The topic of dialectal variation in Basque, a language isolate and the last remaining descendant of the pre-Indo-European languages of Western Europe, has long been a contentious issue in both academic and wider social circles. In The Dialects of Basque, the first major work of its kind in English and a revised version of his bestselling work in the Basque Country, Koldo Zuazo makes two significant contributions to the study of Basque dialects: on the one hand, he introduces a new classification scheme for the different dialects of the Basque language, thereby breaking with the influential categories established by the renowned philologist Louis Lucien Bonaparte in the nineteenth century. On the other, following the pioneering work of experts like Koldo Mitxelena, he contends that the origins of dialectal variation in Basque are not as old as many scholars--including the celebrated Basque specialist Julio Caro Baroja--have argued. Zuazo also observes that, while there is rich dialectal variation in Basque, comprehension among native speakers is not as difficult as has been previously contended. Moreover, he includes in the work more in-depth case studies of the dialects spoken in the Baztan Valley of Navarre and the area around Irun and Errenteria in Gipuzkoa, respectively, as well as a critical examination of theories suggesting the existence of a hybrid Basque dialect in the Americas.

Authorized translation of La lengua vasca, 2/e.

The origins of Basque dialects, a highly disputed area of research in Basque studies, are examined. The author, the foremost expert on Basque dialects, traces their emergence to medieval times, using: a) the profusion of features common to all dialects: b) the large number of innovations common to all dialects; and c) the fact that the only truly divergent dialects are the western and Souletin ones. In contrast, the three central dialects differ in far fewer and less important respects. The main contribution of Standard Basque and Its Dialects to the scholarly debate about the formation of Basque is that it identifies the nuclei from which the current dialects almost certainly emerged. The book explains the points of view that Basque speakers have upheld concerning their dialects, the formation of provincial standards starting in the eighteenth century, and the launch of Standard Basque in the second half of the twentieth century.

This book is the first comprehensive treatment of the phonological system of Basque available in English. Basque is a morphologically rich and fairly regular language with a number of active phonological rules that are limited to certain morphological environments. In addition, it has a high degree of dialectical fragmentation. These characteristics of Basque make this language a good test ground to investigate the interaction of phonological rules both with each other and with morphological processes, which the author does within the Lexical Phonology framework. The effects of rule interaction on feature geometry are a major concern - how phonological operations modify underlying structures and how the structures created by one phonological rule can serve as input to other rules. These effects are examined in a study of the rather peculiar behaviour of Basque affricates. Another area which requires particular attention, and in which Basque dialects differ widely, is prosody. Along with stress-accent systems of different types, Basque also possesses pitch-accent or restricted tonal systems in some of its western dialects. This book should be of interest to advanced students and teachers of linguistics, especially Romance linguistics and lexical phonology.

The series builds an extensive collection of high quality descriptions of languages around the world. Each volume offers a comprehensive grammatical description of a single language together with fully analyzed sample texts and, if appropriate, a word list and other relevant information which is available on the language in question. There are no restrictions as to language family or area, and although special attention is paid to hitherto undescribed languages, new and valuable treatments of better known languages are also included. No theoretical model is imposed on the authors; the only criterion is a high standard of scientific quality. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert.

"Modern translation and original Basque version of the first book printed in the Basque language in Baiona in 1545."--Provided by publisher.