Joanes Leizarraga (1506–1601) was a 16th-century Basque priest. He is most famous for being the first to attempt the standardisation of the Basque language and for the translation of religious works into Basque, in particular the first Basque translation of the New Testament .
77-459: Talo or Talau ( Basque pronunciation: [talo] ) is a typical food of the Basque Country , similar to the traditional corn tortilla of Mesoamerica , made of corn flour , water and a bit of salt. It is round and is cooked in a warm metal plank, named a talo burni ("talo iron"). It can be eaten alone, with various toppings, and is also used as a wrap for various foods. After corn
154-468: A Basque department, to no avail. The Basque Country has a population of approximately 3 million as of early 2006. The population density, at about 140/km (360/sq mi) is above average for both Spain and France, but the distribution of the population is fairly unequal, concentrated around the main cities. A third of the population is concentrated in the Greater Bilbao metropolitan area, while most of
231-708: A Basque-Navarrese University. Nonetheless, in 1897 the Bilbao Superior Technical School of Engineering (the first modern faculty of engineering in Spain), was founded as a way of providing engineers for the local industry; this faculty is nowadays part of the University of the Basque Country . Almost at the same time, the urgent need for business graduates led to the establishment of the Commercial Faculty by
308-527: A collection of regions inhabited by the Basque people , known as Euskal Herria in Basque language , and it is first attested as including seven traditional territories in Axular 's literary work Gero (he goes on to suggest that Basque language is spoken "in many other places"), in the early 17th century. Some Basques refer to the seven traditional districts collectively as Zazpiak Bat , meaning "The Seven [are] One",
385-514: A few. The situation of the Basque language in the French Basque Country is vulnerable (as rated by Unesco). The pressure of French as a well-established mainstream language and different administrative obstacles to the consolidation of Basque-language schooling make the language's future prospects uncertain. On 14 June 2013, pointing to the 1850 Falloux act and declaring thereafter that French
462-618: A language which by then had no great written tradition, common standard or spelling system, he persevered with some help from four old Catholic colleagues: Piarres Landetxeberri from Espès-Undurein , Sanz de Tartas from Charritte-de-Bas (both in Soule ), Joanes Etxeberri from Saint-Jean-de-Luz and a Mr Tardets who was a minister in Ostabat . Finally, in 1571, the printer Pierre Haultin based in La Rochelle printed three works by Leizarraga, amongst them
539-498: A limited self-governing status, as settled by the Spanish Constitution. However, a significant part of Basque society is still attempting higher degrees of self-empowerment (see Basque nationalism ), sometimes by acts of violence ( ETA 's permanent ceasefire in 2010). The French Basque Country, meanwhile, lacks any political or administrative recognition whatsoever, while a majority of local representatives have lobbied to create
616-690: A motto coined in the late 19th century. The Northern Basque Country , known in Basque as Iparralde (literally, "the northern part"), is the part of the Basque Country that lies entirely within France , specifically as part of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département of France, and constitutes the Basque Municipal Community . As such it is usually known as French Basque Country ( Pays basque français in French ). In most contemporary sources, it
693-587: A referendum by minority leftist forces and Basque nationalists in Navarre, it has been opposed by mainstream Spanish parties and the Navarrese People's Union , which was the ruling party until 2015. The Union has repeatedly asked for an amendment to the Constitution to remove this clause. In addition to those, two enclaves located outside of the respective autonomous community are often cited as being part of both
770-519: A seat in Navarre, with the Basque Nationalist Party getting 5 (all from Basque Autonomous Community). Joanes Leizarraga French spellings of his name are often encountered in older works, for example Ioannes Leiçarraga and Jean de Liçarrague and various other spellings of his surname such as Leissarrague or Leiçarraga , or Juan de Lizárraga in Spanish. Leizarraga was born in
847-571: A swiftly changing array of disbanded party names, new alliances, and re-accommodations (since 1998). During the 2011 Spanish parliamentary elections, the coalition Amaiur (former Batasuna plus Eusko Alkartasuna ) came up first in parliamentary seats (7) and second only to UPN -PP (5 seats) in popular vote in the Southern Basque Country , followed closely by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (5 seats). Geroa Bai secured
