EUROPE’S STRANGEST LANGUAGE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 86, 10 January 1928, Page 9

EUROPE’S STRANGEST LANGUAGE

THE BASQUE The Basque language it said by experts to be unique in Europe, having no affinity with that of any other country (says K. E. Eggar in the “Daily News”). Of course since the people came into habitual contact with their neighbours of France and Spain, they have incorporated useful words from both those languages; but the roots and the grammar of the language are peculiar to itself. The Basque tongue remains absolutely distinct and completely impenetrable by any of the loopholes which allow other Europeans to get at each other’s meanings. People have said that it bears some resemblance to Hebrew, and with regard to internal structure it very likely may; but it does not hide its mysteries behind strange characters as does the language of Moses. That’s what makes it so queer—giving it a deceptive air of not being so very puzzling after all. It doesn’t even wrap itself up like Russian or Greek, for instance, in letters rather like our own. It puts down things which can be read like plain English—or, rather, like plain French, with a dash of Italian—so that anyone who knows the pronunciation of French or Italian can make a good shot at the sound of a Basque sentence, except that its habit of sticking a z or a k into almost every work has a paralysing effect upon the tongue. Bpt the sense ? There’s the trouble. For instance, here is a proverb, just a homely proverb:— “Ha:' nezak egungo haragiaz, atzoko ogiaz eta yazko arnoaz, eta; medikua, bihoaz!’’

You can, of course, read that off fairly fluently at sight; but, except for the one word, "medikua,” can you make the wildest shot at the meaning ? It seems as if it might equally well be - “Too many cooks spoil the broth” or “A stitch in time saves nine.” As a matter of fact it means, “Let me live on to-day’s meat, yesterday’s bread and last year’s wine, and the doctor can go a begging” (literally, “Doctor, be off with you”). Every now and then there are Basque words which you feel certain must mean what they look like in some language you do know. You can’t be-, lieve tliat there is no connection with any of the stems and roots which you are accustomed to trace. But such speculations are generally dangerous. For instance: one day in Bayonne we espied the facade of a shop we were hunting for, inscribed in gigantic letters Zazpiak Bat. This moved one of our party to make the bright suggestion that these words meant that the proprietor made “pelota” accessories. We discovered, however, on investigation, that Zazpiak Bat is the motto of the seven United Basque Provinces, and means “In Seven One.”

It was always the same with any similar hopeful linguistic deduction.

There was no literature written in the Basque language till the middle of the sixteenth entury, and all the -books which were produced in Basque from that time onward for many years were translations of religious works; so that “book” was for the Basque people synonymous with “prayer-book,” and the act of reading always denoted piety. Thus it followed that when, not so very long ago, tourists poring over guide-books began to appear in the Pays Basque, the _ simple villagers thought how verv pious these English were, always reading their prayer books! The idea of the sacredness of books probablv accounts for their legend that the Devil couldn’t learn Basque. He spent, so the story goes, seven years in Bavonne for the express purpose of mastering the language, but having at the end of that time only succeeded in learning two words—bai (yes) and ez (no)—lie decided tc leave, and then forgot both of those as he went across the Pont Saint Esprit.