Spain: Basque Inquisition: How do you say Shepherd in Euskera?

[Harold Schiffman]

************************************** Basque Inquisition:
How Do You Say
Shepherd in Euskera? Through Fiat, Separatists Bring Old Tongue to Life;
'Zientzia' and Other Updates
By *KEITH JOHNSON*
November 6, 2007; Page A1

*(See Corrections & Amplifications items
below.<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119429568940282944.html#CX>
)*

BILBAO, Spain -- Rosa Esquivias is caught on the front line of the Basques'
fight for independence from Spain. Actually, she's in the front row -- of
her Basque language class.Ms. Esquivias, a 50-year-old high-school math
teacher and Spanish-speaking native of Bilbao, must learn Basque or risk
losing her job. Like her nine classmates, including a man who teaches
Spanish to immigrants, she has been given at least a year off with pay to
spend 25 hours a week drilling verbs and learning vocabulary in Euskera -- a
language with no relation to any other European tongue and spoken by fewer
than one million people. About 450 million people world-wide speak Spanish.
[image: [map of Basque region]]

"For the job I do, I think learning the language is clearly over the top,"
Ms. Esquivias says. Basque separatists have been waging a struggle for
independence from Spain for 39 years. But lately, many have taken to
wielding grammar instead of guns. Separatists still dream of creating their
own homeland, but in the meantime they are experimenting with pushing a
strict regime of Euskera into every corner of public life. Of the
present-day Basque Country's approximately 2.1 million inhabitants, roughly
30% speak Basque; more than 95% speak Spanish.

The regional government of the Basque Country has begun to tighten the
screws on its language policy to the point where now, all public employees,
from mail-sorters to firemen, must learn Euskera to get -- or keep -- their
jobs. Cops are pulled off the street to brush up their grammar. And
companies doing business with the Basque government must conduct business in
Euskera. Starting next year, students entering public school will be taught
only in Basque.

Although there is a shortage of doctors in the Basque Country, the Basque
health service requires medical personnel to speak Euskera. Health-service
regulations detail how Euskera should be used in every medical situation,
from patient consultations down to how to leave a phone message or make an
announcement over a public-address system (Basque first, then Spanish).
There are rules specifying the typeface and placement of Basque signs in
hospitals (Basque labels on top or to the left, and always in bold). The
official goal of the Basque policy is to transform Euskera from a
"co-official" status with Spanish to "co-equal" status. That, say Euskera
proponents, is necessary to make up for years of linguistic repression. The
language was banned during the 36-year dictatorship of Francisco Franco, and
only began to re-emerge in the 1980s.

"To have a truly bilingual society, you need positive discrimination," says
Mertxe Múgica, the head of the Basque language academies where Ms. Esquivias
studies. Many Basque speakers still feel discriminated against because of
the pervasiveness of Spanish. But as Basque nationalists try to push their
language into the mainstream, they are bumping up against an uncomfortable
reality. "Euskera just isn't used in real life," says Leopoldo Barrera, the
head of the center-right Popular Party in the Basque regional Parliament.
Though it has existed for thousands of years -- there are written records in
Basque that predate Spanish -- it is an ancient language little suited to
contemporary life. Euskera has no known relatives, though theories abound
linking it to everything from Berber languages to Eskimo tongues.

Airport, science, Renaissance, democracy, government, and independence, for
example, are all newly minted words with no roots in traditional
Euskera: *aireportu,
zientzia, errenazimentu, demokrazia, gobernu, independentzia*. Meanwhile,
there are 10 different words for shepherd, depending on the kind of animal.
*Astazain, *for instance, is a donkey herder; *urdain *herds pigs. A cowpoke
is *behizain *in Euskera. While Indo-European languages have similar roots
for basic words like numbers -- three, *drei, tres, trois* -- counting in
Euskera bears no relation: *bat, bi, hiru, lau*, and up to *hamar*, or 10.
Religious Basques pray to *Jainko*.
GRAMMAR LESSONS