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#1733085681832924-540: A very similar climate to nearby Hondarribia on the Spanish side of the border. The values do not apply to San Sebastián , since its weather station is at a higher elevation than the urban core, where temperatures are higher year-round and similar to those in Bilbao and Hondarribia . According to some theories, Basques may be the least assimilated remnant of the Paleolithic inhabitants of Western Europe (specifically those of
1001-407: Is difficult to accurately translate into other languages due to the wide range of meanings of the Basque word herri . It can be translated as nation ; country , land ; people , population and town , village , settlement . The first part, Euskal , is the adjectival form of Euskara "the Basque language". Thus a more literal translation would be "country/nation/people/settlement of
1078-587: Is a single-province autonomous community. Its name refers to the charters, the Fueros of Navarre . The Spanish Constitution of 1978 states that Navarre may become a part of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country if it is so decided by its people and institutions (the Disposicion transitoria cuarta or "Fourth Transitory Provision"). To date, there has been no implementation of this law. Despite demands for
1155-685: Is also Thou who mentions the exceptionally harmonious relationship between Protestants and Catholics in Bastide where according to him both faiths were worshipped in the church, something that was rare in 16th century France which is known for its religious wars . By 1594 Leizarraga was no longer attending the Synod of Béarn, the record stating Monsieur de Lissarrague, ministre de Labastide de Clarence, excusé pour sa vieillesse et pour son indisposition Mr Liazarraga, minister of Bastida, makes his excuse due to old age and being indisposed . He died in Bastide in 1601 at
1232-842: Is an essential element at Saint Thomas' fair, celebrated annually on December 21. In the 1930s, workers would wrap foods within talo and take this to the fields. During the 1930s, miners also consumed talo, and it was also eaten by factory workers after this time. Nowadays it is eaten with txistorra (a type of thin chorizo ) while drinking txakoli . It is sometimes accompanied with milk, eaten with fried egg, fried pancetta (in Basque xingar , in French ventrèche ) or fried Bayonne Ham , cheese like Ossau-Iraty , chocolate or honey . In Bayonne , France, street vendors purvey talo during its annual Bayonne Ham Fair. Basque Country (greater region) The Basque Country ( Basque : Euskal Herria ; Spanish : País Vasco ; French : Pays basque )
1309-505: Is defined as covering the arrondissement of Bayonne and the cantons of Mauléon-Licharre and Tardets-Sorholus , but sources disagree on the status of the village of Esquiule . Within these conventions, the area of Northern Basque Country (including the 29 square kilometres (11 square miles) of Esquiule) is 2,995 square kilometres (1,156 square miles). The French Basque Country is traditionally subdivided into three provinces: This summary presentation suggests difficulty in justifying
1386-709: Is frequently known as Spanish Basque Country ( País Vasco español in Spanish ). It is the largest and most populated part of the Basque Country. It includes two main regions : the Basque Autonomous Community ( Vitoria-Gasteiz is the capital) and the Chartered Community of Navarre (capital city Pamplona , Basque : Iruña ). The Basque Autonomous Community (7,234 km²) consists of three provinces , specifically designated "historical territories": The Chartered Community of Navarre (10,391 km²)
1463-584: Is lost, with only Vascones still being accounted for, while extending far beyond their former boundaries, e.g. in the current lands of Álava and most conspicuously around the Pyrenees and Novempopulania . The territory of the Cantabri encompassed probably present-day Biscay , Cantabria , Burgos and at least part of Álava and La Rioja , i.e. to the west of Vascon territory in the Early Middle Ages , but
1540-479: Is neither linguistically nor culturally homogeneous, and certain areas have a majority of people who do not consider themselves Basque, such as the south of Navarre . The concept is still highly controversial, and the Supreme Court of Navarre has upheld a denial of government funding to school books that include the Navarre community within the Basque Country area. The name in Basque is Euskal Herria . The name
1617-491: Is not traditionally spoken). Basque language teaching in the public education network is therefore limited to the Basque speaking north and central regions. In the central region, Basque teaching in the public education network is fairly limited, and part of the existing demand is served via private schools or ikastolak . In southern and some central areas this policy has resulted in schoolchildren having to travel sometimes for hours every day in order to attend education provided in
