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Native Basque speaker here. Happy to see an article about my mother tongue in HN! It is indeed quite a mystery the origin of Euskara, many hypotheses but no cle

Native Basque speaker here. Happy to see an article about my mother tongue in HN! It is indeed quite a mystery the origin of Euskara, many hypotheses but no clear winner. Gladly, most of us were thaught that diversity of theories in school instead of being hammered the official/most popular of the hypotheses at the time. A curious feature of Euskara is linked to the geography of most of the Basque Country: lots of mountains and lots of smallish towns. This helped develop subtle differences between towns just a few kilometers apart, to the point of most native speakers being able to accurately pinpoint another native speaker's hometown. These differences grow bigger the farther apart the speakers' origins are. I am aware this happens in practically all the languages but to have it occur in distances of a few kilometres instead of hundreds is quite incredible. I wonder if millennia ago proto-euskara was spoken all the way from the current Basque Country to Armenia, those subtle dialectal differences would have been huge, to the point of being unable to understand each other. Sadly, Euskera is less and less heard in big cities where most of the inhabitants or their ancestors come from other parts of Spain and saw no need to bother with the local language. This also happened in a time where nothing but spanish (Castilian) was allowed in Spain under Franco. The recent permanent ceasefire of E.T.A. has been crucial in making our little country attractive for tourism and commerce again. I am confident in our collective willingness to extend the usage of Euskara and with the plethora of activities and projects undertaken for this goal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilometroak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilometroak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korrika https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korrika https://www.hellabasque.org/euskaraldia/ https://www.hellabasque.org/euskaraldia/ edit: added some links

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
I'm curious. I presume you also speak Spanish? (And, clearly, English.) If you don't mind saying, which is the language of your heart? When you are alone and think, which language do you think in?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- zazpiak_bat 7y ago
  I do not mind at all, I could spend half a day with curious HNers talking about the topic :) My mother being spanish and my father basque, I grew up with both of them at home. My mother's mother was genuinely worried with my then toddler's brain being unable to cope with both languages at the same time, as I am told I did not begin speaking until almost my third birthday. At that point I started speaking both indistinctly. Nevertheless, my heart beats in Euskara, because this is where I grew up. When it comes to thinking, I believe my brain does not directly parse thoughts into language unless preparing to express them verbally or writing. The struggle comes when talking to a group of people with part of them not being proficient in basque; even if they understand it perfectly, the tendency is to switch to spanish out of politeness with those who do not speak it fluently; nowadays only the senior denizens of the most rural and small villages may find harder to express themselves in spanish than in basque. The recent Euskaraldia* event, where you could choose among 3 pins to wear during 11 days expressing that you could either talk Euskara, understand Euskara, or just did not mind not understanding it but having it spoken around you, has helped a lot when it comes to these everyday situations. When it comes to preferring a mother tongue more than the other, spanish seems to be doing fine in the languages ranking, as opposed to Euskara; the cool part of that being my SO and myself enjoy using "that funny language" especially when abroad so no one understands us. Very occasionally we meet a fellow basque or someone who recognizes the language and at least a nice chat ensues. Additionally most people here will open their homes to every foreigner who shows the tiniest bit of interest in our language or culture. As a finishing fact, there is actually no adjective for basque (citizenship) in the basque language, there is just "euskaldun" (euskara + "-dun" suffix), meaning possessor/holder of basque language. * https://www.hellabasque.org/euskaraldia/ https://www.hellabasque.org/euskaraldia/
chr1 7y ago
This can be true, because Armenian language has large admixture of Urartian and Hurrian words, and most of the words shared with Euskara seem to be from this non-IndoEuropean part of the language.
- zazpiak_bat 7y ago
  Fun fact I just stumbled upon after reading your comment: "urartian" (or rather, ur artian/artean) directly translates to "between waters". The Urartu region falls indeed between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urartu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urartu
  - chr1 7y ago
    Interesting, but maybe it referred to the Urmia and Van Lakes, because initially Urartu kingdom was smaller and was mostly between the two lakes. Do any of toponym similarites in https://allinnet.info/antiquities/armenia-and-the-basques-spain/ https://allinnet.info/antiquities/armenia-and-the-basques-sp... look anything plausible to you? On one hand it would be cool if languages were related, on the other hand considering how often someone in Armenia claims that X is related to Armenia, that it is hard to take the claims seriously.
    - zazpiak_bat 7y ago
      About the lakes you are probably right, both seas are quite far away from each other and it is more feasible Urartu to refer to a smaller region. Having looked at the words in the article, the link between both languages seems to be quite thin. Some of the words may make sense, especially if you take the root Ur. When it comes to Ar-Aram and other words the connection IMO weakens. But that's my point of view as a native speaker without formal studies in philology, take it with a grain of salt.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

