Tag Archives: Euskara

Basque Fact of the Week, Euskara

Basque Fact of the Week: Some Special Basque Words

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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 […]

Basque Fact of the Week, Euskara

Basque Fact of the Week: Izan and Egon, the Basque Verbs for “To Be”

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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 […]

Basque Fact of the Week, Euskara

Basque Fact of the Week: Features of Basque Grammar

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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, […]

Basque Fact of the Week, Euskara, Fiestas

Basque Fact of the Week: Korrika, The Race in Support of the Basque Language

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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 […]

Basque Fact of the Week, Euskara

Basque Fact of the Week: Sounds in Euskara

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One day, we were all sitting around the table listening to stories from dad. I’m not quite sure how it came up, but he made a sound of a rooster. Instead of our cock-a-doodle-doo, his rooster said kee-keeree-kee-keeree-coo. His rooster spoke Euskara instead of English! I guess it should have been obvious that animal sounds […]

Euskara, Interviews

Making Basque Identity Cool: An Interview with John Ysursa

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John Ysursa is near-omnipresent in the Basque community of the United States. He’s seemingly at every festival, he’s a central part of Boise State University’s Basque program, and he has authored a book on Basque dance. His enthusiasm for all things Basque – particularly how to get others excited about the Basque culture – is […]

Basque Fact of the Week, Euskara

Basque Fact of the Week: Euskalkiak, the Dialects of Basque

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One of the challenges I had when I tried to learn Euskara in Donostia was that I was learning Batua but when I went to visit my dad’s family, they spoken the Bizkaian dialect and I had a hard time understanding them. When I told my dad about it, he nodded, saying he couldn’t understand […]