| Biscayan | |
|---|---|
| Western Dialect | |
| bizkaiera,euskera | |
| Native to | Spain |
| Region | Biscay, intoÁlava andGipuzkoa |
Native speakers | 247,000 (Basque speakers in Biscay, not necessarily Bizkaiera speakers) (2001) |
| Dialects | Western, Eastern, Alavese (extinct) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | bisc1236 Biscayanaval1237 Alavan |
| IETF | eu-biscayan |
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Biscayan, sometimesBizkaian (Basque:bizkaiera,[1]Spanish:vizcaíno, locallyvizcaino[2]), is adialect of theBasque language spoken mainly inBiscay, one of the provinces of theBasque Country ofSpain.
It is named asWestern in the Basque dialects' classification drawn up by linguistKoldo Zuazo,[3] since it is not only spoken in Biscay but also extends slightly into the northern fringes ofAlava and deeper in the western part ofGipuzkoa. The dialect's territory bears great similarity to that of theCaristii tribe, as described byRoman authors.
While it is treated as stylish to write in Biscayan and the dialect is still spoken generally in about half of Biscay and some other municipalities, it suffers from the pressure ofSpanish.
Biscayan was used bySabino Arana and his earlyBasque nationalist followers as one of the signs of Basqueness.
In the words ofGeorges Lacombe, because of the special features of thisdialect,Euskera could well be divided into two groups of dialects: Biscayan and the rest. He argued that this dialect was so different from the rest, that theisoglosses separating it from the adjacent dialects (Gipuzkoan or central) are so close to each other that form a clear line; that is, thephonetic-phonological,morphosyntactic andlexical features of Biscayan coincide geographically to the point of creating a distinctively clear and defined dialectical border.
Because of these differences both with the rest of the Basque dialects and also withStandard Basque or Batua, and respecting their corresponding uses, theEuskaltzaindia has produced a Model for Written Biscayan (Basque:Bizkaieraren idatzizko ereduaren finkapenak), a set of rules mainly focused onmorphosyntax. The official use of the dialects of Euskera is regulated through Regulation 137 of the Euskaltzaindia, according to which the use of Batua should be limited to the fields of communication, administration and teaching.
Since 1997 and according to the new dialectical classification realized byKoldo Zuazo, author ofEuskalkiak. Herriaren lekukoak (Elkar, 2004), the name given to Biscayan is theWestern Dialect, due to its use not being limited to the province of Biscay, but with users in someGipuzkoan regions such asDebagoiena (mainly) andDebabarrena, and also someAlavan municipalities such asAramaio (Aramayona) andLegutio (Villarreal).
According to a study byYrizar, this dialect was spoken in the seventies by around 200,000 people,[4] with the number of estimated speakers approaching 300,000 by the eighties. In 1991 16% of the population of this province could speak Basque, and data gathered in 2001 data 22% of the total 1,122,710 Biscayans (i.e. 247,000) could speak and write in Basque. However, this data is only illustrative, as there is no record of how many of the Basque speakers spoke Biscayan specifically and it does not take into account Biscayan speakers in Gipuzkoan territory (Bergara,Leintz Gatzaga,Mondragon,Oñati, etc.)
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Biscayan is not a homogeneous dialect, it has two subdialects and eight main variations.[5]
TheBiscayan used by Arana and his followers [eu] introduced several neologisms andpurist forms.They also used a spelling with characters such asĺ andŕ, straddling away of the Spanish-influenced tradition. Only some of their innovations had been taken up by modern Biscayan and Standard Basque.
The borders of Biscayan match those of the pre-Roman tribe of theCaristii.Biscay was formerly included, along withAlava and theValley of Amezcoa, within theecclesiastical circumscription of Calahorra, which explains the wide influence of the Western Dialect in these regions.
Some features of Biscayan as perceived by other dialect speakers may be summed up as follows:
Biscayan dialect has a very richlexicon, withvocabulary varying from region to region, and from town to town. For example, whilegura ‘to want’ andtxarto ‘bad’ are two words widely used in Biscayan, some Biscayan speaker might use cognates ofnahi andgaizki respectively, which are generally used in other dialects.[7] One of the current main experts in local vocabulary isIñaki Gaminde, who in the last years has extensively researched and published on this subject.[citation needed]
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Acabo de pronunciar dos palabras (vizcaíno, bilbaíno) que sulfuraban a don Miguel. Aunque durante la época de Cervantes se pronunciaban así, sin diptongo, para él, quizá por eso de llevar la contraria, la pronunciación correcta era viz-cai-no y bil-bai-no. Él prefería la pronunciación con diptongo. Decía el profesor de Salamanca: "Hay dos clases de vizcaínos y hay dos clases de bilbaínos, como hay dos modos de guisar el bacalao, a la vizcaina y a la vizcaína. Pertenece a la primera el bilbaino (léase bil-bái-no) trisílabo, con salsa verde, y alegre o por lo menos agridulce, y entra en la segunda el bilbaíno cuadrisílabo, en vías de formación, "con salsa roja, que es el bilbaíno según le forjan y aun le fantasean fuera de Bilbao, el de exportación". Hay que decir esta vez a favor de don Miguel que aunque Cervantes y todos los diccionarios escriben "vizcaíno", los vascos convertimos en diptongo el "ai", sin duda por tendencia general del euskera y decimos "vizcáino, bilbáino", etc.[I just pronounced two words (vizcaíno, bilbaíno) that enragedDon Miguel. Although duringCervantes' time, they were pronounced so, with no diphthong, for him, maybe to be a contrarian, the right pronunciation was viz-cai-no and bil-bai-no. He preferred the pronunciation with a diphthong. As the Salamanca professor said: "There are two kinds of Biscayans and there are two kinds of Bilbao locals, just as there are two ways of cookingsalted cod, vizcaina-style and vizcaína-style. In the first, there is the trisyllabic bilbaino (read bil-bái-no), with green sauce, and happy or at least sweet-sour, and in the second the tetrasyllabic bilbaíno, in current development, "with red sauce, being the Bilbao local as forged and even imagined out of Bilbao, the export one". It has to be said for Don Miguel that, although Cervantes and all the dictionaries write "vizcaíno", we Basques make the "ai" into a diphthong, doubtless because of the general trend of the Basque language and say "vizcáino, bilbáino", etc.]
En el estudio llevado a cabo por Yrizar en 1970, el bizkaino era hablado por unos 200.000 hablantes.
Es más frecuente entre los vizcaínos, cuya forma es mi(i)n desde el s. XVII.