From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: AUT: Re: Basque
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 04:41:03 +0100



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From: <topp8564-AT-mail.usyd.edu.au>
To: "Aut-Op-Sy" <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: 27. februar 2003 00.55
Subject: AUT: Basque

Thiago, though I have not been their for many years,
the figures you give would speak of a quite an
impressive recent revival within Spain for Euskara --
which is the name of the Basque language, there is no
doubt about it, Euskadi and Euskal Herria the names
for the region. How impressive again depends
on how you define speakers. But as they learn it in
school, this may indicate that the figure might be
higher now than¨ :_ prior to _  the  Franco regime. In
Gipuzkoa  the precnetage though has always been
quite high, as in Behenaforroa and Zuberroa on
the French side of the border.
     But you are right in that parents have to be taken
into account when talking about percentages in this
context. But it also a question of in which part they
live regarless of parents. Something that had less
impact on the language situation in Catalonia, due
to Catalan being very much closer to Spanish, and workers
coming from elsewhere could pick it up pretty  fast.
Anyway, there quite obviously was a reason for
that the paper of Herri Batasuna when I was there
was almost wholly written in Spanish, a reason confirmed
by every Basque person I talked to. But there is also
a new generation around, which is together with
a higher level of education, is what your figures,
however accurate, reflects. It would be interesting
to know how many of them use it as their first and
daily language though.

It was interesting to learn that Nynorsk was "known by
about 30% of Norwegians". I would say that about
100 per cent read it, and the number is too high for
speakers, though it is hard to define. It would more
coorect to refer to speakers of dialects that makes
Nynorsk the most natural wriiten language for them.
All wriiten languages are of course artifical, and
luckily so.  Bokmaal  -- literally book language --
which I and the overwhelming majority of those who
grow up in Oslo use, is modification of riksmaal
(which is not an offical language but used by the
largest  morning paper here, and the language
of Ibsen) which  was based on the Danish, and spoken
only by the elite. Nynorsk was based on the spoken
language of the countryside of certain regions of
Norway, mostly on the on West Coast and mountain
valleys of southern Norway. It has a somewhat
different syntax than the more "German" syntax of
of bookmaal, and riksmaal in particular.

Really, all of these are basically the same language,
and so is pretty much Swedish and Danish too.
It certainly has nothing at all to do with the differences
between the Basque language and Spanish -- not
even between Catalan and Spanish -- nor between
English and Gaelic.

I certainly disagree with you on the question
of  language versus "blood and "race".

Harald






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