International Basque Language Day
The official language of Spain, Castilian, is used for communication by residents of all regions
The country is not homogeneous in its national composition - Catalans, Galicians, Basques and other peoples live on its territory Residents of the province of Val d'Arana speak Aranese, a dialect of Gascony, and Cantabria - Cantabrian People living in the autonomous communities of northern Spain and the neighboring southern regions of France use the Basque language to communicate According to various estimates, it is native to 700 thousand or 1 million people December 3 is International Basque Language Day
The holiday, which has existed since 1948, was officially recognized in 1995 International Basque Language Day is a tribute to one of the relic languages of the pre-Indo-European substrate, which has unique features of grammar and vocabulary Before the Roman conquests, it was spoken by the inhabitants of the Western Pyrenees The oldest inscriptions on the ruins of the Roman city of Iruña Veleia in Basque date back to the 3rd century AD, first collection of poems - 1545 The oppression of native speakers living in Spain and France began in the 19th century Basque was also banned during the reign of Francisco Franco - from 1939 to 1975
Today it is an official language along with Spanish in the autonomous community of País Vasco, located in the north of the country Its speakers defended this right in 1982 The Royal Academy of the Basque Language, founded in 1919, is engaged in preserving the language and its features She created a standardized batua grammar, which is used for official communication Every year on December 3, the Academy coordinates various events dedicated to International Basque Language Day
The French Basques living in the lands of the Pyrenees-Atlantiques department were unable to defend their autonomy and achieve a special position for the ethnic group Spain, as a multi-ethnic state, consists of 19 historically formed regions, 4 of which are national In the Basque Country, the ancestral language, vasca, is spoken fluently and linguistic skills are passed on to descendants by the inhabitants of the province of Guipuzcoa, parts of Navarre and Vizcaya, as well as the north of Alava
The lexical composition of Basque is heterogeneous In addition to native words, it contains borrowings from Latin, Castilian and French, Celtic and Arabic The grammar of the language is very complex due to the large number of cases, articles and verb forms However, this, like the oppression of speakers throughout the history of País Vasco, is not an obstacle to learning Basque The ethnic isolation of the people ensured the revival of the national language in modern conditions
End of the 20th century was marked by the rapid development of the national press of the Basque Country The first breakthrough in journalism in Basque came in 1931-1939, the second, after the repressions and persecutions of Franco, in the mid-1970s Today, more than 15 Spanish media outlets use vasca in their work National information projects are appearing in the country, supervised by regional journalism International Basque Language Day is dedicated to the transmission of linguistic and cultural traditions