Evaluating Linguistic Competence in a Basque-Castilian Speech Community

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Notes

1. I wish to thank Dr Lynn Williams of the University of Exeter for reading a draft of this article and making several suggestions.

2. The Guernica Statute of Autonomy (1979) had effect in the three Spanish Basque provinces of Alava, Guipúzcoa and Vizcaya which became the three members of the Basque Autonomous Community. One of the aims of the 1982 Ley de normalización del uso del euskera is to protect every speaker's right to use Basque in the spheres of administration, education and in all means of communication. In Navarra, the fourth Spanish Basque province, the co-official status of Basque was recognized by the Parlamento Foral Navarro in November 1980.

3. I follow Haugen's (1966) terminology here and interpret ‘vernacular’ as an underdeveloped language in the functional sense. E. Haugen, ‘Dialect, language, nation’, American Anthropologist, LXVIII (1966), 922–35.

4. E. B. Ryan, ‘Why do Low-Prestige Language Varieties Persist?’, in H. Giles and R. N. St Clair (eds.), Language and Social Psychology, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979), 145–57.

5. Pedro de Yrizar, Contribución a la dialectología de la lengua vasca, I (Zarauz: Caja de Ahorros Provincial de Guipúzcoa, 1981).

6. Bonaparte made five trips to various parts of the Basque Country between 1856 and 1869. His extensive research allowed a detailed classification of the regional varieties; one of his major contributions was the Carte des sept provinces basques montrant la délimitation actuelle de l’Euskara et sa division en dialectes, sous-dialectes et variétés, completed in 1863 and published in London in 1866.

7. Bonaparte, 98.

8. K. Rotaetxe, ‘La norma vasca: codificación y desarrollo’, Revista española de lingüística, XVII, 2 (1987) 219–44.

9. P. Lafitte, Grammaire basque (Navarro-labourdin littéraire) (Bayonne: 1944)

10. See K. Rotaetxe, 228—30, for an account of the grammatical and orthographic reforms carried out in the process of standardization and the extent to which they eliminated the characteristics of vizcaíno.

11. Rotaetxe, 240–43.

12. J. I. Olabuénaga et al., La lucha del euskara en la Comunidad Autónoma Vasca (Vitoria: Servicio Central de Publicaciones del Gobierno Vasco, 1983). This work is a presentation of the results of the 1981 Census and of extensive surveys concerning language competence, use and attitudes carried out in the Autonomous Community at the beginning of the 1980s.

13. K. Rotaetxe does not make a distinction here between learning Basque and learning Batua. It is probably true that in the case of most learners Batua is the norm adhered to, and this would explain why those living in Vizcaya encounter difficulties when attempting to put their newly acquired language to use. It should be remembered, however, that some establishments in Vizcaya teach a standard form of vizcaíno. It is quite possible that the low percentage of successful learners in Vizcaya includes precisely those speakers who have been educated in this standard vizcaíno.

14. The higher success rate in Alava could seem rather surprising if it is remembered that the Basque spoken there is similar to that spoken in Vizcaya and is classified as a variety of vizcaíno: it could be argued that learners in Alava will be faced by the same problems of linguistic distance from Batua as those confronting their counterparts in Vizcaya. It is very likely that this is so for learners in those areas of Alava where Basque is spoken by the majority of the population. However, in Alava as a whole, the awareness of the distance between vizcaíno and Batua is not as acute as it is in Vizcaya, since the Basque-speakers form a very small minority and do not constitute a strong vizcaíno-speaking community. In Vitoria, capital of Alava and of the Basque Autonomous Community, there is a higher percentage of Basque-speakers, but they have migrated from several parts of the Basque Country and do not form a linguistically homogeneous group. The polarization vizcaíno/Batua does not, therefore, occur to the same degree.

15. The grammatical calques on Castilian are not so much an intrinsic feature of Batua as a reflection of the fact that most people who write in Basque also write in Castilian, and tend to translate from Castilian when writing in Basque.

16. Whereas Batua, therefore, is sometimes criticized for reproducing Castilian syntax, there are some lexical items which illustrate how Batua uses native Basque formations whilst the regional dialects use Castilian loan-words (for example eskribatu, ‘to write’ of vizcaíno from the Castilian escribir is translated as idatzi in Batua). Some native Basque speakers regard these features of the Batua lexicon as excessively purist, whereas others seem to interpret them as indications of their own linguistic inadequacy. It is worth remembering, however, that the extent of Castilian influence on native Basque-speakers’ vocabulary is possibly not as great as they themselves sometimes claim.