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#17330856818321694-513: Is signatory has issued a number of recommendations in order to guarantee a real official status for Basque language (2004), e.g. the suppression of the administrative linguistic divides of Navarre for considering it an obstacle to the normal use of Basque and discriminating against Basque speakers, the filing of the case against newspaper Euskaldunon Egunkaria and restitution to its normal operation, as well as guarantees to prisoners of receiving and sending correspondence in Basque, to mention but
1771-441: Is that he often used Romance loanwords where native terms exist. For example, he translates "fisher of men" as giza pescadorea rather than giza arrantzalea . At the same time, he uses grammatical forms which were most likely archaic even in his period. The other main criticism was that, as an over-regional standard, he based it too much on his native Lapurdian dialect and the two other Northern dialects with very little regard to
1848-754: Is the name given to the home of the Basque people . The Basque Country is located in the western Pyrenees , straddling the border between France and Spain on the coast of the Bay of Biscay . Encompassing the Autonomous Communities of the Basque Country and Navarre in Spain and the Northern Basque Country in France, the region is home to the Basque people ( Basque : Euskaldunak ), their language ( Basque : Euskara ), culture and traditions. The area
1925-608: Is the official language of France, the regional subprefect declared illegal the Hendaye council's subsidies to finance a new building for a Basque-language school. On 6 November 2013, the Basque language school network in the French Basque Country , Seaska, bitterly criticized the French state before UNESCO for not complying with its international commitments and actually failing to accept minorities by violating their linguistic rights. In November 2013, France decided not to ratify
2002-591: Is translation of the New Testament. It is indicative of the respect he commanded that in 1582 he was visited by Jacques Auguste de Thou , the man who would later negotiate the Edict of Nantes on religious tolerance. In his writings, Thou mentions Leizarraga and the copy of the Basque translation of the New Testament he had been given as a gift during his visit. This copy today is in the National Library of France . It
2079-494: The 2nd Spanish Republic in 1931, when a draft statute was drawn up for the Southern Basque Country ( Statute of Estella ), but was discarded in 1932. In 1936 a short-lived statute of autonomy was approved for the Gipuzkoa , Álava and Biscay provinces, but war prevented any progress. After Franco 's dictatorship, a new statute was designed that resulted in the creation of the current Basque Autonomous Community and Navarre, with
2156-566: The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . The earliest university in the Basque Country was the University of Oñati , founded in 1540 in Hernani and moved to Oñati in 1548. It lasted in various forms until 1901. In 1868, in order to fulfill the need for college graduates for the thriving industry that was flourishing in the Bilbao area, there was an unsuccessful effort to establish
2233-847: The Franco-Cantabrian region known as Azilian ) to the Indo-European migrations. Basque tribes were mentioned by Greek writer Strabo and Roman writer Pliny the Elder , including the Vascones , the Aquitani , and others. There is considerable evidence to show their Basque ethnicity in Roman times in the form of place-names, Caesar's reference to their customs and physical make-up, the so-called Aquitanian inscriptions recording names of people and gods (approx. 1st century, see Aquitanian language ), etc. Geographically,
2310-638: The Hundred Years' War , with Bayonne remaining the last Plantagenet stronghold up to 1453. In Navarre, the civil wars between the Agramont and the Beaumont confederacies paved the way for the Spanish conquest of the bulk of Navarre from 1512 to 1524. The independent Navarre north of the Pyrenees was largely absorbed by France in 1620, despite the fact that King Henry III of Navarre had decreed Navarre's permanent independence from France (31 December 1596). In
2387-575: The Mondragon University , based in Mondragón and nearby towns. There are numerous other significant Basque cultural institutions in the Basque Country and elsewhere. Most Basque organizations in the United States are affiliated with NABO ( North American Basque Organizations , Inc.). Since the last quarter of the 20th century, there have been very different political views on the significance of
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2464-563: The Northern Basque Country in the province of Labourd in a village called Briscous in 1506. Although the village was in Labourd, it fell within the area of the Lower Navarrese dialect of Basque. His family's farmhouse bore the family's name, Leizarraga, and stood in Briscous until it was destroyed in 1944. Very little is known about Leizarraga's early years beyond these few facts. Leizarraga
