{"id":7184,"date":"2024-08-18T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-18T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=7184"},"modified":"2024-08-18T20:42:41","modified_gmt":"2024-08-18T20:42:41","slug":"basque-fact-of-the-week-izan-and-egon-the-basque-verbs-for-to-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2024\/08\/18\/basque-fact-of-the-week-izan-and-egon-the-basque-verbs-for-to-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Fact of the Week: Izan and Egon, the Basque Verbs for &#8220;To Be&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background\">For an English speaker, one of the trickier things about Euskara is the verb for &#8220;to be.&#8221; Like in Spanish, there are two verbs that, in English, we would use to express &#8220;to be&#8221; &#8211; <em><strong>izan<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>egon<\/strong><\/em>. Interestingly, this only occurs in Hegoalde &#8211; in Iparralde, they only have one. To first order, izan is like Spanish ser and egon is like estar, but they aren&#8217;t fully interchangeable. <\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/bbp-infographic-izan-vs-egon.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"232\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/bbp-infographic-izan-vs-egon-232x300.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7215\" srcset=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/bbp-infographic-izan-vs-egon-232x300.png 232w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/bbp-infographic-izan-vs-egon-791x1024.png 791w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/bbp-infographic-izan-vs-egon-768x994.png 768w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/bbp-infographic-izan-vs-egon-1187x1536.png 1187w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/bbp-infographic-izan-vs-egon-1583x2048.png 1583w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/bbp-infographic-izan-vs-egon.png 1700w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 232px) 100vw, 232px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">An infographic I created for izan vs egon &#8211; if people like these, I may try to make more. Click on the image for a larger version.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>At least to first order, the Basque verb <em>izan<\/em> is the same as the Spanish <em>ser<\/em>, while Basque <em>egon<\/em> is like Spanish <em>estar<\/em>. There are many places on the internet that say they are completely equivalent, though I have to think there are some differences&#8230; does anyone have an example?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/hiztegiak.elhuyar.eus\/eu_es\/izan\">izan<\/a><\/strong><\/em> is the more permanent form of &#8220;to be,&#8221; describing enduring properties of things. <em>izan<\/em> is also used to denote possession and time. <em>izan<\/em> can describe if something exists: &#8220;There are two train stations.&#8221;\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>One example where in Basque <em>izan<\/em> is used but in Spanish it would be <em>estar<\/em> is a situation that has never happened. &#8220;I have never been in your house&#8221; would use <em>izan<\/em> in Basque but <em>estar<\/em> in Spanish.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/hiztegiak.elhuyar.eus\/eu_es\/egon\">egon<\/a><\/strong><\/em> is more transitory, used to describe situations or characteristics that are in flux or could change. For example, describing where you are or what emotional state you are in would be done with <em>egon<\/em>. <em>egon<\/em> can also be used to describe if something exists: &#8220;There is no wine&#8221; would use <em>egon<\/em>. When to use <em>izan<\/em> or <em>egon<\/em> can become confusing fairly quickly.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One place where Basque diverges from Spanish is in dynamic phrasing. A phrase like &#8220;I am eating&#8221; in Spanish would use <em>estar<\/em> &#8211; &#8220;Estoy comiendo&#8221; &#8211; while in Basque it would use <em>izan<\/em> &#8211; &#8220;Jaten ari naiz.&#8221; <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In some <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2022\/09\/04\/basque-fact-of-the-week-euskalkiak-the-dialects-of-basque\/\">dialects of Euskara<\/a>, particularly in the north, there is only one verb for &#8220;to be&#8221; &#8211; <em>izan<\/em>. <em>egon<\/em> does exist, but it has a more precise meaning of &#8220;to stay.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background\">A full list of all of Buber&#8217;s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/basque-fact-of-the-week-archive\/\">Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Primary sources: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/izan\">izan<\/a><\/em>, Wiktionary<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For an English speaker, one of the trickier things about Euskara is the verb for &#8220;to be.&#8221; Like in Spanish, there are two verbs that, in English, we would use to express &#8220;to be&#8221; &#8211; izan and egon. Interestingly, this only occurs in Hegoalde &#8211; in Iparralde, they only have one. To first order, izan [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7215,"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":[4005,38,4004,4006],"class_list":["post-7184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basque-fact-of-the-week","category-euskara","tag-egon","tag-euskara","tag-izan","tag-verbs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/bbp-infographic-izan-vs-egon.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1RS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7184","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=7184"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7259,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7184\/revisions\/7259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}