{"id":2757,"date":"2020-08-09T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-09T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=2757"},"modified":"2020-08-09T14:00:46","modified_gmt":"2020-08-09T14:00:46","slug":"basque-fact-of-the-week-concept-of-emptiness-in-basque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2020\/08\/09\/basque-fact-of-the-week-concept-of-emptiness-in-basque\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Fact of the Week: Concept of Emptiness in Basque"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The idea of something being &#8217;empty&#8217; is typically a negative one. When the glass is half full, we are taking an optimistic view of the situation, but a glass that is half empty is certainly negative. The Basque language has similar connotations around the word <em>huts<\/em>. Possibly stemming from Neolithic times when an empty stomach or empty food stores were about as terrible a situation one could experience, the concept of emptiness carries with it a sense of failure, of lack of substance or value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/67e51f0ed2c0c15a588f6880972f3753.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2759\" width=\"234\" height=\"351\" srcset=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/67e51f0ed2c0c15a588f6880972f3753.jpg 367w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/67e51f0ed2c0c15a588f6880972f3753-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 234px) 100vw, 234px\" \/><figcaption>Image from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pinterest.co.uk\/pin\/601230618992814564\/\">Pinterest<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>To describe someone as having failed or an item that is worthless, Euskara has a number of phrases that incorporate the idea of <em>huts<\/em> or emptiness. For example, <em>huts egin du<\/em> (literally &#8220;has made empty&#8221;) means someone has failed while <em>gauza hutsala da <\/em>(&#8220;it is an empty thing&#8221;) or <em>hori hutsaren hurrengoa da<\/em> (&#8220;that things is next to emptiness\/nothingness&#8221;) describes something of no value. <\/li><li>The idea of air filling emptiness and thus being related to emptiness is clear in Basque, just as in English (&#8220;he is full of hot air&#8221;). Air fills the emptiness, giving it volume, but no substance. It exaggerates appearances. <em>Harroputza<\/em> (&#8220;boastful&#8221;) literally means &#8220;hollow air,&#8221; in the same sense of a little bird that puffs itself out to look larger. Similarly, <em>zaputza<\/em>, meaning angry, possibly derives from <em>zaha-putza<\/em>, a bag or skin that is inflated with air but nothing else.<\/li><li>Other expressions related to blowing out air, such as <em>eztula<\/em> (&#8220;cough&#8221;) and <em>zintza<\/em> (&#8220;blowing your nose&#8221;) also contain negative connotations. <em>Horrek ez du zintza bat balio<\/em>, meaning &#8220;that isn&#8217;t worth a blow of your nose,&#8221; express contempt. (Similar in spirit to the English &#8220;not to be sneezed at.&#8221;) On the other hand, <em>hori ez da ahuntzaren gauerdiko eztula<\/em> (&#8220;that isn&#8217;t the cough of a goat at midnight&#8221;) means something is very important.<\/li><li>And, the idea of the wind, <em>haize<\/em>, being empty leads to several words to describe people. <em>Haizeputz<\/em> (&#8220;puff of wind&#8221; meaning haughty), <em>haizeburu<\/em> (&#8220;head of wind&#8221; meaning dumb or silly) and <em>zorohaize<\/em> (&#8220;crazy wind&#8221;) are all words to describe people in a bad light. <\/li><li>Being full has the opposite sense. Saying someone is not <em>bete-betea<\/em>, or is not &#8220;full,&#8221; means that he or she is not all there.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Primary source: Hartsuaga Uranga, Juan Inazio.&nbsp;<em>Vac\u00edo y Lleno<\/em>. Enciclopedia Au\u00f1amendi. Available at: <a href=\"http:\/\/aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus\/es\/vacio-y-lleno\/ar-154035\/\">http:\/\/aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus\/es\/vacio-y-lleno\/ar-154035\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The idea of something being &#8217;empty&#8217; is typically a negative one. When the glass is half full, we are taking an optimistic view of the situation, but a glass that is half empty is certainly negative. The Basque language has similar connotations around the word huts. Possibly stemming from Neolithic times when an empty stomach [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[836,14],"tags":[2067,38,2069,2066,2068],"class_list":["post-2757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basque-fact-of-the-week","category-euskara","tag-empty","tag-euskara","tag-full","tag-huts","tag-void"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-It","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2757"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2833,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757\/revisions\/2833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}