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 […]
The percent of people who have Euskara as their first language. The numbers for Zuberoa and Nafarroa Beherea are shared. Source: https://www.mintzaira.fr/fileadmin/documents/Aktualitateak/015_VI_ENQUETE_PB__Fr.pdf
Despite the ancient origins of the language, it is only recently that Euskara, or Basque, has received the academic and literary attention that other languages have enjoyed for a long time. Much of what led to the current growth and strength that the language enjoys today began over a century ago with, for example, the […]
Buber’s Basque Page is 25 years old! I first started working on what would become this site back in the fall of 1994. I had just started graduate school in the Physics Department at the University of Washington. I was very lucky to have a fellowship that freed me from teaching duties, so I used […]
At the time of his death, Professor Larry Trask was working on an etymological dictionary of the Basque language. The dictionary was to give the origin of Basque words, tracing their history to either other languages or to a so-called Proto-Basque, a reconstructed Basque that must have been spoken many years ago. Though I’m not […]
We all know how central language is to the identity of the Basques. Indeed, the Basque word for a Basque person, euskaldun, means one who has, or speaks, Euskara, the Basque language. However, given that Euskara has not been a written language for very long, it isn’t clear exactly where the word Euskara comes from. […]
Euskara, the language spoken by the Basque people, is now spoken by about 750,000 people. The language is perhaps the most singularly important feature identifying the Basque people. Indeed, the word for a Basque person in Euskara — euskaldun — means ‘one who has Euskara.’ Thus, the history of the language itself is of great […]
I was in San Antonio this week for work. The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, better known as TMS to materials scientists, has an annual meeting that floats around the country, and this year it was in San Antonio. This conference brings together researchers from around the world that are advancing our understanding of materials, […]
In modern Basque, there are words for blue, grey and green. However, only one of these, urdin, that is native to the language. While today urdin means blue, originally it also encompassed the colors grey and green.
The Basque language — Euskara — became standardized in the 1970s. The Basque Language Academy (the Euskaltzaindia) felt that a standard was needed to give the language a better chance of survival against the pressures of languages like French and Spanish. This unified Basque, Euskara Batua, was based on a dialect of Basque from Gipuzkoa.
