buber.net > Basque > Euskara > The Basque Alphabet
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The following is from Gorka Aulestia's Basque-English dictionary,
which I recommend highly:
"The sounds represented by the alphabet do not offer great difficulty to
English-speaking persons. According to Euskaltzaindia, the Academy of the
Basque Language, the Basque alphabet is as follows:
Letter Bq.name Approx. pronunciation in English
a a far
b be bat
d de down
e e get
f efe favor
g ge got
h hatxe house
i i marine
j jota hot; yet
k ka king
l ele league
m eme mayor
n ene narrow
n~ en~e o[ni]on
o o coat
p pe people
r erre be[dd]ing
s ese sea
t te tea
u u boot
x ekitz fi[sh]
z zeta miss
Three letters, h, j, and r, merit further explanations. The letter h is a
phoneme of the dialects of the northern Basque Country (L, LN, Z) but does
not appear in the southern dialects (B, G). It was the cause of many
disputes at the time unification of the language was proposed. ...
Normally j is pronounced like the _h_ in English "horrible", but in some
areas and in Unified Basque it is pronounced like the _y_ in English
"yes". [More could be said about this. JA]
Between two vowels _r_ is soft as in the English name "Teddy," but in
other instances it is very strongly rolled like the Spanish rr." [The
"rolled" or trill _r_ between vowels is written, like in Spanish, rr. JA]
Compound letters ... are as follows
dd de-bikoitza palatalized d (no English equivalent)
ll ele-bikoitza mi[lli]on (palatalized l)
rr erre-bikoitza Spanish Roma or perro (rolled r)
ts te-ese i[t s]ure is
tt te-bikoitza palatalized t (no English equivalent)
tx te-ekitz [ch]ocolate
tz te-zeta fatso
Jon Aske
e-mail: jaske@abacus.bates.edu
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