Basque Oral Ecology
In today’s world, where so many languages disappear every day, the survival of Euskara, or the Basque language, is an achievement not easily accounted for. In fact, up until just a few decades ago, Euskara was never used in any official context, being relegated to mere private use by the Basque-speaking community. Furthermore, it has suffered diverse periods of explicit repression, such as, for example, during the 40 years or so of Franco’s dictatorship.
However, in addition to this “external” repression, we must also take into account the indifference shown to the language until very recently by the ruling classes of the Basque County itself.
By a curious twist of fate, this situation of marginalisation is perhaps one of the key factors behind the comparatively extraordinary revival of oral genres in today’s society.
Indeed, although the first book written in Euskara was published in 1545 , the Basque population has mainly been illiterate in their own native tongue, owing to (among other reasons) the fact that any teaching carried out was always done in one of the dominant languages, i.e. Spanish or French. Until well into the 20th century, written Basque literature was essentially religious, and consisted mainly of voiced texts (i.e. sermons or texts designed to be spoken or sung), rather than written literature designed to be read in silence.
For its part, the standardisation of Euskara, an essential process for any advancement of the language, officially began with the Congress of Aranzazu in 1968, although the initial steps had already been taken as early as 1919 with the creation of Euskaltzaindia, the Basque Language Academy.
However it happened, though, we can safety say that Euskara has survived as an oral language, and until recently, its only area of use was in the private, everyday contexts of native Basque-speakers’ lives. As far as I know, nobody has ever studied this topic in depth, and the reasons that I set out here are therefore mere intuitions, and should be taken as such.
The vitality of the oral genres among Basque-speakers is remarkable. Voltaire described the Basques as “a people who sing and dance at the feet of the Pyrenees”, and it is no coincidence that one of the most advanced examples of sung improvisation in the world, as regards both the quality of the compositions and its social roots, is Basque improvised contest poetry, or bertsolaritza as it is known in Euskara. Why has a genre that, although once common to all cultures, has now disappeared from the majority, flourished here with such vigour? It is not unreasonable to speculate that the late advent of written Basque is a key factor here.
Talking of contradictions, I should also mention that the widespread campaign to ensure Basque literacy among the population which, happily, has been extremely successful over recent years, has nevertheless had an undesired side effect: younger generations’ basic ability to express themselves orally in Euskara has declined noticeably. Those who have attended Basque-medium schools generally have no trouble expressing themselves in that language when talking about academic matters, but it seems that Euskara is now insufficient for many basic and vitally important things such as expressing enjoyment, sublimating feelings, teasing or insulting, etc. In short, the problem now is exactly the opposite of what it was a few decades ago: Euskara is now used for studying and working, but is proving unsatisfactory for living.