2541-715: The Basque Autonomous Community and also the Basque Country (greater region). The Basque Country region is dominated by a warm, humid and wet oceanic climate . The coastal area is part of Green Spain and by extension, the climate is similar for Bayonne and Biarritz as well. Inland areas in Navarre and the southern regions of the autonomous community are transitional, with continental Mediterranean climate , with somewhat wider temperature swings between seasons. The list only sources locations in Spain , but Bayonne/Biarritz have
2618-402: The Basque Autonomous Community in the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century, as the region became more and more industrialized and prosperous and additional workers were needed to support the economic growth. Descendants of immigrants from other parts of Spain have since been considered Basque for the most part, at least formally. Over the last 25 years, some 380,000 people have left
2695-438: The Basque Autonomous Community, of which some 230,000 have moved to other parts of Spain. While certainly many of them are people returning to their original homes when starting their retirement, there is also a sizable tract of Basque natives in this group who have moved due to a Basque nationalist political environment (including ETA's killings) which they perceive as overtly hostile. These have been quoted to be as high as 10% of
2772-513: The Basque Country has received an increasing number of immigrants, mostly from Eastern Europe, North Africa, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa , South Asia, and China, settling mostly in the major urban areas. Nevertheless, foreign immigrant population is lower in the Basque country than in Madrid and Catalonia, despite having similar GDP per capita and significantly lower levels of unemployment. Currently,
2849-406: The Basque Country received significant immigration from other poorer regions of Spain, due to its higher level of economic development and early industrialization. During the second half of the 20th century, such immigrants were commonly referred to by some Basques as maketos , a derogatory term which is less used today. Since the 1980s, as a consequence of its considerable economic prosperity,
2926-758: The Basque Country was inhabited in Roman times by several tribes: the Vascones , the Varduli , the Caristi , the Autrigones , the Berones , the Tarbelli , and the Sibulates . Some ancient place-names, such as Deba , Butrón, Nervión , Zegama , suggest the presence of non-Basque peoples at some point in protohistory . The ancient tribes are last cited in the 5th century, after which track of them
3003-443: The Basque Country, with some Basque nationalists aiming to create an independent state including the whole area, and Spanish nationalism denying the very existence of the Basque Country. The dynamics of controversial decisions imposed by Spanish tribunals on Basque nationalist parties ideologically close to ETA left for over a decade a distorted representation of the Basque politics in local councils and regional parliaments, as well as
3080-554: The Basque language", a concept difficult to render into a single word in most other languages. The two earliest references (in various spelling guises) are in Joan Perez de Lazarraga 's manuscript, dated around 1564–1567 as eusquel erria and eusquel erriau and heuscal herrian ('in the Basque Country') and Heuscal-Herrian in Joanes Leizarraga 's Bible translation, published in 1571. The term Basque Country refers to
3157-585: The Basques. Altogether there was a gradual language shift towards Spanish language in the Basque-speaking areas of the Spanish Basque Country, a phenomenon initially restricted to the upper urban classes, but progressively reaching the lower classes. Western Biscay, most of Alava and southern Navarre have been Spanish-speaking (or Romance-speaking) for centuries. But under the regime of Francisco Franco ,
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3234-612: The Jesuits, and, some time thereafter, the Jesuits expanded their university by formally founding the University of Deusto in Deusto (now a Bilbao neighbourhood) by the turn of the century, a private university where the Commercial Faculty was integrated. The first modern Basque public university was the Basque University, founded 18 November 1936 by the autonomous Basque government in Bilbao in
3311-503: The Pyrenees, besides the above Kingdom of Pamplona , Gipuzkoa , Álava and Biscay arose in the current lands of the Southern Basque Country from the 9th century onward. These westerly territories pledged intermittent allegiance to Navarre in their early stages, but were annexed to the Kingdom of Castile at the end of the 12th century, so depriving the Kingdom of Navarre of direct access to
3388-554: The School of Mining in Barakaldo (est. 1910s), was seen as a gross handicap for the cultural and economic development of the area, and so, during the late 1960s many formal requests were made to the Francoist government in order to establish a Basque public university that would unite all the public faculties already founded in Bilbao. As a result of that, the University of Bilbao was founded in
