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, […]
In 1991, I traveled, for the first time, to the Basque Country. Though my dad was born there, and my mom’s grandparents as well, we’d never made a family trek as it simply was beyond our resources. My dad himself only went back a handful of times during the first 30 years he was in […]
In this guest article, Professor Begoña Echeverria, a professor of education at the University of California, Riverside, describes how she uses songs to teach basic concepts of the Basque language to adults, focusing not on grammatical aspects, but rather conversation. Eskerrik asko, Begoña! Basque-ing in play: Using song to teach Basque in the American diaspora Begoña Echeverria […]
Homeland is a short video produced by the Etxepare Basque Institute and Surffilmfestibal that gives a glimpse into the world of Basque surfing and surfers. Narrated in Euskara with English subtitles, it begins by introducing the Basque people and Basque culture from the perspective of the ancient traditions that many aspects of Basque culture are […]
Yesterday I posted about another blog that ranked languages in terms of “weirdness”, which made the claim that Spanish, German and English were much weirder, in comparison with other languages, than Euskara. Well, another blog, this one from the Language Log at the University of Pennsylvania describes some issues with this analysis. In particular, a […]
One of the people who follow Buber’s Basque Page on Facebook (thanks Rachel!) sent me this link to a blog post that evaluates the weirdness of languages. I’m not a linguist, so I can’t really comment on their methodology, but it seems that what they’ve done is compared all of the languages that are assessed […]
Ok, so maybe this isn’t a common problem, but if you are hosting a Basque-themed party, you might be at a loss for finding those party favors and decorations that have that Basque touch to them. BSG Baiona has you covered! They have toothpicks with Basque flags, Basque flag banners, and much more. Some nice […]
The last few weekends, my family and I have been visiting consignment galleries, hoping to put an item up for sale. Usually, we simply hear that they aren’t interested and then we end up wandering the gallery for an hour, looking at all of the memories people are hoping to get a little bit of cash […]
A pidgin, according to Wikipedia, is “a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common.” That is, when two new groups come into contact and they can’t communicate, they begin create a new language that is some hybrid of the two. […]
I first met Gontzal Aranguren maybe 15 years ago as part of what became the Seattle Euskal Etxea — the Basque Club of Seattle. Gontzal was one of several transplants from the Basque Country living in Seattle and who became an important part of the fledging club. Gontzal is an interesting twist on the Basque-American […]
