The Basque History of the World - Mark Kurlansky [101]
Seven distinct dialects of Euskera are spoken: one from each of the seven provinces, with an eighth in eastern Navarra known as Alto Navarra Meridionale. Many of the differences stem from pronunciation. Dut, from the verb “to have,” becomes det in Guipúzcoa and dot in Vizcaya.
The aspirated h is the most unique phoneme in Euskera. That slightly aspirated “ha” on the h separates Euskalduns from Spanish speakers. The Spanish call Hondarribbia Fuenterrabía, because they cannot say the h. Yet neither can all Basques. In the Roncal Valley, near Roncesvalles, the h becomes a k, and in another valley h is pronounced like a g.
Generally, Basques can understand each other, though there are moments, such as Txillardegi’s call for clandestine ducks, when the meaning is entirely changed. Vizcaya and Soule, the two geographic extremes of Basqueland, are also the linguistic extremes of Euskera. The geographically central dialects, especially Guipúzcoan, are more easily understood by most Basques than Vizcayan or Souletine. But even Guipúzcoan, which is not only from a centrally located province but also from the province with the largest number of Euskera speakers, is not a universal Basque. Without a common written language, a Basque writer had a minuscule readership—only Euskera readers of the author’s native province. In 1571, a Bible was published in Euskera with a prologue that said, “We should try to find the most common language possible.” But such a universal Euskera did not exist. Some authors wrote in several dialects. The first novelist in Euskera, the late-nineteenth-century romantic Domingo de Aguirre, was from the Vizcayan port of Ondarroa but tried to increase his readership by writing some of his novels in Vizcayan dialect and others in Guipúzcoan. Even after the Basque Academy of Language was founded in 1918 with the stated goal of finding a common written language, it took decades to develop it. Impatiently, Xabier de Lizardi, one of the most influential Basque writers of the early twentieth century, wrote poetry in a unified language of his own invention. But most Euskera readers found it difficult to understand.
In the 1960s, the Basque academy established a common written language, which was called Batua. The twenty-four-member academy, each member representing a different linguistic tendency, tried to identify the word forms that were most commonly used. This often led them to the Guipúzcoan version. They also favored the older version over the contemporary, but rejected words and forms that were no longer in use.
AT THE AGE of twenty, Joseba Irazu for the first time read a novel in his mother tongue. He began meeting with underground groups, learning how to write in the secret language.
But campuses were busy places in the 1960s. “I am not proud of it, but I didn’t learn anything at university. We were always on strike,” said Joseba. Militants from the Basque Nationalist Party were the first to take over a Bilbao radio station. ETA members on campus soon did the same. But neither group was as active at Sarriko as the Communists. The Maoists emerged there as a highly organized group. Their small armed faction occasionally bombed a factory. “Cultural meetings” were held in which “the anticolonial struggle” and Che Guevara were discussed.
The police would sometimes enter the campus with helmets and clubs. The students did not fear them the way they did the Guardia Civil. The Guardia Civil rarely came onto the campus, but when it did, students disappeared, a terror technique learned from its onetime ally, the Nazis.
With his healthy