3465-463: The Southern dialects. However, it must be remembered that he was the first to tackle standardization and that there was no previous work he could build upon and that with his limited resources he had to carry out most of the work himself. Overall, the quality of his translations and the thoroughness of his effort at standardizing Basque were and are recognized today, and have in no small way contributed to
3542-652: The Spanish Basque country, the rest in the French. The Basque education system in Spain has three types of schools differentiated by their linguistic teaching models: A, B and D. Model D, with education entirely in Basque, and Spanish as a compulsory subject, is the most widely chosen model by parents. In Navarre , there is an additional G model, with education entirely in Spanish. The ruling anti-Basque conservative government of Unión del Pueblo Navarro opposes Basque nationalist attempts to provide education in Basque through all Navarre (which would include areas where it
3619-631: The Spanish-French border, easing afterwards. In the French Basque Country , its provinces underwent an ever-shrinking self-government status until the French Revolution, when the traditional provinces were reshaped to form the current Basses-Pyrénées department along with Béarn . In the Southern Basque Country , the regional Charters were upheld until the Carlist Wars , when the Basques supported heir-apparent Carlos and his descendants to
3696-535: The age of 95. Leizarraga published three books, all in 1571: The most famous of these undoubtedly is the Testamentu Berria which even today is known as "Leizarraga's New Testament". Apart from the New Testament's main text, his translation also includes the following addenda: The Kalendrera is short, 15 page calendar with monthly listings of religious events and holidays, the ABC a short collection of common prayers and instructions on how to conduct daily worship. The main criticism that has been made of his work
3773-465: The college graduate schools. However, all the public faculties in the Basque Country were organized as local branches of Spanish universities. For instance, the School of Engineering was treated as a part of the University of Valladolid , some 400 kilometres (250 miles) away from Bilbao. Indeed, the lack of a central governing body for the public faculties of the Bilbao area, namely those of Economics in Sarriko, Medicine in Basurto, Engineering in Bilbao and
3850-417: The cry of "God, Fatherland, King" (The Charters were finally abolished in 1876). The ensuing centralized status quo bred dissent and frustration in the region, giving rise to Basque nationalism by the end of the 19th century, influenced by European Romantic nationalism . Since then, attempts were made to find a new framework for self-empowerment. The occasion seemed to have arrived on the proclamation of
3927-405: The current status of Basque. Despite being spoken in a relatively small territory, the rugged features of the Basque countryside and the historically high population density resulted in a heavy dialectal fragmentation throughout history, which increased the value of both Spanish and French respectively as lingua francas . In this regard, the current Standard form of Basque was only introduced in
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#17330856818324004-473: The decades after the Spanish annexation, the Basque Country went through increased religious, ideological and national homogenization , encouraged by new national ideas embraced by the rising Spanish and French absolutist monarchies during the Renaissance . From 1525, witchcraft allegations originating in a number of Pyrenean valleys on the rearguard of the Lower Navarre front and recent theatre of war ( Salazar , Roncal , Burguete , etc.) were followed by
4081-440: The different administrative levels to enforce it—Justice, Health, Administration. It is spoken by approximately a quarter of the total Basque Country, its stronghold being the contiguous area formed by Gipuzkoa, northern Navarre and the Pyrenean French valleys. It is not spoken natively in most of Álava, western Biscay and the southern half of Navarre. Of a total estimation of some 650,000 Basque speakers, approximately 550,000 live in
4158-472: The early 1970s, which has now evolved into the University of the Basque Country with campuses in the western three provinces. In Navarre , Opus Dei manages the University of Navarre with another campus in San Sebastián. Additionally, there is also the Public University of Navarre , with campus in Pamplona and in Tudela, managed by the Navarrese Foral Government . Mondragón Corporación Cooperativa has established its institutions for higher education as
4235-434: The end of the Roman period or early period of the Early Middle Ages , while ethnic Basques inhabited well east into the lands of the Pyrenees ( Pallars , Val d'Aran ) from the 8th to the 11th century. In the Early Middle Ages (up to the 9th century) the territory between the Ebro and Garonne rivers was known as Vasconia , a blurred ethnic area and polity struggling to fend off the Frankish feudal authority from
