Basque Country! Stayed on my mate’s sofa for a few nights, was good to be away! Ate pretty much nothing but pintxos and wine. Did find a McDonalds, had McMacarons. Went to a nature reserve and danced on the Spanish-French border. Climbed a mountain in 80% humidity to see Jesus. Watched the sunset on La Concha Beach whilst a punk & crab (?) festival played on the sea front. Didn’t get lost flying on my own. Overall, great success!
Aymeric Picaud was a French priest that went on to fulfil St James’ way in the 12th century. He wrote about what he saw and found on his way in a sort of Guide for the Pilgrim, included in the famous Codex Calixtinus.
He talks about the roads, the villages, and the people, and oh we Basques left a deep impression in poor monsieur Picaud: 2/3 of his chapter dedicated to the people that lived along the Way was about us. Sweet. He wrote:
The people of this land are ferocious like ferocious, wild and barbarian is the land they live in. Their faces are fierce, and their barbarian language as well, they put terror into the soul of the one who sees them. They can only legally charge the merchants, so the tax they charge the pilgrims and travellers is illegal. When the standard fee is about 4 or 6 coins, they charge 8 or 12.
(…)
Wherever a Navarrese or Basque goes, they bring a hanging horn like the ones of the hunters, and they usually bring two or three spears that they call auconas. And when they enter their house they whistle like a kite. And when they are ambushed to hunt a prey and want to stealthily call their partners, they sing like an owl or howl like a wolf.
(…)
It’s clear that they dress poorly, and they poorly eat and drink, and in the house of a Navarrese it’s of custom to eat all the family at the same time, lord and servant, lady and maid, having all the dishes in just one pot and without spoons, but with their own hands; and they all drink from the same pitcher. When one sees them eating, they ressemble dogs or pigs. And when they speak, they sound like dogs barking, due to their language being so barbarian. They call God urcia; God’s mother, andrea Maria; bread, orgui; wine, ardum; meat, aragui; fish, aragui; house, echea; the lord of the house, iaona; the lady, andrea; the church, elicera; the priest, belaterra, which means beautiful land; wheat, gari; water, uric; the king, ereguia; and St James, iaona domne iacue.
Here monsieur Picaud can’t tell declensed and undeclensed words apart and doesn’t care. Water should be ur-urikis a declensed form - as church should be eliza-elicerais also declensed.
Belaterrabeing “beautiful land” may work for Italian, but not for Basque: whatever Basque was his source for this trolled him and trolled him well. Belateis a mount near Iruña, and Belatera means to Belate. Belate may be translated as “the door of the crow” [bele+ate].
Another trolling? God being urcia. Urtzi / Ortzi means sky, as the pagan god of the sky. The priest probably pointed at the sky asking how do you call God? and our Basque ancestor doing their best answered: that’s the sky, my man!
They’re barbarian people, different from everyone else in their customs and nature, full of evil, black, of ignoble looks, evil, wicked, treacherous, disloyal, lustful, drunk, aggressive, fierce and wild, heartless and damned, merciless and rude, cruel and troublemaker, they lack of any virtue and are taught in every vice and iniquity, as evil as the Getae and the Saracens, and frontal enemies of our Gaulish nation. For a miserable coin, a Navarrese or a Basque kills, by any means, a French.
However, they’re considered brave in the battlefield, hardworking during assaults, reliable to pay their tithe, perseverant in their offerings to the altar.
Independentist associations from Euskal Herria and Catalunya - Gure Esku DagoandAssemblea Nacional Catalana among others - have announced they have started an incredible projectto draw attention to their cry for freedom: they will connect Euskal Herria and Catalunya by lighting up more than 300 Pyrenean summits at the same time. Let’s remember that the Pyrenees are 430km long and connect the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
They’re currently asking for hikers and volunteers to help in this huge project, so if you’re interested you can visit their websites for more info. The event will take place on July 2nd.
Of course some people are already getting nervous, like the President of Aragón - and @minglana ‘s favorite person - Javier Lambán, that has said he “won’t consent any organic or inorganic rubbish in the Pyrenees, as I won’t consent that some ideological or political stravaganzza damages them”.
Talking about galernak and since they just happen in a few places of the planet, here’s a little post about them.
