Vocabulario estellés

Abstract

The nineteenth was a backward century and the one that saw the demise of the Basque language as a means of communication in Tierra Estella (Estella Region). A number of traces, however, obviously remained.

This study, aimed at learning the present-day situation, is a small recompilation with contributions from Ángel Sada (Villanueva de Yerri), Lea (Riezu), Jesús Garin and Ramón Pascual (Abárzuza). The situation of that lexicon of Basque origin still in use in Tierra Estella at the close of the twentieth century is put under study and more than 60 voices and their variants have been collected.

Although the gradual disappearance of almost all these words is foreseen, the last traces in their death throes, the so-called “lingua navarrorum” is enjoying a renaissance in Tierra Estella.