Basque

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“Grammar is universal - except with the Basque language. And George Bush.”

~ Noam Chomsky on Basque

The Basque language is the only language on Earth that has not been understood by anyone at all including its native speakers. It is grammatically so complicated that there is a Basque proverb, "When God created Adam and Eve they began arguing about who would compile the Basque grammar and they still haven't finished it." Or in Basque Jainkoarregaintzetak Adamoain eta Efoarroakoentzaigantzik kreatuentuaz zilbiaioatzoak Euskalhitzeanliburuzurrieskerrikasko kompilariaria ez baina mandituku (deep breath, here comes the auxiliary) gintzenarregoiazkineduteztearizte."

The Basque language has thrice pleaded admission into the equally obscure and incomprehensible Oogry-Moogric language family but has been denied on the grounds that nobody in the admission committee understood the application, written in Basque backwards.

Contents 1 Grammar 1.1 Noun cases 1.2 Verbs 1.3 Nouns 1.4 Auxiliary 1.5 Some hints at Basque language 2 Fieldwork

[edit] Grammar

[edit] Noun cases

The Basque noun has 138 cases. Perhaps I should have started with verbs.

[edit] Verbs

The Basque verb is quite easy, except for a handful of common verbs, and the auxiliary, which is estimated to have a number of forms approximating to the 279th Mersenne prime. Hang on, I'll go back to the nouns.

[edit] Nouns

Apart from the cases, there is nothing much to the Basque noun. No gender (apart from higizon 'man' and xigizon 'woman', and in the cold Pyrenean climate it's damn near impossible to tell them apart unless they make that characteristic high-pitched whistle caused by ripping their beret on a tree-stump and having to walk backwards with their hands over the rent until they get home), no um, no other things' nouns have except cases...

Okay, okay, the cases.

• Nominative: emakume 'snowman'
• Accusative: emakumee 'You! Snowman! Why?'
• Dative: emakumei 'you're looking nice tonight, snowman'
• Genetive: emakumii 'which snowman?'
• Ablative: emakumai 'at snowman'
• Vocative: emakumeo 'hello snowman'
• Advocative: emakumeoho 'well hello snowman'
• Quovocative: emakumeoraintz 'do you mind if I call you snowman?'
• Provocative: emakumeaurpegizara 'you look like a snowman to me'
• Retrovocative: emakumeetazu 'and you're a snowman too'

There are dozens more of these. Excuse me, I'm just nipping out for a stiff brandy.

[edit] Auxiliary

What most people find a teency weency bit tricky about the ol' Basque is the auxiliary, that's the word equivalent to 'is' or 'has' but which does the heavy lifting in the sentence. It agrees with the subject, direct object, indirect object, goal, source, theme, location, recipient, shape, pitch, viscosity, and rotational momentum of the previous fourteen sentences and the next eight, and has multi-part infixes for each member of your family's favourite kind of upholstery and what colour your listener's aunty's dog's blanket is.

[edit] Some hints at Basque language

• "Epa." - Good morning/afternoon/evening.
• "Epa." - How are you?
• "Epa." - I would like a beer please.
• "Epa." - I would like more beer please.
• "Epa." - Just one more.
• "Epa." -We won that football game!
• "Epa?" - Are you stupid?
• "Epa!" - Of course we won! That's our way of winning the game.
• "Epa!!" - Shut up!
• "Epa..." - I'm not sure..."
• "Eskaralakakatua" - "The parrot is expensive"
• "Lindakara" -"President of the basque country"
• "Euskalherría" - "Epa!!"
• "Kalimotxo" - "Coke + Red Wine, national-official basque drink"
• "Txurrumuski" - "Kas + [[Red Wine], national basque drink, Kalimotxo's poor and unknow brother"
• "Txirrisklas" - "Coke + Vodka + A bit of Lemon Juice, another national basque drink"
• "Katxi" - "1 liter capacity plastic glass, designed to drink Kalimotxo"
• "Akelarre" - "Educational and cultural conventions of religious people"
• "Bilbao" - "The Capital of the World, according to Bilbao's people, of course..."
• "Donostia" - "Mr. Host"
• "Kaixo" - "Hey! Wait! Why are you fleeing? I'm not a terrorist!!" (literally "hello")
• "Amozhs Antxon, amozhs a tomarrrrnozhs unozhs txikitozhs en el Batxoki con la Coadrrrrilla" - "Let's go to the Bar to take some beers with our friends, Anthony..."
• "Epa" (whilst holding a gun or wooden stake) - "GIMME THE BEER AND NOBODY GETS HURT"
• "Non zara?" - "Excuse me, where is Zara?"
• "Batasuna" - "Dressing-gowns... only one, please"
• "Euskal Pelota" - "Basque Flatterer"
• "Patxi" - (persons who lives in Basque contry)
• "Barkatu!" - Boat you!
• "Eskerrik askisimo" - Thank you very much
• "Eup!" - The time machine it is broken. :( (apply Italian accent)

[edit] Fieldwork

Now fieldwork is interesting in this little language. It all depends whether you get your native informants singly or in a group. Both have their advantages. Singly, the guy forgets stuff, y'know? It's all prego, señor this and es muy dificil that. But you don't get all that goddamned giggling. I'm telling you, Basques giggle. You ask a simple question like, 'How do you say "I want to go to Donostia"?' and they all crack up as if it's really funny. And the guy you're supposedly interviewing says something, maybe uses the apud-post-allative case, Donostiakarregantzik, which is what you're trying to elicit, and then you think... hang on... that's not what you used for 'I want to go to Bilbo' five minutes ago. So you flick back fifteen or twenty pages in your field notebook and read out what he said, and it's a completely different case, Bilboentzurenoakek or something.

So there are all these other Basques giggling fit to bust, and your guy goes all shifty-eyed for a moment, then says, 'Yes, is similar, but not is same.'

'How is different?' you ask. (Dammit, you're talking like them now.)

'Faster,' lisps one of the companions. The others all find this hilarious and collapse around the one who said 'faster', but your Informant goes all serious and says, 'Yes, we use that case when you go up to Donostia quite quickly then swerve just before getting there then circle it a bit and keep looking at it without getting any closer.' So you write that down.