Standard Basque

Standard Basque (Basque: Euskara Batua or simply Batua) is a standardised version of the Basque language, developed by the Basque Language Academy in the late 1960s, which nowadays is the most widely and commonly spoken Basque-language version throughout the Basque Country. Heavily based on the central Basque dialect, this is the version of the language commonly used in education at all levels—from elementary school to the university—, on television and radio, and in the vast majority of all written production in Basque.^[1]

It is also used in common parlance by new speakers that haven't learnt any local dialect, especially in the cities, whereas in the countryside, with more elderly speakers, people remain attached to the natural dialects to a higher degree, especially in informal situations; i.e. Basque traditional dialects are still used in the situations where they always were used (native Basque speakers speaking in informal situations), while the Euskara Batua has conquered new fields for the Basque language: the formal situations (where Basque was seldom used, apart from religion) and a lot of new speakers that otherwise wouldn't have learned Basque.

Euskara Batua enjoys official language status in Spain (in the whole Basque Autonomous Community and in sections of Navarre), but remains unrecognised as an official language in France, the only language officially recognised by this country being French.

Contents 1 History 2 Reasons for basing on the central dialect 3 Advantages of Euskara Batua 4 Criticism 5 Basque dialects 6 References 7 Bibliography 8 See also

History

The standard version of Basque was created in the 1970s by the Euskaltzaindia (Royal Academy of the Basque Language), mainly based on the central Basque dialect and on the written tradition. Having been for centuries pressured by acculturation from both Spanish and French, and particularly under the rule of Franco in which the Basque language was prohibited and came closer to extinction in Spain, the Academy felt the need to create a unified dialect of Basque, so that the language had a greater chance of survival.

The 1968 Arantzazu Congress laid down the basic guidelines for achieving that objective in a systematic way (lexicon, morphology, declension and spelling). A further step was taken in 1973 with a proposal to establish a standard conjugation.

The debate arising from this new set of standard language rules (1968 - 1976) did not prevent Euskara Batua from becoming increasingly accepted as the Basque standard language in teaching, the media, and administration (1976 - 1983), within the context of burgeoning regional government (Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country, 1979; Improvement of the Charter of Navarre, 1982).

Reasons for basing on the central dialect

These are the reasons for basing the standardised Basque on the central dialect, the Gipuzkoan, according to Koldo Zuazo:^[2]

1. Linguistic reasons: the central dialect is the meeting point of all Basque-language speakers. The westernmost dialect – Biscayan—is strange for the speakers from other dialects; and the same occurs with the easternmost dialect—Zuberoan.
2. Demolinguistic reasons: the central area and the western area were in 1968—and still are—the zones where most Basque-language speakers live. Moreover, it was—and it is—in Gipuzkoa and the surrounding areas where the Basque language is strongest.
3. Sociolinguistic reasons: since the 18th century, the central dialect—and, more precisely, the Beterri sub-dialect—is the most prestigious one.
4. Economic and cultural reasons: Bilbao is certainly the most important Basque city, but it is not Basque-speaking. The same goes for Gasteiz, Iruñea, and Baiona-Angelu-Biarritz. So Gipuzkoa, the only Basque province with a multipolar structure—i.e. with no head city, all the province being a big city—is the main Basque-speaking city.

Koldo Zuazo (a Basque-language scholar, apologist of the use of Basque dialects, specially his own one, the Biscayan) says that "taking all these characteristics into account, I think that it is fair and sensible having based the Euskara Batua on the central Basque dialect, and undoubtedly that is the reason of the Batua being so successful."^[3]

Advantages of Euskara Batua

According to Koldo Zuazo,^[4] six are the main advantages that Euskara Batua has brought to the Basque language:

