Postby arabarra » 2007-11-20, 18:17
Hi guys!
Nannerl was two times right today... firstly, yes, she correctedly foresaw that I would be pleased to answer. And secondly, also yes, her explanation about batua is more or less correct.
I would only add a few clarifications. Native speakers most commonly use their dialect (or some mildered form of it) in their personal life. The main goal of batua is to provide standards to articulate official and public life: mass media oriented to the whole Basque Country use the "batua" forms, so as do Government and political parties in their communications. Education in Basque employs customarily batua, and language examinations required to work in the administration refer to batua.
Additionally, non-native speakers of basque tend to use batua in their social life... and one interesting result hereof is an incoming generation of "native batua speakers", children from families where both parents have learned basque and consquently use batua rather than dialects at home. And this is not a rare phenomenon... (I even know a case where the father comes from Algeria and the baby speaks a perfect basque with nice batua-forms).
The official name of the language in batua is "Euskara". "Euskera", "Uskera", "Uskeria", "Üskera" (and still some more) are dialectal variations