Sean of the Dead - Euskara

[Sean of the Dead]

So pretty much I should just use "zu" and not "hi"?

Also, you never answered my question about whether the pronouns matched up with the correct verb in that table thing I made.

In the sentence "Ez dakizkit zuen izenak." why is it "zuen" and not "zure"? I thought only one element carried the number, like "auto horiek" or "ordenagailu berriak".

So, from what I understand, only the auxiliary verb "to have" is conjugated like that? Like dut or zaugu, and the plural form is used if the direct object is plural? (Where red is the object, black the root, and blue the subject.)

Also, in 2 syllable words, is the stress on the 1st or 2nd syllable? In the Ikasten course, it seems to be either, although I could be wrong.

[Quevenois]

Ok.

[Sean of the Dead]

Ok thanks, but what are the verbs that work like "ukan" and some examples?

[hodeiki]

So pretty much I should just use "zu" and not "hi"?

In Google I found this thread about the "hi" form (on a different forum - not as good as Unilang, obviously ;P). You can see what some other Basque speakers say about it there.

Also, you never answered my question about whether the pronouns matched up with the correct verb in that table thing I made.

Nik dakit
Hik dakik/n
Hark daki
Guk dakigu
Zuk dakizu
Zuek dakizue
Haiek dakite

In the sentence "Ez dakizkit zuen izenak." why is it "zuen" and not "zure"? I thought only one element carried the number, like "auto horiek" or "ordenagailu berriak".

Quevenois already answered that one, but this is what somebody said about the origin of "hi" in the thread I linked to above:

"By the way, do you know the origin of why hi is so colloquial?
Before, hi was the normal "you", and zu meant plural you. So zu was used as a formal way for singular "you", but finally it was so common that people understood it as singular you, and hi became an informal singular you. As this happened Basque had no plural you and zuek appeared, a kind of "zu" in plural."

Also, in 2 syllable words, is the stress on the 1st or 2nd syllable? In the Ikasten course, it seems to be either, although I could be wrong.

I'm not sure about that, I think it depends on the word. Probably better to wait for Arabarra because in my current frazzled-brain state of mind I'm not entirely sure what you mean with the other question.

[hodeiki]

667 messages

I was going to say "now 668, the number of the Beast's next-door neighbour", but you've already moved up the street a bit .

Eta benetan deabruaren aldamenekoa izango bazina?... And if you really were the Devil's next-door neighbour?...

<toc toc>
Zu: Barkatu jauna, badakit oso berandu dela, baina...
Deabrua: Jo! Eta oraingoan zer? Berriz ere belarra mozteko makina eskatzen, eh?
Zu: Ez, ordu honetan noski ezetz...
Deabrua: Beraz?
Zu: Ba... zera... Musika pixka bat jaitsiko zenuke, mesedez? Horrelako zaratarekin ezinezkoa da lo egitea...
Deabrua: ZER??? "Zarata" diok? "Eurovision Abestirik Onenak" diskoa ez duk hire gustukoa, ala?
Zu: Egia esan, ez. Gainera, umeak eskola dauka bihar eta emaztea...
Deabrua: Lasai, lasai... Ondo zegok. Oraintxe konponduko diat.
Zu: Orduan, baietz jaitsiko duzu? Eskerrik asko, jauna!
Deabrua: Benetan jaistea nahi duk, ezta? Jaisteko esan duk?
Zu: Eh, bai...
Deabrua: Oso ondo. Beraz, hi et biok oraintxe bertan infernura jaitsiko gaituk, bale?
Zu: Mesedez, ez ez... Arghhhhhhh!

<iratzargailuaren hotsa>
(Esnatu zara, ohean, dirudienez ametsgaizto bat besterik ez da izan)
Zu: Jo, zelako amets beldurgarria! Laztana, esnatu mesedez, besarkada baten premian nago eta! Laztana!
Emaztea: [deabruaren hotsa] Aizak, kendu zarata, txo.... Bestela ez haiz inoiz infernutik aterako. MUAJAJAJA.
Zu: Arghhhhhhhh!

Lol, sorry about that surreal interlude, but I thought it would be a good idea to write some Basque in the posts to practise... even if it's only strange, random dialogues (give it a go ). I've been trying to learn the "hitano" forms so I included some of them in there (in bold). Okay, think I should stop here (I'll include a translation on request :p).

Gero arte.

[arabarra]

hodeiki! that was amazing? Let alone the perfect basque... the very narration is great!

[hodeiki]

Mila esker arabarra! (your comment has made my day :D)

I've been watching a cartoon series in Basque and noticed that the "baddies" (monsters and suchlike) always use the hika, regardless of who they are talking to. So I thought that the devil would probably use it when talking to his wimpy next-door neighbour :P. I still haven't learnt the more complicated hitano forms, though, just the most common ones. Last night I downloaded another TV series, an EITB comedy called "Brinkola", but could hardly understand any of it :/ (although to be honest it didn't seem very funny).

[Sean of the Dead]

Unanswered questions:

And I was wondering about the word "eta", and how it most likely came from the Latin "et". Did Aquitanian or Proto-Basque have a native word for "and" that was somehow lost, or is it just a huge coincidence they are similar?

Some pronunciation questions: What's the IPA for "laranja"? With words that end in <a> and <e>, are they pronounced like normal or are they schwas? Or, is <e> /ɛ/ at the end of words or /e/?

Ok thanks, but what are the verbs that work like "ukan" and some examples? (meaning that have a root in the middle, an object before and subject after) Are all the synthetic/do only synthetic verbs do that?

And hodeiki, I'm sure that dialog is nice and all, but in my question thread is not the place to put it.

[hodeiki]

And hodeiki, I'm sure that dialog is nice and all, but in my question thread is not the place to put it.

