The cardinal directions are so ingrained in our culture, language, and identity. Whether one is from the northwest or the southeast, the west coast or east coast, these directions almost define us. And they are relative. I might be from the northwest of the United States, but I’m also from southern Idaho. At a higher […]
Translated with permission. Original graphic can be found on euskerabiok.com
Translated with permission. Original graphic can be found on euskerabiok.com
Translated with permission. Original graphic can be found on euskerabiok.com
The Basque newspaper Deia (the oldest Basque newspaper) has been running a series of articles in their Contando Historias section about Basque words and phrases, calling out the most beautiful, the oldest, and the most common Basque words used in daily life. Such lists are always subjective and Deia has resorted to using artificial intelligence […]
For an English speaker, one of the trickier things about Euskara is the verb for “to be.” Like in Spanish, there are two verbs that, in English, we would use to express “to be” – izan and egon. Interestingly, this only occurs in Hegoalde – in Iparralde, they only have one. To first order, izan […]
Despite the Basque language Euskara being so old, there are so many firsts related to the language that are not so old. The first translation of the Bible into Euskara occurred in 1571. The language itself was only standardized in the 1970s. Bizenta Mogel is another first. She is the first woman to write a […]
Only a few generations ago, everyone in the Basque Country had, officially, Spanish or French names, an imposition of the Church and State. I’ve done some genealogy and this is the case going back centuries. I’ve heard that people often had unofficial Basque names or nicknames, but on their birth certificate or in the priest’s […]
I often quote linguist Larry Trask in many of my posts about Euskara. I had the great fortune to “meet” Larry virtually through a number of Basque-related Internet forums that were popular in the day (mailing lists and the like that seem to have all but disappeared). Larry was noted for being critical of most […]
When I was trying to learn Basque, one shortcoming I had as an English speaker is that I simply didn’t know the grammatical lingo. There are a lot of terms thrown about – declenation, ergative, auxiliary verb – that are used to describe the grammar that we simply don’t learn in English class. At least, […]