Galernak are very sudden storms that happen when southern wind changes to NW. They usually happen from March to September, especially in veeery hot days. NW wind blows from Galiza following the shore and when it hits with the hot air above it starts accelerating like crazy all the way to Euskadi, reaching 20m/s even. This makes huuuuge waves at sea, that becomes a nightmare in seconds.
The drastic temperature difference between NW and S winds began creating a storm, that becomes bigger and more powerful as the wind accelerates. As NW wind pushes S wind, temperatures drop, and - depending on the speed and power of the galerna - it’s not inusual to drop 10º in 20 minutes. Galernak are to be feared and many sailors have died because of them: they’re very quick and incredibly violent.
So when sudden wind starts blowing at the beach people just run away: 1) because it’s impossible to stay there with all the sand flowing and 2) a huge storm is coming sooner than later.
Vid below shows a galerna in Donosti a few years ago.
A galerna is expected for this afternoon, please come soon!
Oh, btw!
Some trivia about galerna- which is a sudden storm brought by a change to W/NW wind: it’s a loanword from French galerne, which is also a loanword from Breton gwalarn, a word for NW wind.
You’re right! More specifically, ar gwalarn is the north-west cardinal direction, and the wind was named after it
Now, with a bit of shame, I have to admit I had never heard of the French wind galerne before, but a quick research shows that’s because its use is localised mostly on western and south-western France (gasconha, vendée, poitou). Gwalarn is still widely used in Brittany and that’s the word my Breton family used, as well as the one I heard when I was living in Brittany
That quick research also showed the typical disdain of French intellectual elites, especially the Académie Française, towards France’s minority languages. Basically, they dispute the etymology of french galerne between a vulgar latin origin and the breton origin
I’m not sure if you or your followers are really interested in my rant and explanations, but I’ll still write them under a read more for those who are, because it’s a good exemple of which lengths France can go to erase its minority languages, which include Basque
This reminded us of word mochoin Spanish that means blunted, cut off, and that according to the Spanish Academy is “of unknown origin, maybe onomatopoeic”.
And then we have Basque verb moztuwhich means to cut, and Basque adjective motz/moch/ that means - get ready for this - blunted, cut off.
Ooookay, Spanish Academy, guess we’ll never solve the mochomystery!
Anyway, thanks A LOT for your response, it was super informative. Trugarez!
Two days ago, in Vila-real (País Valencià), the members of the Bultzada fan club were attacked by Spanish National Police officers. The reason? Being Basques:
Vila-real is a safe space for Real Sociedad fans since there isn’t animosity between the teams. The Basque fans were having a few drinks with their families, children included of course. The officers entered the bar in an intimidating fashion, and began to ask for the IDs of the fans that wanted to exit the bar - mind you, this isn’t common, police officers only ask you to show your ID because they want to report you. When the organizers asked why they were doing that, policemen began charging.
Real Sociedad fans managed to control the situation and agreed to leave the bar surrounded by the officers, that then proceeded to lead them to an alley - searching for privacy - and began to beat them again. Neighbours of the surrounding buildings got to record it.
As you can see, the football fans were unarmed and the officers were many more than them. They beated them while on the floor and even the ones who put their hands up were beaten. Fans also reported being attacked with pepper spray and that the officers, after the attack, went raiding bars looking for more members of Bultzada. Policemen were heard screaming at the fans: “f*cking Basques, you haven’t the balls now, huh?”, implying that since the Basques were unarmed and obviously not terrorists they weren’t to be feared and the policemen could take revenge.
The result? Open head wounds, a broken wrist, stitches, tens of wounded people and 5 arrested.
Inside the stadium, Basque fans reported to have been frisked, had their wallets examined and been told the banners and scarfs featuring the ikurriña weren’t accepted. They also heard that most policemen were brought from Valencia because “it was going to be a brawl”.
Fans also comment that the fans of Vila-real were completely welcoming and that the atmosphere between the two groups of supporters was incredibly nice.
Just hatred towards Basque people by the Spanish National Police, as usual. And, as usual, no consequences.
Listen I wont be annoying for too long but the fact that France send in a group that sings in Breton is so fucking important to me like.
We are talking about a language that the french higher ups have ALWAYS tried to get rid off !! They banished it from being talked in schools in the late 19th and early 20th century. But also generally as the Bretagne (Brittany) part of France have always been looked down upon and that region was always treated as some kind of experiment base.