1. Basque speakers can easily understand each other by using Euskara Batua. When using historical dialects, the difficulties to understand each other are bigger, especially between speakers of non-central dialects.
2. Before the creation of the Euskara Batua, Basque speakers had to turn to Spanish or French to discuss highbrow topics or work subjects—Euskara Batua gives them a suitable tool for this.
3. Thanks to Euskara Batua, more adult people than ever have been able to learn the Basque language.
4. Basque language has broken its ever retreating boundaries. If we look at old maps showing the area where Basque was spoken, we will see that this area was always diminishing. But now, thanks to the euskaltegis and ikastolas that teach Euskara Batua, the Basque-speaking area is getting bigger and bigger, Basque speakers can be found in any place of the Basque Country, or even outside it.
5. Euskara Batua has given prestige to the Basque language, because now it can be used in high-level usages of society.
6. Basque speakers are more united: since Euskara Batua was made, the internal boundaries of the language have also been broken, and the sense of being a community is more alive. With a stronger speakers' community, Basque language becomes stronger.

All these advantages have been widely recognized—for example, they are cited by the pro-historical dialects organization Badihardugu.^[5]

Criticism

Standard Basque has been described as an artificial language by its detractors, as it is at times hardly mutually intelligible with the dialects at the extremes (namely the westernmost one or Biscayan, and the easternmost one or Zuberoan). Then, Basque purists (such as Oskillaso and Matías Múgica) have argued that its existence and proliferation will kill the historic and genuine Basque languages. Others argue that Standard Basque has safeguarded the future of a language which is competing with French and Spanish.

Research by the Euskaltzaindia shows that Basque is growing most in the areas where Euskara Batua has been introduced and taught in preference of local dialects. Indeed, this has permitted a revival in the speaking of Basque, since many of the current elder generations cannot speak the language in part as a result of the prohibition during most part of General Franco's dictatorship.

Another point of contention was the spelling of h. Northeastern dialects pronounce it as an aspiration while the rest do not use it. Standard Basque requires it in writing but allows a silent pronunciation. Opponents complained that many speakers would have to relearn their vocabulary by rote.

Federico Krutwig also promoted the creation of an alternative literary dialect, this time based on the Renaissance Labourdine used by Joanes Leizarraga the first translator of the Protestant Bible. It also featured an etymological spelling.

Anyway, Standard Basque is widely accepted in Basque society because of the benefits it has brought:

“	The benefits that the Academy’s standard has brought to Basque society are widely recognized. First of all, it made possible for Basque speakers to discuss any topic in their language. Secondly, it has eliminated the (sometimes serious) obstacles that previously existed in communication between speakers from different areas of the Basque Country. At the same time, euskara batua is still nobody’s "real" native language, a situation that not uncommonly creates feelings of linguistic insecurity, together with a willingness to accept external norms of linguistic use.	”
—José Ignacio Hualde and Koldo Zuazo[1]

Basque dialects

The relation between the Standard Basque and the local dialects is well summarized as follows by William Haddican:^[6]

“	Batua was not primarily intended as a replacement for local dialects, but rather to complement them as a written standard and for inter-dialectal communication. Nevertheless, dialect speakers often view Batua as more objectively "correct" than their own dialect.	”
—William Haddican[7]

The following dialects were the pre-Batua Basque and make up the colloquial or casual register of Basque, the Euskara Batua being the formal one. They were created in the Middle Ages from a previously quite unified Basque language, and diverged from each other since then due to the administrative and political division that happened in the Basque Country.^[8][9]

They are spoken in the Spanish and French Basque regions. Standard Basque was then created using Gipuzkoan as a basis, also bringing scattered elements from the other dialects. They are typically used in the region after which they are named, but have many linguistic similarities.

Spain Biscayan Gipuzkoan Upper Navarrese

France Lower Navarrese Lapurdian Zuberoan

References

Bibliography

• Rijk, Rudolf P.G. de (2008), Standard Basque: A Progressive Grammar, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 

See also

• Egunkaria newspaper, and its successor Berria.
• EITB, Basque television and radio broadcasting corporation
• Ethnologue on languages in Spain