I'm curious. I presume you also speak Spanish? (And, clearly, English.) If you don't mind saying, which is the language of your heart? When you are alone and think, which language do you think in?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
zazpiak_bat 7y ago
I do not mind at all, I could spend half a day with curious HNers talking about the topic :) My mother being spanish and my father basque, I grew up with both of them at home. My mother's mother was genuinely worried with my then toddler's brain being unable to cope with both languages at the same time, as I am told I did not begin speaking until almost my third birthday. At that point I started speaking both indistinctly. Nevertheless, my heart beats in Euskara, because this is where I grew up. When it comes to thinking, I believe my brain does not directly parse thoughts into language unless preparing to express them verbally or writing. The struggle comes when talking to a group of people with part of them not being proficient in basque; even if they understand it perfectly, the tendency is to switch to spanish out of politeness with those who do not speak it fluently; nowadays only the senior denizens of the most rural and small villages may find harder to express themselves in spanish than in basque. The recent Euskaraldia* event, where you could choose among 3 pins to wear during 11 days expressing that you could either talk Euskara, understand Euskara, or just did not mind not understanding it but having it spoken around you, has helped a lot when it comes to these everyday situations. When it comes to preferring a mother tongue more than the other, spanish seems to be doing fine in the languages ranking, as opposed to Euskara; the cool part of that being my SO and myself enjoy using "that funny language" especially when abroad so no one understands us. Very occasionally we meet a fellow basque or someone who recognizes the language and at least a nice chat ensues. Additionally most people here will open their homes to every foreigner who shows the tiniest bit of interest in our language or culture. As a finishing fact, there is actually no adjective for basque (citizenship) in the basque language, there is just "euskaldun" (euskara + "-dun" suffix), meaning possessor/holder of basque language. * https://www.hellabasque.org/euskaraldia/ https://www.hellabasque.org/euskaraldia/

chr1 7y ago

This can be true, because Armenian language has large admixture of Urartian and Hurrian words, and most of the words shared with Euskara seem to be from this non-IndoEuropean part of the language.

zazpiak_bat 7y ago
Fun fact I just stumbled upon after reading your comment: "urartian" (or rather, ur artian/artean) directly translates to "between waters". The Urartu region falls indeed between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urartu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urartu
- chr1 7y ago
  Interesting, but maybe it referred to the Urmia and Van Lakes, because initially Urartu kingdom was smaller and was mostly between the two lakes. Do any of toponym similarites in https://allinnet.info/antiquities/armenia-and-the-basques-spain/ https://allinnet.info/antiquities/armenia-and-the-basques-sp... look anything plausible to you? On one hand it would be cool if languages were related, on the other hand considering how often someone in Armenia claims that X is related to Armenia, that it is hard to take the claims seriously.
  - zazpiak_bat 7y ago
    About the lakes you are probably right, both seas are quite far away from each other and it is more feasible Urartu to refer to a smaller region. Having looked at the words in the article, the link between both languages seems to be quite thin. Some of the words may make sense, especially if you take the root Ur. When it comes to Ar-Aram and other words the connection IMO weakens. But that's my point of view as a native speaker without formal studies in philology, take it with a grain of salt.