The fact that the group is actually a bunch of bretons singing in breton is truly making my heart happy
Fuck you to all the people who tried to demolish this language. It will keep shining.
We have mixed feelings regarding this.
Of course it’s awesome that a song in Breton was at the ESC, and it’s not the first time and hopefully, neither the last. We wish Basque had the same chance just once! Minoritized languages need more representation and Eurovision is a huge platform.
HOWEVER
What’s the point in showing a minoritized language to the world if you’re still putting every obstacle and more for people to use it? To 100% live in it? To recover it? To promote it? In the real world, that is. For actual people? Up until two years ago it wasn’t allowed to put letter Ñ in Breton names because that letter doesn’t belong to the French alphabet, ffs.
Particularly France is an expert in showing Europe its regionallanguages as bonus points for diversity and tolerance and what not. They’re shown as an oddity or as a way to whitewash the crimes French governments commited - and commit - against these languages and their speakers. Minoritized languages like Breton, Euskara, Català, Corsican, etc have survived despiteFrance, not thanks to.
Yay for the minoritized languages. But let’s not forget France’s blatant hypocrisy.
But it’s precisely because our own goverment is still doing all it can to erase our languages and cultures that we were overhyped to see a Breton song at Eurovision
It was the occasion to show the French ruling class & cultural elite that we’re still here, our languages and cultures are still there, living, thriving even. That we have our place on the international cultural scene. That we aren’t a sub-culture, like they still think we are
I honestly don’t know where you get the idea that “France is an expert in showing Europe its regionallanguages as bonus points for diversity and tolerance” ? I guess that’s a mask France officials put up for international relationships, because inside the country there’s no doubts about France’s stance on its minority languages and cultures : their only place is inside their historical regions (good luck trying to learn a regional language outside of it), and out of the tourists’ sorry, public’s eye. They’re not living cultures, just folklore.
Every time a regional language makes it to the international scene, French officials are pissed. This year didn’t make exception: all newspapers reporting the win of Fulenn at the selection asked at least once the question “is a Breton song fit to represent France ?” (a question that is never asked when when we’re sending the Nth Parisian ballad) Many people said regional languages had no legitimacy being in an international event, even adding “and what would be next ? Occitan ? Basque ? Corsican?” (despite having already presented a Corsican song at the Eurovision in 2011) French people watching the French transmission said the commentators were salty that our song wasn’t in French
I can’t vouch for that last one because I watched the Breton transmission of the event. Because, yes, for the first time ever we had the Eurovision covered in Breton. TV coverage of an international event. Not a local one. In Breton And sure, France has been its usual arsehole with trying to keep it inside its region (the Breton transmission was only available on TV in Brittany. Currently living in Burgundy I had to watch it on the Internet) But that’s still a step more for the everyday use of our language, something we got thanks to a Breton group going to the Eurovision, not from a desire from France to show off its regional languages but despite the French elite despising being represented by a minority language
Something we probably won’t have again thanks to the fiasco that was this year. Because I have no doubt the French elite is blaming our second-to-last place to the fact that the song was in Breton
It was our chance to prove to our own state that it is wrong. That our languages are fit for the international scene. That we do not belong only in our regions. That we aren’t a subculture
I’m not sure I’ll forgive the Eurovision jury for taking that away from us
I honestly don’t know where you get the idea that “France is an expert in showing Europe its regionallanguages as bonus points for diversity and tolerance” ?
Because they do with Basque too. The tourist guides are a joke: Basque culture this, Basque language that, blah blah blah, and then reality strikes and there’s drama almost every year with the bac in Basque, for example. Or Basque speakers being beaten just for speaking Basque. Basque culture - and change Basque for Breton, Corsican, whatever - is a tourist grabbing oddity, nothing more.
And we said they’re experts because they’ve sent seeeeeveral songs to the ESC in languages other than French:
Kali (1992) who sang in Haitian creole. Patrick Fiori (1993) who sang in French and Corsican Dan ar Braz & L’héritage des Celtes (1996) who sang in Breton Amaury Vassili (2011) who sang in Corsican This year’s Alvan & Ahez, in Breton
They sell their diversity before Europe. Oh France, how progressive you are!