4312-412: The ethnic nature of this people, often at odds with and finally overcome by the Visigoths , is not certain. The Vascones around Pamplona , after much fighting against Franks and Visigoths, founded the Kingdom of Pamplona (824), inextricably linked to their kinsmen the Banu Qasi . All other tribes in the Iberian Peninsula had been, to a great extent, assimilated by Roman culture and language by
4389-407: The formation of Standard Basque . Leizarraga's texts provide a wealth of data on the Basque of his time. As an example, the following is a comparison between Leizarraga's version and the modern version of the Lord's prayer (in Leizarraga's orthography): Leizarraga's work represents the first documented effort to bring together the various Basque dialects in a single standard. His form of Basque
4466-500: The government attempted to suppress Basque nationalism and limit the uses of the Basque language. Even the activities of the Euskaltzaindia (Basque Language Academy) were severely curtailed. In general, during these years, cultural activity in Basque was limited to folkloric issues and the Roman Catholic Church , while a higher, yet still limited degree of tolerance was granted to Basque culture and language in Álava and Navarre , since both areas mostly supported Francoist troops during
4543-475: The historic language of Navarre, largely relying on public subscription (yearly festival Nafarroa Oinez, solidarity from the ikastola network, donations, etc.) or receiving as a result no allowances for school meals. Even in northern Basque or mixed language areas, allegations raised by Basque speaker associations point regularly to a conspicuous disregard for recognised language rights, e.g. virtual non-existence of Basque language medical assistance across areas where
4620-403: The inclusion of a few communes in the lower Adour region. Jean Goyhenetche suggests it would be more accurate to depict the region as the reunion of five entities: Labourd, Lower Navarre, Soule but also Bayonne and Gramont . The Southern Basque Country , known in Basque as Hegoalde (literally, "the southern part"), is the part of the Basque region that lies completely within Spain . It
4697-404: The interior of the French Basque Country and some areas of Navarre remain sparsely populated: density culminates at about 500/km (1,300/sq mi) for Biscay but falls to 20/km (52/sq mi) in the northern inner provinces of Lower Navarre and Soule . A significant majority of the population of the Basque country live inside the Basque Autonomous Community (about 2,100,000, or 70% of
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#17330856818324774-411: The intervention of newly reformed and recent institutions, such as Spain's central tribunal Inquisition, the (Navarrese) Royal Tribunals, and the Diocesan Tribunal, who organized a series of trials for alleged witchcraft and heretical practices. In the heat of the Wars of Religion and the struggle for Navarre, persecution came to a head in the hysteria of the 1609–1611 Basque witch trials on both sides of
4851-422: The late 1960s, which helped Basque move away from being perceived – even by its own speakers – as a language unfit for educational purposes. While the French Republic has historically attempted to absorb ethnic minority groups – including the French Basques – into a linguistically unified state, Spain in turn has accepted intermittently in its history some degree of linguistic, cultural, and political autonomy to
4928-420: The midst of the Spanish Civil War . It operated only briefly before the government's defeat by Francisco Franco 's fascist forces. Several faculties, originally teaching only in Spanish, were founded in the Basque region in the Francisco Franco era. A public faculty of economics was founded in Sarriko (Bilbao) in the 1960s, and a public faculty of medicine was also founded during that decade, thus expanding
5005-472: The north and the pressure of the Iberian Visigoths and Andalusi Cordovans from the south. By the turn of the millennium, a receding Carolingian royal authority and establishing feudalism left Vasconia (to become Gascony ) fragmented into a myriad of counties and viscounties , e.g. Fezensac , Bigorre , Astarac , Béarn , Tartas , Marsan , Soule , Labourd , etc., out of former tribal systems and minor realms ( County of Vasconia ), while south of
5082-444: The ocean. In the Late Middle Ages , important families dotting the whole Basque territory came to prominence, often quarreling with each other for power and unleashing the bloody War of the Bands , only stopped by royal intervention and the gradual shift of power from the countryside to the towns by the 16th century. Meanwhile, the viscounties of Labourd and Soule under English suzerainty were finally incorporated to France after
