Artzibarko aldaera deitu izanaren inguruan (5 - Hego-Esteribarko laginak: Ilurdotz-I) [About the so called Arce variety (5 – Materials collected in Ilurdotz I)]

Abstract

This time we bring to these pages data from an informant native of Ilurdotz (Esteribar) collected between 1981 and 1986, thereby continuing the work already published in numbers 103-104 and 112-113 of this same journal and bearing reference to the dialect classification of Prince L. L. Bonaparte. Although the speech of this informant was badly eroded, sometimes it seemed more fresh and lively than we had assumed initially after the impression we gathered in our first visit, as if having poked the ember of the language had been enough to enliven it again. Moreover, the use of the ergative, often incorrectly, and the substitution of singular auxiliary verbs for plural ones, inter alia, have been also a constant characteristic in his speech. As for the speech itself, we have not perceived any foreign influence in it, except for the word «ondo» which struck us in our first visits. We then assumed that it could be a form learned by the informant during the time –two years– he spent in a school in Urnieta, but ultimately, given the extensive use made of it, we wonder if the word might have been used in Ilurdotz alongside with its synonym «ongi», theoretically exclusive of the area, a matter, anyway, difficult to prove. We already have pointed in former issues that that so many doubts, hesitations and gaps as shown in the informant’s speech are a direct consequence of having spent a long time without talking in Euskera. To all these good, compliant and patient friends we can but express our deepest thankfulness, both for their kind welcome and also for having bequeathed the testimony of such treasures to posterity.