We don’t know if French officials get pissed, but you get to get them pissed quite ofter if we might say so respectfully. We Basques have never had the chance to send a song in Basque; in fact, Spain has NEVER sent a song in a minoritized language.
And I’m telling you, it’s an act. French officials aren’t proud to flaunt their minority languages to the world. French officials do not want to see our minority languages make it to the international scene. They have to put up with our choice of songs, but if it were up to them no song in a minority language would ever make it to the Eurovision, or in any international event
Yes the state use our languages as a tourist attraction: as I said, it’s somewhat okay with them as long as they never get out of their region, as long as they stay folklore for the tourists rather than flourish as cultures. Because the state knows our languages will die if we keep them that way
I get you’re angry that you’ve never been able to send a song in Basque or any of Spain’s minority language, but believe it or not, French people do not need to be reminded by strangers how much our country hates our cultures and languages. We see it everyday I’ve seen it my whole life
We suspected it was an act! That’s why we said what we said about France’s hipocrisy, because Spain at least refuses to send anything that isn’t in Spanish or English and keeps on being an ass, but France puts up this act.
Listen, we’re not at war with you or any of our Breton, Corsican or Catalan buddies, not at all. We all have faced and face the same sh*t - we’re not strange to that - and you know we respect you. We’re not angry there hasn’t been any song in Basque, whatever, there are bigger issues; but we didn’t mean either to remind you how things are because you know better than we do. We just wanted to tell whoever didn’t know that France sadly isn’t actually promoting and protecting and encouraging its minoritized languages as some may think by seeing songs in regional languages at the ESC. We didn’t want to offend Breton people or diminish how important it was to have a song in Breton for the 2nd time in history.
Sorry if we sounded angry or disrespectful, our goal was just to tell outsiders not to be fooled.
Hope we’re cool.
It’s okay! You’re right to tell everyone that France isn’t a champion of diversity (far from it) and is still actively trying to eradicate its native languages, because that’s still 100% true!
But even when France is trying to exploit its regional cultures on the international scene, it’s a win for us, and a double-edged sword for the state. I’ve seen a lot of people, especially American, asking what was the language in Fulenn, saying they had no idea France had other languages than French, wanting to learn more about it. It brings international attention to our languages, but also to the way France treats them, which is never a good idea when you’re trying to commit cultural genocide
This is why Alvan & Ahez at the Eurovision was 100% a win for Breton & French minority languages and why we were so happy for them to be there
France is an hypocrite country - and if we’re lucky it’ll cause the downfall of its imperialist attitude.
I’ve seen a lot of people, especially American, asking what was the language in Fulenn, saying they had no idea France had other languages than French, wanting to learn more about it.
We couldn’t be happier to know this!! We didn’t want to rain on your parade at all with our comment, let’s see if France governments change their ways once and for all with these little steps.
And it’s also a shame France didn’t rank better. However there’s being more drama now with the points of 6 countries - the EBU seemingly gave their points the way EBU wanted - so if this goes further rankings may change? We’ll see.
Oh, and regarding your tags: yes, there’s always drama with Eurovision .
Althoughzuis translated as you, it’s actually a more respectful pronoun. And grammar-wise, works as a plural pronoun.
Actually, the normal order of Basque pronouns is:
ni (hi) hura/bera gu zu zuek haiek
See where zuis? Understanding grammar and verb conjugation is much easier if you put zuin that place. Let’s see why:
As you can see, conjugation is actually logical and changes when plural pronouns start, and zuek- that tends to be the one with the weirdest conjugated forms for new learners - is very clearly reduced to the conjugation for zu+ TE.
So if you’re learning Basque, take our advice on this and put zujust below gu: it’s its natural place and will make you things much easier.
The super impressive La Verna cave in Urdatx-Santa Grazi (Zuberoa), which we’re willing to visit one day as it’s the biggest visitable cave chamber being 194m high, 245m wide, and having 3.6M m2 of cubic space!!! It’s ranked the 22nd biggest chamber in the whole world.
It’s so big in fact that in 2003 a balloon with 4 passengers got to successfully fly insidethe cave:
Listen I wont be annoying for too long but the fact that France send in a group that sings in Breton is so fucking important to me like.
