Basque Proverbs

All of the information is remarkably interesting.

But putting it all together is proving very difficult.

The situation of Basque is enormously complicated, see, a web of circular logic and seeming paradoxes.

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The symbolic and emotional value of the language and the practical value of the language not only need not coexist… in certain situations, they may actually be dichotomous. As the practical value decreases, the emotional value increases.

The Basque language fuels the nationalist movement. And the nationalist movement, likewise, has a strong effect on the language itself...

“It was claimed increasingly that pre-Christian Basques already professed a monotheistic religion and even worshipped the cross, and that Euskera was the language of paradise. Different authors subsequently incorporated new elements into the myth, which eventually regarded Basques as connected to the people of God (through Noah) but that, unlike the Jews, did not break this bond by crucifying Christ..” (Atienza 33)

“Juan Bautista de Erro, for example, in El Mundo Primitivo, attempted to demonstrate ‘the primacy and antiquity of Euskera over the other languages on earth.’ He further argued that this ancient language was transferred directly from God to humankind and not created by the latter, and that the early language created by God and spoken in Paradise was Euskera, preserved after the confusion of Babel, saved from the universal flood by Noah, and brought to the Basque country by Tubal.” (Atienza 33)

Religion was very important… maybe they made up their crazy myths so that they wouldn’t have to concede that such an important part of their lives was a foreign influence of the sort they so despised?

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And what am I to make of this?




Izena duen guztiak izatea ere bdauke
Everything that has a name, exists.


Izenak ez du egiten izana.
A name does not make something true.


-Basque Proverbs