Antonio Tovar Series Editort 8JMMJBN"%PVHMBTT (SFHPSJP.POSFBM BOEPello Salaburu Mythology and Ideology of the Basque Language
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Mythology and Ideology of the Basque Language by Antonio Tovar Series EditorT 8JMMJBN"%PVHMBTT (SFHPSJP.POSFBM BOEPello Salaburu Mythology and Ideology of the Basque Language Antonio Tovar Translated by Jennifer R. Ottman With an introduction by Joaquín Gorrochategui Basque Classics Series, no. 10 Center for Basque Studies University of Nevada, Reno This book was published with generous financial support obtained by the Association of Friends of the Center for Basque Studies from the Provincial Government of Bizkaia. Basque Classics Series, No. 10 Series Editors: William A. Douglass, Gregorio Monreal, and Pello Salaburu Center for Basque Studies University of Nevada, Reno Reno, Nevada 89557 http://basque.unr.edu Copyright © 2015 by the Center for Basque Studies All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America Cover and series design © 2015 by Jose Luis Agote Cover painting: Jose Luis Zumeta Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Tovar, Antonio, author. | Ottman, Jennifer (Jennifer Rebecca) translator. Title: Mythology and ideology of the Basque language / Antonio Tovar ; Translated by Jennifer Ottman ; With an introduction by Joaquin Gorrochategui. Other titles: Mitología e ideologíia sobre la lengua vasca. English Description: Reno : Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, [2016] | Series: Basque Classics series ; no. 10 | Original publication in Spanish: "Mitología e ideología sobre la lengua vasca." | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015038636| ISBN 9781877802348 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781877802355 (pbk. : alk. paper) Classification: LCC PH5023 .T63513 2016 | DDC 499/.92--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015038636 Contents Note on Basque Orthography...................................... vii Introduction Joaquín Gorrochategui .......................................... ix Mythology and Ideology of the Basque Language by Antonio Tovar Prologue.............................................................. 3 1. The Subject of Basque in the Middle Ages ..................... 9 2. Lights and Shadows of the Golden Age ........................ 21 3. Basques Write about Their Land ................................ 43 4. The Polemic between Larramendi and Mayans................ 61 5. The Age of Astarloa: Flight to Paradise ........................ 95 6. Tubal Vanishes: From Hervás to Humboldt.................... 131 7. A Still Pre-scientific Age ......................................... 153 8. Demythologization ............................................... 171 Bibliography ......................................................... 193 Index ................................................................. 205 Note on Basque Orthography The standard form to refer to the Basque language today is Euskara. Most English-language texts on the Basque Country have tradition- ally employed only the French and Spanish orthographic renderings of Basque place names. Here, in light of the standard Basque ortho- graphic renderings of these same place names by the Basque Language Academy (Euskaltzaindia), we will endeavor to use these Basque ver- sions, with an addition in parentheses of the French or Spanish equiva- lents on first mention in each chapter. Some exceptions to this rule include the use of Navarre (Nafarroa in Basque, Navarra in Spanish) and Lower Navarre (Nafarroa Beherea in Basque, Basse Navarre in French); the hyphenated bilingual cases of Donostia-San Sebastián, Vitoria-Gasteiz, and Iruñea-Pamplona; and occasions where French or Spanish place name variants are used to make a linguistic point. In the latter case, the Basque equivalents appear in parentheses after the French or Spanish place name. Introduction Joaquín Gorrochategui This small book on ideas about the nature and origin of the Basque language up to the early twentieth century is a highly erudite essay,1 even if the motivation for its composition was ultimately political. Its erudition is guaranteed by the professional credentials of its author, Antonio Tovar, one of twentieth-century Spain’s most polymathic intellectuals and men of letters, at the same time that its reason for being was the fruit of his passionate political commitment, which originated in his early years and, modulated over the course of his life by criticism and experience, led him to take an interest in all aspects of public life, especially those related to culture. The work of a seasoned scholar, based on vast reading over many years, this slim volume was the product of a single burst of composi- tion—like almost all Tovar’s works—at a particularly critical moment in Spain’s recent history, when, following