I have alerts set in Google News to notify me about stories related to the Basques. Every once in a while, I get seemingly off-topic headlines such as “Rihanna poses in black basque and stockings” or “Vanessa Hudgens puts on a busty display in a vampish lace basque.” Of course, these articles have nothing to […]
My friend Benoit Etcheverry Macazaga posted on his Facebook page a link to Mintza Lasai, a citizen effort that started in November 2011 with the goal of revitalizing Basque in BAB: Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz. In particular, they have a few resources on Euskara including a practical dictionary in Euskara, French, Spanish, and English as well as a […]
I’ve delved into my genealogy a bit, scouring the priests’ books that document births, deaths, and marriages in each little town. Going back centuries, the names are all too familiar: Pedro, Jose, Domingo, Juan for the men; Josefa, Maria, Manuela, Magdalena for the women. Once in a while, there will be a Bartolome, or an […]
Larry Trask, who died in 2004, was a professor of linguistics at the University of Sussex. He published prolifically, with numerous books to his credit. In particular, he was an internationally recognized authority on Euskara, both its grammar and history. He almost fell into his studies accidentally, starting off as a chemist, only going into […]
My dad was Basque through and through. He didn’t have the typical trappings — he never did any folk dance and I never saw him wear a txapala. While when he got older he played mus and made chorizo and jamon, he didn’t do these things when I was a kid. However, whenever he got […]
This article originally appeared in Spanish and Basque on Kondaira’s Facebook page. It is translated and posted here with permission. The Basque-Algonquian language is a pidgin that arose for intercommunication between the members of the Mi’kmaq tribe, Innu and other Amerindians with the Basque whalers, cod fishermen, and merchants in Newfoundland, Quebec, the Labrador Peninsula, […]
Way back in 1991, in between my sophomore and junior years at the University of Idaho, I took a year off to study both Basque and Spanish in the Basque Country through the program offered by the University Studies Abroad Consortium — USAC. I was more interested in Basque, but both my dad and my […]
On the way to work this morning, I heard a story on NPR about a woman of Puerto Rican heritage from north Philly that wrote an ABC book from her neighborhood’s perspective. It got me thinking what would an ABC book from a Basque-American perspective look like? Some of my thoughts are below, any others? […]
Last month, my family and I were up in Idaho to visit grandparents. While visiting amuma and aitxitxa (now affectionately known as “txitxi”), a couple of dad’s buddies got together at the Txoko Ona, their Basque center in Homedale, to eat and play cards. They’d planned it a bit, but it wasn’t an overly involved […]
