Occasional List 15 SPAIN & THE SPANISH EMPIRE JUDITH HODGSON 11 Stanwick Road London W14 8TL Tel.: 44 (0) 20 7603 7414 E-mail:
[email protected] Web: www.judithhodgson.com No. 48 Vergara y Alba List 15 1. ASTARLOA y AGUIRRE, Pablo Pedro: Apología de la lengua bascongada, ó ensayo crítico filosófico de su perfeccion y antigüedad so- bre todas las que se conocen: en respuesta á los reparos propuestos en el Diccionario geográfico histórico de España, tomo segundo, palabra Naba- rra. Small 4to. XXIV, 452 pp. Contemporary calf (extremities worn). Madrid, Geronimo Ortega, 1803. £ 100. Palau 18774. Salvá 2200, “escaso.” The author mounts a spirited defence of the Basque language to contest the writings of Joaquin Tra- ggia’s Breve noticia de Navarra, inserta en el Diccionario histórico geográfico de España de la Real Academia de la Historia. “The late eighteenth and early nineteenth century witnessed a flowering of interest in the Basque language within the Basque County . The author was primarily concerned to demonstrate that Basque had anciently been the language of all Spain, and that it best preserved the ‘perfect’ state of the ancestral human language. Astarloa, a native of Durango in Bizkaia, was not entirely devoid of analytical abilities . .” (R.L. Trask, The history of Basque. London 1997, p. 52). Andrew Dalby (Dictionary of Languages, pp. 76-7) notes that “Basque whalers and cod fishermen regularly spent their summers around the mouth of the St Lawrence river from the 16th century onwards. The French explo- rer, Jacques Cartier, found in 1542 that the Amerindians of the St Lawrence shores could speak a kind of Basque .