[image: [Basque]] The Basque language, or Euskera, has no relationship to
Indo-European languages, and has its own particular grammar. Some key
differences with Spanish or English: There is no gender, or separate
prepositions, and it is a heavily inflected language. The same noun phrase
can have 68 basic forms, depending on case, number, etc.
Examples:
*1. She bought me the tickets for the game.*
*Berak erosi zizkidan partidurako sarrerak.*
-- Prepositions are included with word endings, as in Latin. The "-rako"
ending of "game" means "for the."
-- "Berak" is the same whether "he" or "she" bought the tickets.
*2. I told him not to drink it because it was too hot.*
*Nik ez edateko esan nion, oso bero zegoelako.*
-- The "-k" marker is very characteristic of Euskera, used for plurals and
direct objects.
-- "Elako" means "because" and goes at the end of "hot."
*3. So in the end, are you going to the fiestas in Pamplona?*
*Azkenean joango zara iruñeko jaietara?*
-- "Iruña" is Basque for "Pamplona," while "etara" means "to the (plural)
fiestas."
*Source: WSJ research, AEK Euskaltegi (Bilbao)*

The regional government has spent years of effort and billions of euros to
make sure that every official document, from job applications for sanitation
workers to European Union agricultural grants, is available in Euskera. But
this year, in San Sebastian, a hotbed of Basque nationalism and the region's
second-largest city, not a single person chose to take the driver's license
exam in Euskera, says Mr. Barrera.

The Basque-language TV channel is loaded with Euskera favorites, such as the
irrepressible redhead "Pippi Galtzaluze." But the channel has a
4.4%audience share in the Basque Country, according to data from
Taylor Nelson
Sofres -- less than the animal-documentary channel of public broadcasting.

Even some of the biggest proponents of Basque independence stumble over
Euskera's convoluted grammar. Juan José Ibarretxe, the Basque regional
president, speaks a less-than-fluent Euskera at news conferences. Like most
people in the region, he grew up speaking Spanish and had to learn Euskera
as an adult.

Other adults who are now running afoul of the new language policy are having
similar trouble picking up the tongue. "I guess we're the last of the old
guard, but we don't have any choice," says Ignacio Garcia, a math teacher
who is a classmate of Ms. Esquivias, and is sweating over a stack of notes
before his first big Euskera exam.

The language policy has led to a massive adult re-education push, as tens of
thousands in the Basque Country head back to school. Their predicament has
become a popular sendup on a Basque comedy show. In one sketch,
non-Basque-speaking adults who have been sent to a *euskaltegi*, or Euskera
language school, have to ask schoolchildren to help them with their
homework.

Joseba Arregui, a former Basque culture secretary, native Basque speaker,
and onetime architect of the language policy, feels that Euskera is being
pushed too far. "It's just no good for everyday conversation," he says.
"When a language is imposed, it is used less, and that creates a diabolical
circle of imposition and backlash."

In the classroom, Euskera use has also allowed separatists to control the
curriculum. Basque-language textbooks used in schools never tell students
that the Basque Country is part of Spain, for example. No elementary-school
texts even mention the word Spain.

Students are taught that they live in "Euskal Herria," stretching across
parts of Spain and southern France, that was colonized by "the Spanish
State."

Some local politicians worry that the insistence on Basque language makes
any type of reconciliation between separatists and Spain impossible.
"Everything young Basques later encounter in life -- like the fact they live
in Spain -- then appears to be an imposition from Madrid," says Santiago
Abascal, a regional deputy from the Popular Party who campaigns against the
linguistic policy. "That creates frustration that keeps violence bubbling in
the Basque Country," he says.

But back in the classroom, most of the frustration seems to be with the
dense grammar, forthcoming exams, and the difficulty of finding quality
shows on Basque TV.

Arantza Goikolea, Ms. Esquivias's teacher, leads a class through an exercise
about their daily routines. Tamara Alende, 25, watches a lot of TV at night,
she says in pidgin Euskera.

"Basque shows?" asks Ms. Goikolea. Ms. Alende lowers her head and turns red.
"No, Spanish series," she mumbles, to a chorus of boos from the teacher and
the rest of the class.
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