Language-prestige and lectal influence in the people, speech and writings of the Northern Basque Country

• Published in: Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca "Julio de Urquijo." Vol. 52; no. 1/2; pp. 93 - 131
• Main Author: Iñaki Camino
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: UPV/EHU Press 01-09-2018
• ISSN: 0582-6152; 2444-2992

By means of the constant personal relationships amongst Basque-speaking people, linguistic influences and variants have long traversed Basque forms of speech in Lapurdi and Lower Navarre, in oral form in the mouths of people and in written form in texts and books. Taking into consideration linguistic innovations and relying on a philological-dialectological perspective, I discuss that influence and present some of those features, some of which stand out and appear to be paradigmatic. I have examined the attestations of some written Lapurdian variants and I include some data relating to the matter of prestige taken from the lips of the people in a natural way. Although normal speakers take both Lapurdian Basque and Lower Navarrese Basque as real entities, we should not allow an actualism to cloud the past, and so that hypotheses emerge freely, researchers should put the dangers of that nomenclature to one side, given that administration and language are two different things. The task of the researcher is to address specifically when and where linguistic features have been used since when these are unclear, gaps and grey areas appear in our hypotheses, to the detriment of knowledge and adequate research.