We are talking about a language that the french higher ups have ALWAYS tried to get rid off !! They banished it from being talked in schools in the late 19th and early 20th century. But also generally as the Bretagne (Brittany) part of France have always been looked down upon and that region was always treated as some kind of experiment base.
The fact that the group is actually a bunch of bretons singing in breton is truly making my heart happy
Fuck you to all the people who tried to demolish this language. It will keep shining.
We have mixed feelings regarding this.
Of course it’s awesome that a song in Breton was at the ESC, and it’s not the first time and hopefully, neither the last. We wish Basque had the same chance just once! Minoritized languages need more representation and Eurovision is a huge platform.
HOWEVER
What’s the point in showing a minoritized language to the world if you’re still putting every obstacle and more for people to use it? To 100% live in it? To recover it? To promote it? In the real world, that is. For actual people? Up until two years ago it wasn’t allowed to put letter Ñ in Breton names because that letter doesn’t belong to the French alphabet, ffs.
Particularly France is an expert in showing Europe its regionallanguages as bonus points for diversity and tolerance and what not. They’re shown as an oddity or as a way to whitewash the crimes French governments commited - and commit - against these languages and their speakers. Minoritized languages like Breton, Euskara, Català, Corsican, etc have survived despiteFrance, not thanks to.
Yay for the minoritized languages. But let’s not forget France’s blatant hypocrisy.
i don’t fully disagree but there’s a mistake in target here.
the attempts at destroying regional languages and cultures on french territory are 100% the doing of the government and its local officials, neither of which were responsible in the selection of our representatives at eurovision. maaaaaayyyyyybe there was some kind of trying to make the selection seem diverse and inclusive on france tv’s part when they picked the final lineup for cvqd (there was also a song that included lyrics in réunion créole, and last year’s had corsican and tahitian). maybe they weren’t actually thinking the songs that weren’t ~safe~ choices could come on top but in the end, fulenn won both the jury and televote when the show happened.
and when it comes to real life, we regularly have protests and events all over the country demanding local cultures and languages be respected and some people are fighting daily so their schools or organizations can be funded and kept alive.
so really, i fail to see how regular people+a handful of celebrities with debatable taste voting to send a song in breton to eurovision reflects in any way “france“’s desire to whitewash its crimes against minority languages. even more so when, as far as i remember (meaning since the mid 90s bc my memories from before then being blurry, i’m only 32), breton singers and bands, although not necessarily using their language but definitely using heavy traditional music influences, have always been super popular here.
Nice point.
We - possibly wrongly - assumed that like in Spain, the national French TV (or whoever in charge of the French song anyway) was dependant of the French state / aka French Government.
Either way, even if we’re completely mistaken about this and the French entries at the ESC, we stand our ground on French hipocrisy regarding minoritized languages and cultures: they exploit them for touristic purposes and then go and try to erase them.
Since some of you - @auressea & @wikdsushi-v2 especially - in the tags showed your interest in that particular hand spin, here it is:
It’s called liñareand as you can see its a stick with a diamond shaped piece on one end where flax was put and then secured with a kind of little hat made of fabric called goru-txapel.
The spindle can be seen perfectly in this pic above.
Spain is discussing whether a law granting up to 3 days a month of paid leave due to very painful menstruations would be okay or not, and the sexist - misogynistic even - comments that we’ve heard are making us sick.
It’s even worse when it’s other women who make them.
Don’t forget the endless debate on whether a 16 year old can make medical decisions about their body, because the new abortion law will allow over 16s to have one without informing their parents, as is the rule with every other medical decision.
True! And also the Spanish government will include in that law project that femenine hygiene products are VAT free from now on (right now we pay a 10% VAT for them).
It’s been a looong time without some Basque music, isn’t it? Here’s one song we love, “Itsasargia” [The lighthouse], by Gaizka Peñafiel.
Lyrics in Basque are shown in the vid, translation to English is below:
Looking at the rear view mirror of the past I forgot that the present must be enjoyed. I lived in nostalgia, among memories in a station that hasn’t a definite destination.
Chorus: But you appeared and I saw the light, the meaning of life I opened my eyes when I realized what the way was.
Until I met you I was walking aimlessly you suddenly put my life upside down. Who would have told me that by unknowingly crossing paths you’d be my north from that moment on.
Chorus
We walk that path to write the future, this is our choice in the sea of dreams one must look for the lighthouse. (x2)
