{"id":7562,"date":"2025-02-02T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-02T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=7562"},"modified":"2026-07-02T19:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T19:06:15","slug":"basque-fact-of-the-week-the-basque-alphabet-and-orthography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2025\/02\/02\/basque-fact-of-the-week-the-basque-alphabet-and-orthography\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Fact of the Week: The Basque Alphabet and Orthography"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\">The most basic element of a written language is the alphabet. However, because Euskara wasn\u2019t standardized until the 1970s, spelling of Basque names and words was all over the place, often borrowing from Spanish and French. With standardization, the chaos finally settled and now there is a common alphabet used in all parts of the Basque Country. Those who standardized the alphabet and orthography made some interesting choices \u2013 using the letter\u00a0<strong>x<\/strong>\u00a0to represent the \u2018sh\u2019 sound and\u00a0<strong>tx<\/strong>\u00a0to represent \u2018ch\u2019 \u2013 that I haven\u2019t been able to find why. If anyone knows, please leave a comment!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-300x300.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7563\" srcset=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image.png 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Basque dictionary by kukuxumusu, found on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/beautiful-basque-country.tumblr.com\/post\/77185257951\/basque-alphabet\">Beautiful Basque Country<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Formally, the Basque alphabet has only 23 letters \u2013\u00a0<strong>a b d e f g h i j k l m n \u00f1 o p r s t u x z<\/strong>. The letters\u00a0<strong>c q v w y<\/strong>do exist, but are typically only used in foreign words and names.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>h<\/strong>\u00a0is a bit interesting as some\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2022\/09\/04\/basque-fact-of-the-week-euskalkiak-the-dialects-of-basque\/\">dialects<\/a>\u00a0of Basque use it, particularly in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2024\/07\/07\/basque-fact-of-the-week-what-is-the-difference-between-euskadi-euskal-herria-and-the-bac\/\">Iparralde<\/a>, while others don\u2019t. When Euskara was being standardized in the 1970s, it was decided to use the\u00a0<strong>h<\/strong>\u00a0in some words and not in others. It is voiceless in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2019\/02\/17\/basque-fact-of-the-week-basque-was-only-standardized-in-the-1970s\/\">Batua<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the unified standard Basque \u2013 but is vocalized in some dialects. The choice to include it in some words and not in others caused consternation for everyone.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Another interesting letter is\u00a0<strong>x<\/strong>, which is pronounced like \u2018sh\u2019 in English.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>z<\/strong>\u00a0is also interesting. It represents the \u2018s\u2019 sound, much like (but subtly different) from the Basque letter\u00a0<strong>s<\/strong>. However, because of the influence of Spanish, I\u2019ve heard it pronounced more like \u2018th,\u2019 so that, for example, my grandmother\u2019s surname\u00a0<strong>Zabala<\/strong>, which should be pronounced like\u00a0<em>Sabala<\/em>, is sometimes pronounced like\u00a0<em>Thabala<\/em>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There are also digraphs \u2013 pairs of letters that represent unique sounds \u2013 just like \u2018ch\u2019 or \u2018th\u2019 in English. In Basque, these are:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>dd<\/strong>: this is a bit softer sound than normal\u00a0<strong>d<\/strong>\u00a0but doesn\u2019t really have an English equivalent (as far as I can tell). Some dialects don\u2019t have this sound.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>ll<\/strong>: much like in Spanish, this sounds like \u2018y\u2019 in English<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>rr<\/strong>: this is trilled much like in Spanish<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>ts<\/strong>: this is pronounced much like the \u2018ts\u2019 in \u2018rats\u2019<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>tt<\/strong>: softer than\u00a0<strong>ts<\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a0<strong>tz<\/strong>, but similar in spirit (again, I don\u2019t know of an English equivalent)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>tx<\/strong>: this is the \u2018ch\u2019 sound in English, like in the word \u2018chair\u2019<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>tz<\/strong>: this is a bit harder than\u00a0<strong>ts<\/strong>\u00a0and is pronounced like \u2018ts\u2019 in \u2018gets\u2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u00f1 is like the \u2018ni\u2019 in \u2018onion.\u2019 The combination \u2018in\u2019 in Basque has a similar sound.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Because Basque was only standardized within the last century, before that words were written with either Spanish or French orthography. So, modern Basque\u00a0<strong>Etxebarria<\/strong>\u00a0would be\u00a0<em>Echevarria<\/em> or\u00a0<em>Etchevarria<\/em>.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Finally, it is interesting to look at where some of the letter choices come from. As the last example demonstrates, Basque uses\u00a0<strong>tx<\/strong>\u00a0for the \u2018ch\u2019 sound while the neighboring languages do not. Catalan also uses\u00a0<strong>tx<\/strong>\u00a0for the \u2018ch\u2019 sound. Maybe Basque took inspiration from Catalan? I can\u2019t find anything that says anything about the origin of using\u00a0<strong>tx<\/strong>\u00a0to represent the \u2018ch\u2019 sound\u2026<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\">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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Primary sources: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buber.net\/Basque\/Euskara\/lang.lt.php\">Basque<\/a><\/em>\u00a0by Larry Trask, Buber\u2019s Basque Page;\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/es.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Euskera\">Euskera<\/a><\/em>, Wikipedia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The most basic element of a written language is the alphabet. However, because Euskara wasn\u2019t standardized until the 1970s, spelling of Basque names and words was all over the place, often borrowing from Spanish and French. With standardization, the chaos finally settled and now there is a common alphabet used in all parts of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[836,14],"tags":[38,4109],"class_list":["post-7562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basque-fact-of-the-week","category-euskara","tag-euskara","tag-orthography"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1XY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7562","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=7562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7564,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7562\/revisions\/7564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}