17. Inventario de arquitectura rural alavesa (Vitoria: Diputación Foral de Alava, 1981).

18. Inventario, 184.

19. he informant was given the freedom to complete the forms of the Padrón either in Basque (Batua) or in Castilian. The question dealing with language competence was presented in the following way in Castilian:

Conocimiento de euskara

Señale con una X su nivel de comprensión, habla, lectura y escritura.

1. Nada

2. Con dificultad

3. Bien

20. The form of categorization adopted in the presentation of the Padrón results is designed to give each informant a nivel global de euskara. The informant is classified according to his own evaluation of his competence in the four skills of Comprehension, Speaking, Reading and Writing. The Classifications are:

Euskaldunes alfabetizados: individuals who understand, speak, read and write Basque well. Euskaldunes parcialmente alfabetizados: individuals who understand and speak Basque well, but read and write the language with difficulty. Euskaldunes no alfabetizados: individuals who understand and speak Basque well, but are unable to read and write the language. Cuasi-euskaldunes alfabetizados: individuals who understand Basque well or with difficulty, speak Basque with difficulty, and read and write well or with difficulty. Cuasi-euskaldunes no alfabetizados: individuals who understand Basque well or with difficulty, speak Basque with difficulty, but are unable to read and write the language. Cuasi-euskaldunes pasivos: individuals who understand Basque well or with difficulty, but are unable to speak the language. Erdaldunes: individuals who are unable to understand or speak Basque.

Although an attempt has been made to allow for the fact that there is not, in the case of every speaker, a constant reduction in levels of competence from Comprehension to Speaking, Speaking to Reading, and Reading to Writing (that is, there is a recognition that some individuals will be more competent in written skills than in oral skills), the seven groupings referred to do not appear to cover all the permutations provided by the informants’ evaluations of their competence in the four skills.

21. The variety of words used to refer to the Basque language can lead to confusion. Euskara batua (or Batua) refers to the standard norm. In Castilian, non-standardized dialectal forms are often referred to as vasco or vascuence.

22. J. I. Ruiz Olabuénaga, Atlas lingüístico vasco (Vitoria: Servicio Central de Publicaciones del Gobierno Vasco, 1984); J. I. Ruiz Olabuénaga et al., La lucha del euskara.

23. The informant was given the freedom to complete the questionnaire either in Basque (Batua) or in Castilian. (All interviews, however, were conducted in Castilian.) The question dealing with language competence was presented in the following way in Castilian:

24. These age-divisions were decided upon for two reasons. For purposes of comparison it was important to respect the age-cohorts used in the presentation of the results of the Padrón. At the same time the divisions attempt to take into account some of the historical factors which have affected the use and acquisition of Basque.

25. When the interview was conducted in the absence of other Basque-speakers it is very unlikely that the informant felt that he was being tested: my very limited knowledge of Basque did not allow me to challenge his evaluations. However, the fact remains that it was probably more difficult for an informant to stretch the truth when confronted with the researcher than when allowed to complete the questionnaire in privacy.

26. Olabuénaga et al., La lucha, 28.

27. I am grateful to I. Agote (Política lingüística, Gobierno Vasco) for suggesting the possibility of adapting these evaluation methods to sociolinguistic surveys.

28. J. L. M. Trim, Developing a Unit/Credit Scheme of Adult Language Learning (Oxford: Pergamon, 1980).

29. M. Oskarsson, Approaches to Self-assessment in Foreign Language Learning (Oxford: Pergamon, 1980).

30. When asked in my survey to state which was their first language, 11 of the 75 informants answered ‘Castilian’, 58 answered ‘Basque’ and six answered ‘Both Castilian and Basque’. Those who have Castilian as their native language are most likely to be adults who have moved to Aramayona from other parts of Spain. In some cases their offspring, although competent Basque speakers because of their exposure to the language at school, will claim Castilian to be their native tongue.

31. Padrón municipal de habitantes de la Comunidad Autónoma de Euskadi 3. Educación y euskara (Vitoria: Instituto Vasco de Estadística [EUSTAT], 1988).

32. It must be remembered that these tables have been compiled from questions which were originally presented to the informants in Basque and Castilian. See Notes 12 and 16 for the original terms used. Note that in the Padrón the levels of competence followed the order Nada, Con dificultad and Bien, whereas in my survey the order was the reverse (Fácilmente, Con dificultad and Nada). In order to ensure consistency, I have arranged the results of the Padrón in Table 7 in the order Bien, Con dificultad and Nada.