EuskeraBiok: Egunaren Uneak. The Moments of the Day.
Translated with permission. Original graphic can be found on euskerabiok.com
Category Archives: Euskara
EuskeraBiok: Nola Zaude? How Are You?
Translated with permission. Original graphic can be found on euskerabiok.com
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Basque Fact of the Week: Some Special Basque Words
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 […]
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Basque Fact of the Week: Izan and Egon, the Basque Verbs for “To Be”
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 […]
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Basque Fact of the Week: Bizenta Mogel, First Woman to Write a Book in Basque
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 […]
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Basque Fact of the Week: The Most Popular Names in Bizkaia
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 […]
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Basque Fact of the Week: Who was Larry Trask?
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 […]
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Basque Fact of the Week: Features of Basque Grammar
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, […]
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Basque Fact of the Week: Proto-Basque, the Basque of 2000 Years Ago
A few weeks ago, I introduced Koldo Mitxelena, who was the chief architect of the reconstruction of Proto-Basque, the Basque that was spoken some 2000 years ago. So, what is Proto-Basque, exactly, and how do people like Mitxelena reconstruct a form of a language that is 2000 years old when there are no, or at […]
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Basque Fact of the Week: Korrika, The Race in Support of the Basque Language
Earlier this month, the Basque Country witnessed what has become an amazing spectacle in support of the Basque language. Starting on March 14 in Irun and ending in Baiona after 11 days and more than 2,700 kilometers, thousands upon thousands of people ran across the Basque Country in support of Euskara. It is an event […]
