced a substantial expansion toward the southwest, which carried it to the Rioja Alta (High Rioja) region in Old Castile and near Burgos. The more eastern Basque dialects, separated from the main area by Romance-speaking populations, were doomed. During the Middle Ages, Basque, the language of a population more peasant than urban, could not possibly hold the field as a written language against Latin and its successors, Navarrese Romance and, to a certain extent, Occitan (the langue d'Oc, also called Provençal) in the kingdom of Navarre. Since the 10th century, Basque has slowly but steadily lost ground to Castilian Spanish; in the north, however, where French is a more modern rival, the Basque-speaking area is practically the same as it was in the 16th century. In the last two centuries, above all in industrial centres, Basque has had to fight for survival in the heart of the Basque-speaking country, as well as on the frontier of the Basque-speaking area.

Latin inscriptions from the Roman period, found mostly in southwestern France, record a handful of proper names of unmistakable Basque etymology. From AD 1000 on, records consisting chiefly of proper names but also of Basque phrases and sentences grew more numerous and reliable. The first printed Basque book, dating from 1545, began an uninterrupted written tradition. Scholarly Basque literature, with its prevailing religious interests, has been neither abundant nor varied until recent times. Intense efforts are now being made to introduce Basque as a vehicle of private primary education. In addition, a model of a unified, standard written language also seems to be gaining increasing acceptance.

Source: Infoplease Encyclopedia (from The Columbia Encyclopedia)

The Basques –

People of N Spain and SW France. There are about 1.25 million Basques in the three Basque provs. and Navarre, Spain; over 100,000 in Labourd, Soule, and Lower Navarre, France; and communities of various sizes in Central and South America and other parts of the world. Many preserve their ancient language, which is unrelated to any other tongue. They have guarded their ancient customs and traditions, although they have played a prominent role in the history of Spain and France.

The origin of the Basques, almost certainly the oldest surviving ethnic group in Europe, has not yet been determined, but they antedate the ancient Iberian tribes of Spain, with which they have been erroneously identified. Genetically and culturally, the Basque population has been relatively isolated and distinct, perhaps since Paleolithic times. Primarily free peasants, shepherds, fishermen, navigators, miners, and metalworkers, the Basques have also produced such figures as St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, and Francisco de Vitoria.

History

Before Roman times, the Basque tribes, little organized politically, extended farther to the north and south than at present. But the core of the Basque country resisted Romanization and was only nominally subject to Roman rule. Christianity was slow in penetrating (3d–5th cent.). Once converted, the Basques remained fervent Roman Catholics, but they have retained a certain tradition of independence from the hierarchies of Spain and France.

The Basques withstood domination by the Visigoths and Franks. Late in the 6th cent. they took advantage of the anarchy prevailing in the Frankish kingdom and expanded northward, occupying present-day Gascony (Lat. Vasconia), to which they gave their name. The duchy of Vasconia, formed in 601 and chronically at war with the Franks, Visigoths, and Moors, was closely associated with, and at times dominated by, Aquitaine. In 778 the Basques, who had just been reduced to nominal vassalage by Charlemagne, destroyed the Frankish rear guard at Roncesvalles, but they subsequently recognized Louis the Pious, king of Aquitaine, as their suzerain.

The duchy of Gascony continued, but the Basques early in the 9th cent. concentrated in their present habitat and in 824 founded, at Pamplona, the kingdom of Navarre, which under Sancho III (1000–1035) united almost all the Basques. Although Castile acquired Guipúzcoa (1200), Álava (1332), and Vizcaya (1370), the Castilian kings recognized the wide democratic rights enjoyed by the Basques. Guernica was the traditional location of Basque assemblies.

With the conquest (1512) of Navarre by Ferdinand the Catholic, the Basques lost their last independent stronghold. After the 16th cent., Basque prosperity declined and emigration became common, especially in the 19th cent. Basque privileges remained in force under the Spanish monarchy, but in 1873 they were abolished because of the Basques' pro-Carlist stand in the Carlist Wars. To regain autonomy, the Basques supported nearly every political movement directed against the central authority.

In the civil war of 1936–39, the Basque Provinces, not including Navarre, defended the republican government, under which they had autonomous status. The Basques of Navarre supported the Franco forces. The Franco government, once in power, for the most part discouraged Basque political and cultural autonomy, although Basque nationalism has retained its appeal to the Basques. The trial of Basque nationalists in 1970 caused serious political conflicts in Spain, and the years following have been increasingly marked by unrest and violence by and against the Basque separatist organization.

Bibliography

See Rodney Gallop, A Book of the Basques (1930, repr. 1970).

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