the dictator Franco’s death in 1975, the country was eagerly seeking a democratic political sys- tem that could overcome the consequences of the Spanish Civil War and guarantee the peaceful coexistence of the full spectrum of politi- cal views. At that time, the so-called Basque problem, manifested in its rawest form by the terrorism of the separatist organization ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, “Basque Country and Freedom”), was an unavoidable factor in Spanish politics. It can be said that the Basque Country had been in open rebellion against Franco’s regime since the late 1960s: countless strikes in all economic sectors, constant sabotage, 1. A number of the topics that appear in this book are also discussed in Madariaga, Anthology of Apologists and Detractors of the Basque Language. —Ed. note x Joaquín Gorrochategui and civil disobedience were common and generalized occurrences, to which the government responded with indiscriminate repression by the police. In this climate of resistance, ETA’s terrorism was viewed posi- tively by broad swathes of the population, especially Basque national- ists, even if it was also justified by many non–nationalist opponents of Franco. The prudence of the majority of the political leaders of the “transition” (the name given to the period between Franco’s death and the attempted military coup in 1981), among whom I will mention as examples only the prime minister, Adolfo Suárez, and the secretary of the Communist Party, Santiago Carrillo—representatives of the two antagonistic worlds that arose out of the war—succeeded in giving birth to a democratic constitution (1978) that guaranteed extensive autonomy to the Basque Country, detailed in its Statute of Autonomy, with the rank of constitutional law (1979). Nonetheless, a constitu- tional text, however important and necessary, could not solve on its own problems built up over decades, even centuries, and exacerbated in recent years by the extreme attitudes of certain sectors of Spanish society. Another element working against calm was ETA’s terrorist activity, one of the objectives of which was to provoke the interven- tion of Franco’s numerous military supporters still in control of the army, and which almost achieved that goal with the mentioned coup attempt of February 23, 1981. There was a need for actors with a sincere desire to understand the ideas and aspirations of the opposing sides, broad-minded and generous openness when it came to revising their own decades-old views, and perceptive intelligence for building connections with the proponents of other ideologies on the basis of shared humanist values. Tovar was one of these men. The Author: His Academic Career Antonio Tovar was born on May 17, 1911, in Valladolid, to a bourgeois family of traditionalist leanings: his father was a notary, and a mater- nal uncle, Daniel Llorente, would become bishop of Segovia. Because the family moved frequently for his father’s career, Tovar received his secondary education at home, studying on his own and taking the ofcial examinations to obtain a diploma. From a young age, he was inclined to the study of languages, perhaps aware of the linguistic dif- ferences between the Spanish that his family spoke and the languages used in the places where his father practiced his profession, whether Introduction xi that was Basque in Elorrio or Catalan in Morella de Castellón. As a teenager, he learned not only Latin, Greek, and French, part of the usual school curriculum, but also English and German on his own. He initially studied law at university, on his father’s recommendation, but once he had completed that degree, he made up his mind to devote himself to his true vocation and enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Valladolid, subsequently continuing his studies at the Center for Historical Studies (Centro de Estudios Históricos) in Madrid. At that prestigious institution, Tovar met two of the greatest Spanish scholars of the time, who exercised a profound influence on him: Ramón Menéndez Pidal, who laid the foundation for the history of the Spanish language, and Manuel Gómez Moreno, who revolutionized the study of the Iberian Peninsula’s prehistory by deciphering the mysterious Iberian script. In 1935, with the aim of furthering his study of classical phi- lology, Tovar obtained a government scholarship to study in Berlin, where the world’s best classicists were teaching. There, he had the opportunity to attend the classes of the Hellenist Eduard Schwyzer, although he was unable to make the acquaintance of either Eduard Norden or Julius Pokorny, despite his great desire to do so, because both had been removed from their university posts, the former due to disagreements with the Nazi regime and the latter due to his Jewish origin. Nevertheless, he did meet Werner Jaeger, who was in a simi- larly delicate