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FRENCH BASQUE.
"THE French dialect of the
Basque language is spoken in the south-western extremity of France, on the
frontiers of Spain, by a population of about 120,000 individuals. This
district is about sixty miles in
length by forty in breadth; it formerly included the three subdivisions of
Labour, Lower Navarre, and
Soule, and it is now comprehended in the department of the Lower Pyrenees.
In parts of the
neighbouring departments of Gers and Upper Pyrenees, Basque is still the
language of the peasantry,
while French is spoken in the towns.
I.--CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LANGUAGE.
The Basque is one of the most singular idioms of Europe, and
presents, like the Albanian, the
Ossete, and the Welsh, etc., the remarkable phenomenon of aboriginal
languages preserved in the
remote or mountainous districts of more civilized countries, where the tongue
of the subsequent
conquerors of those lands is generally spoken.
The origin of the Basque people, or Euskarians, is, as one of
their writers says, "known of God
only." It seems that the Iberi of the East, who dwelt
between the Black and the Caspian Seas, and
the Iberi of the West, who peopled Spain at a very remote period, were
once one people, driven east
and west by political vicissitudes. There is a degree of similarity
between some of the East-lberian
names of cities, rivers, etc., and the same in use among the West-Iberians
in Spain. But whether
they travelled east or west is a disputed point. The Iberi were
said to be the aborigines of the
Spanish peninsula; and to have given to
it the ancient name Iberia, from the river Iber, Ebro,
by them called perhaps Ibaïbero, ‘burning or destroying
river,’ from its property. For this was the
name of the small river Tento, between the Guadiana and the Guadalquivir,
which Pliny calls Urium
from the nature of its waters: be that as it may, a comparative study of the
Georgian, and of other
Caucasian idioms, with the Euskarian, might very probably throw additional
light on the joint origin
of the Eastern and Western Iberi.
In some of its characteristics the Basque exhibits remarkable
traits of analogy with Mantchou,
with Finnish, and with several distinct families of languages spoken in the
north of Europe and of
Asia. Like them, it has no difference of terminations in nouns and
pronouns to mark the variation of
gender; and, like them also, it subjoins prepositions and other particles,
and even personal and relative
pronouns, to nouns and verbs. On the other hand, it differs from them
in the abundance of its
inflections, and in its use of auxiliary verbs. In its elaborate
system of verbal conjugation, Basque
approximates closely to the American or polysynthetic class of languages; and
it is rather a singular
circumstance, that the sound of F is wanting in most American
languages and in Basque, and that in
both a strong antipathy is manifested to the immediate junction of mute and
liquid consonants. Many
Sanscrit words exist in Basque; but in
the collocation of these words, says Mr. Borrow, the
Tartar
form is most decidedly observable. These Sanscrit derivatives are
usually divested of their initial
consonant, and made to commence with a vowel; for Basque is emphatically a
vowel language,
employing comparatively but few consonants, and out of every ten words
perhaps eight may be said
to begin and to end with a vowel. The natural result of this
preponderance of vowels is a high degree
of softness and melody, in which the Basque is said to exceed even the
Italian. In point of antiquity,
Basque far surpasses most of the languages now spoken in Europe; it was
originally, as already
mentioned, the vernacular tongue of the Iberi, a people generally regarded as
the earliest settlers in
Spain; and from them, as Humboldt has clearly proved, the present Euskaldunes,
or natives of the
Basque provinces, are descended. Basque does not appear to have ever
possessed an alphabet proper
to itself, and in all books which have been printed in this language Roman
letters are used.
II.--VERSIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES IN THIS LANGUAGE.
The entire New Testament, in Basque, was
printed at Rochelle in 1571. It was translated by
John de Licarrague, and was dedicated to Jeanne d’Albret, queen of
Navarre, and brought out at her
expense. The dialect in which it is written is that of Lower Navarre.
The translator is said to have
been a minister of the Reformed Church, and a native of Bearn.
More than two centuries elapsed before any other edition of the
Testament was printed for the
Basque people, and soon after the commencement of the present century it was
found impossible,
notwithstanding the most diligent search, to meet with a single copy among
them. A copy of the
New Testament of 1571 had, however, been providentially deposited, probably
by a French refugee,
in the library of the University of Oxford. From this copy the British
and Foreign Bible Society
printed, in 1825, at Bayonne, 1000 copies of the Gospel of St. Matthew, under
the superintendence of
Mr. Pyt, a minister of the
Reformed Church in Bearn.
The
Roman Catholic Bishop
interposed to
prevent the circulation of this edition, and he possessed himself of no less than 800 copies, which he
destroyed. Far from being discouraged at this opposition, the
British and Foreign Bible Society
proceeded with their important work, and, after some delay, a new and well-
qualified editor was met
with, named Montleza. Under the care of this editor, and the
superintendence of friends at Bourdeaux
and Bayonne, the text of 1571 was altered in accordance with the modern forms
of the language, and
so many changes were introduced as virtually to constitute a new version.
An edition consisting of
1000 copies of the Four Gospels and Acts, with 1000 separate copies of St.
Matthew, and 1000 copies
of the entire New Testament, was completed at press in 1829. The
distribution of this edition was
carried on with much activity, and the opposition it encountered had only
the effect of drawing the
attention of many to the contents of the sacred book. A further
edition of 1000 Testaments has
subsequently been issued by the Society.
As to the results produced in these provinces by the circulation
of the Basque and French
Scriptures, the testimony of the late Mr. Pyt (above
mentioned) is remarkable. "In 1821," he
said,
"I found the people of Bearn utter strangers to the
doctrine of the Gospel, and
consequently to the
life of God. I have left it (in 1830) in a very different condition.
It is to the Bible that the change
must be attributed. The preaching of the Gospel had little success
before the establishment of Bible
Societies in Bearn; but when they had spread the word of the Lord,--when this
word had found its
way to each church, and in each church to a goodly number of families,--when
they began seriously to
think about that which the servants of God were preaching;--there was much
inquiry about the truth,
and from that time the blessed work proceeded; and it continues to do so
still, with the same happy
results."
The following are specimens of portions of Scripture translated
into various dialects of the
Basque tongue:--
[See below.]"--The Bible of Every Land. (1860, Second Edition)
Samuel Bagster [Info only]
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