5159-779: The population in the Basque Community. Various Romani groups existed in the Basque Country and some still exist as ethnic groups. These were grouped together under the generic terms ijituak (Gypsies) and buhameak ( Bohemians ) by Basque speakers. In the Middle Ages , many Franks settled along the Way of Saint James in Navarre and Gipuzkoa and to a lesser extent in Bizkaia. This process also happened in Northern Castile. They were all collectively called Franks because most of them came from French regions (Normans, Bretons, Burgundians, Aquitanians etc.) but an important minority of them were in fact of German, Dutch, Italian, English and Swiss stock. Some were also from even more distant lands such as Poland or Denmark. Due to this migration, Gascon
5236-433: The population) while about 600,000 live in Navarre (20% of the population) and about 300,000 (roughly 10%) in Northern Basque Country . José Aranda Aznar writes that 30% of the population in the Basque Country Autonomous Community were born in other regions of Spain and that 40% of the people living in that territory do not have a single Basque parent. Most of these peoples of Galician and Castilian stock arrived in
5313-448: The predominant languages in the Spanish and French Basque Countries are Spanish and French, respectively. In the historical process of forging themselves as nation-states , both the Spanish and French governments have tried more or less intensely to discourage the use of Basque and its linguistic identity. The language chosen for public education is the most obvious expression of this phenomenon, something which surely had an effect on
5390-431: The translation of the New Testament. It is also known that various Basque shepherds in the area sent their children to him so that he would teach them Basque. He was married but it is not known when or to whom. In March 1563 Leizarraga was instructed by Jeanne d'Albret , the Queen of Navarre at the Synod of Béarn to produce a Basque translation of the New Testament. Having negotiated the tricky issue of translating into
5467-447: The vast majority is Basque speaking, insufficient Basque speaking librarians, no broadcasting permission in the last 20 years (as of 2013) for the only Basque language radio in Pamplona, Spanish monolingual signalization and even removal of bilingual one, etc. Spanish is or can be spoken in Navarre by the entire population, with few exceptions in remote rural areas. The European Commission for Regional or Minority Languages to which Spain
5544-410: The war. Nowadays, the Basque Autonomous Community enjoys some cultural and political autonomy and Basque is an official language along with Spanish. Basque is favoured by a set of language policies sponsored by the Basque regional government which aim at the generalization of its use. However, the actual implementation of this official status is patchy and problematic, relying ultimately on the will of
5621-481: Was baptized a Catholic . Although it is not known where, he was trained as a priest and converted to Protestantism in 1560. By 1563, his name is mentioned in the records of the Protestant Synod of Béarn . In his dedication of the New Testament to Jeanne d'Albret he mentions having spent time in prison but again, it is not known which prison he was in, what the charge was or how long he was imprisoned for. He
5698-511: Was instituted as rector of the church in Bastide in Lower Navarre in 1567 by Jeanne d'Albret. By the time Leizarraga came to Bastide, the majority of inhabitants were not speaking Basque but Gascon , since it had come to be populated by a Gascon colony. Nonetheless, Leizarraga was even in his time renowned as a great scholar of the Basque language, the very reason he would later be entrusted with
5775-418: Was introduced from America to Basque agriculture in 1520, talo was subsequently prepared. Talo was used as bread in Basque houses, and the remainings were sometimes mixed with milk making something similar to soup , which was eaten for dinner. In the 20th century the generalization of wheat bread reduced the consumption of talo, which started to only be eaten in special occasions. In Bilbao and Donostia it
5852-491: Was largely based on the Northern dialects Lapurdian , Zuberoan and Lower Navarrese which at the time were considered the prestigious varieties of Basque. He discusses the issue of dialectal divergence in the foreword and says: ...batbederac daqui heuscal herriã quasi etche batetic bercera-ere minçatzeco manerán cer differentiá eta diuersitatea den... [everyone knows how the manner of speaking almost changes from one house to
5929-411: Was spoken in the centre of Donostia-San Sebastián , until the beginning of the 20th century. Navarre also held Jewish and Muslim minorities but these were expelled or forced to assimilate after the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. One of the notable members of such minorities was Benjamin of Tudela . Much as has been the case for Spain's two other major economic poles (Madrid and Catalonia),
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