Agian hurrengoa beste leku batean sartuko dut.
Maybe Arabarra or someone else can help you with those etymological/pronunciation questions. For Basque verb info, the Wikipedia article looks quite in-depth.

[arabarra]

Hi!

well, I am just a Basque speaker... I am not so aware of ethimological aspects, I'll be glad if someone knows something about it. But I can share my speculations with you (for me it is the funny part of learning languages!)


I confess, I have occasionally wondered if our "eta" comes from the latin "et". On the one side looks like original Basque should have hade its own word for such a basic concept. But when I think about it... well, having a word for "and" is not really necessary for communication. It does not really convey usefull information! Japanese, for instance, does not have a translation for a generic "and" (there are several similar ones, though), so that perhaps the idea of ancient Basques borrowing the word -and the very concept- from Latin is not so surprising. Let see if someone can enlighten us...

About the verbs, the information that hodeiki found looks comprehensive... as an abstract I would say that you only need to care about

jakin, ekarri, eraman, (eroan in Biscaye), erabili... and perhaps some two or three others

all the other nor-nork verbs just use the auxiliar "ukan"

[Quevenois]

Ok.

[arabarra]

Hi!

is that so with Persian and Turkish? Interesting... who borrowed it from whom?

And if it is so, well, why couldn't it be the case with Basque? Ancient Basques could just have said, ey, these sophisticated, charming guys that build aqueducts and roads between slaughter and slaughter seem to have a lot of fun with this copulative conjunction things... they do not have any real meaning, but they are nice and fashionable... let us use them too!

[Quevenois]

Hi!

is that so with Persian and Turkish? Interesting... who borrowed it from whom?

from the Arabic language. If i remember well, it's "ve" in Turkish, and "va" or "o" in Persian, all from Arabic "wa".

[Sean of the Dead]

I'm getting back into Basque!

Does anyone happen to know what book this chart Hodeiki posted back in June came from? I'd love you have it.

http://www.unilang.org/download/file.php?id=175&mode=view

Also, why is "I love you" "Maite zaitut"? "Maite" is supposedly transitive, but seems like a mix of transitivity. :/

What's confusing me is this, from the online Morris dictionary:

1. maite izan ( du/ad. ) , maitatu; I ~ you maite zaitut;

The use of "izan" suggests that "maite" is intransitive, but the entry is labelled "transitive". What doesn't make sense is that in the example, "maite zaitut", "maite" uses "ukan", and it's not conjugated for present tense. It just makes no sense.

[ilun]

Hi Sean,

I think that chart came from an "introduction to Basque" course on some website. Unfortunately I can't find it in my bookmarks, but will post the address here if I come across it again.

I'm not great with grammatical explanations, so wait for better answers, but about "maite izan"...

The "du" in brackets means that you use the nor-nork (absolutive-ergative) auxiliary form = ukan, transitive izan, or however you want to call it. So you've got a subject (nork) and a direct object (nor).

You don't conjugate "maite" because it's not a verb by itself, just the word for "love". "To love" = maite + izan/ukan.

So... "maite zaitut" (subject: I, direct object: you) = I love you, "maite nauzu" = you love me, "maite ditut zure begiak" = I love your eyes, etc.

You can see in the dictionary it also lists the verb "maitatu", which is obviously derived from "maite". So you could also say "maitatzen zaitut" = I love you ...but from what I've seen, the other form is much more common.

Btw, it works the same with hate (gorroto)... gorroto zaitut = I hate you, gorroto ditugu politikariak = we hate politicians, etc.

[arabarra]

yep... actually I´d say Sean is a new victim of a the Ukan/Izan disease that has been attacking the pedagogy of Basque since a long time...

Well, what I mean is that, when you start to learn Basque, one of the first things presented to you are the most funddamental verbs: to be (izan: naiz, zara, da... ) and to have (ukan: dut, duzu, du...). This is an easy way to present the forms, because it mimics the "normal" way in other languages: An infinitiv form (izan/ukan) and its conjugated forms (naiz etc/dut etc.).

It probably works well to held first learners memorizing basic words, but the deeper structure is not so directly translatable: what we have in Basque is a lot of flexions of an auxiliar verb that additionally can have some additional lexical values in some cases. Dut, zitzaidan, zara... all of them are auxiliary verbal forms. And one can say perfectly that they are forms of "izan", when it works as an auxiliary verb (and not conveying the meaning "to be"). "ukan" is not really necessary in this game.


The word "ukan" itself is actually very rarely used in peninsular Basque, being rather bound to french dialects (I am not sure if Nabarre people use it) ...

[OrE]

I would like to add I've never heard 'ukan' other than for explaining this auxiliary transitive forms.

The word 'maite' means 'beloved'. You don't say naturally "I love you" in basque but "You are beloved to me". You can say 'Maitatzen zaitut' but sounds really weird to me.

[YngNghymru]

Actually I would be surprised if "eta" was a borrowing from Latin. I can't think of any language that has borrowed his "and" word from another language (except maybe Persian and Turkish)...

Sumerian did too. It had an agglutinative 'and' word (with a host of other meanings) that stuck itself onto the connected nouns and also a free-standing conjunction, 'e', borrowed from Akkadian. This may have happened post-extinction, but I don't think so.

[Sean of the Dead]

It's not "e", it's "u₃".

[Sean of the Dead]

Could someone please translate and gloss these 2 lines from "Oh' Lur!" by Urtz? I tried to translate them on my own, but fhey don't make sense to me.

Geurea dena lapurtzen uzteagatik,
geure izaerari uko egiteagatik.

Which dialect(s) has /ʒ/ for the pronunciation of <j>? Also, does anyone know or any books (like grammars, wordlists, or anything) in any language for Souletin?