Erronkari eta Ansoko toponimiaz zenbait ohar

Abstract

The study of place names in the Navarrese Valley of Roncal and the Aragonese Valley of Ansó reveals that the eastern boundary of Navarre was traditionally a meeting-point for cultures with communication needs which were identical, but expressed in different languages, some of Romanic origin (Navarrese-Aragonese and Gascon) and other of pre-Roman origin (the Roncal and Souletine dialects of Basque).

The Navarrese-Aragonese Romance language survives in the place names in Roncal and Basque is still alive in the toponymy of Ansó (it reaches 23% of the place names studied). The comparative study of place names in the area suggests that the Basque spoken in Ansó in the Lower Middle Ages shared semantic and morphological characteristics with the neighbouring Basque dialects and phonetically resembled the Roncal Basque of the day in terms of timbre and accent.

However, whether the more relevant features which have historically characterised Roncal Basque (and have set it so apart from the rest) were also shared by the Basque from Ansó has never been clarified or demonstrated through documentation. Indeed, many of these characteristics are the product of the internal evolution of the Roncal dialect itself and, so it would seem, fed on its own endogamy. This process has gained strength and spread since the epoch of common Basque postulated by Mitxelena for the centuries follow - ing Roman rule through to the present day. The loss of the Basque spoken in Ansó, which occurred at a relatively late stage (Basque may have survived in this valley up until the XVI century), was not such a loss when considered from the perspective of the evolution of the language. Not all of the vocalic and consonantic changes which affected Roncal Basque could have affected the Basque in Ansó because the latter had possibly already disappeared by the time.

The almost-relentless development of assimilation in Roncal has no equal, not even in Soule. It is difficult to accept that the same overwhelming tendency and linguistic vitality demonstrated by Roncal Basque in the XVI century could have occurred in the Basque spoken in the neighbouring area, which by this time, should we accept it even existed, must have been severely weakened in the face of the vigour of Navarrese-Aragonese Romance and the political-administrative reality which brought speakers from the two valleys into confrontation as subjects of different kingdoms. No matter what the case, the study of the suffixation and lexical bases employed in this corner of Euskal Herria demonstrates that the core of the two versions was the same and, although Roncal experienced its own, extremely particular evolution, they must have shared fairly similar features until the centuries of Frank rule in the Duchy of Vasconia and the birth and later development of the Kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon.