1 comments about Europa Vasconica-Europa Semitica (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs).

1. Europa Vasconica-Europa Semitica (Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs) (Hardcover) by Theo Vennemann, Patrizia Noel Aziz Hanna, Patrizia Noel (Editor), 2001.
   
   Professor Vennemann carefully unearthes the most fundamental linguistic substratum in Europe, the one made so unique not only by virtue of Eliade's babylonian and cosmogonic views, but also by the last glaciation. Theo Vennemann is a genius. And I weigh my words. Mais les grands génies ne se trompent jamais à demi. Ils ont le privilège de l'énormité en chaque sens.
   
   The Vasconic element in Europe's oldest hydronims is not matched by a putative proto-Semitic adstratum but by the language of the famous pan-mediteranean culture of the Eye Goddess. This is anterior to the proto-Semitic manifestations in Africa and the Fertile Crescent, as the Berber, the " Altlantic " and the Glozelian " alphabets " stand as the ever lasting proof.
   
   In truth, quasi-Nostratic common roots for the kinship of Sem and Japhetus are found even in the least Indo-European of the European languages ( ironically, I name here German ). But these are anterior to the manifestations of Semitic languages in the Fertile Crescent and indeed, may have produced them, as the recently but definitively proven spread of Old European Script in the Middle East through the Minoan and the Hittite Civilizations stand proof.
   
   It is indeed Aramean, in the very special sense of Barth (1861) and Streck ( Klio, 6, 1906) or even the " Atlantic " language per se ( meaning the language of the Glozelian, Lepenski-Virian and Azilian communities ) that preceded indo-Europeans as the universal langage of Old Europe, also characterized by a common script, the Old European Script, the mother of them all.
   
   This controversial inversion of paradigms left aside, the book is a feast in intellectual pursuits, an authoritative, inspired, documented, somptuous and pleasurable reading. It was thanks to Professor Vennemann that the word root for my own trade, medical, was discovered. It was Vasconian for " making complete " and I was indebted to the genius of Vennemann to discover that Daco-Romanian " bade " is also of that kind.
   
   ISBN : 311017054X, BOBE-5258-REFS-0001, RANK : #2,118,611, 628 pages, unique edition mixing German and English texts.

No comments about Standard Basque: A Progressive Grammar (Current Studies in Linguistics).

No comments about Obabakoak.

3 comments about Beginner's Basque (Hippocrene Beginner).

1. I have several of the Hippocrene books, such as the beginner's book on Arabic and their Spanish Grammar, which is the best brief grammar of Spanish that I have, and their language books are some of the best values out there considering the quality and features you get for the price.

   This is another fine book from Hippocrene on Basque, or Euskara, as the Basques call it, a language that is uniquely different from the other European languages. Basque is what linguists call an ergative language, unlike most Indo-European languages. In fact, Basque is the only ergative language in Europe. In ergative languages, the subject is marked with an agentive prefix or postfix, so that the direct object of a transitive verb has the same case as the subject of an intransitive verb. This is what is called the ergative case, and its case marker is different from the absolutive case for subjects of transitive verbs.

   There are three grammatical cases in Basque, the ergative, absolutive, and dative, although there is something that could be called the vocative, too. And there is something called the partitive although it is not a true grammatical case since it has a semantic meaning and not a pure grammatical function. The ergative case is marked with what is called an "epenthetic" k at the end of the word. Epenthetic letters occur in Basque when certain word syllables or word morphomes adjacent to each are forbidden, and so an extra letter is inserted in between.

   One odd aspect of Basque transitive verbs is known as "weather predicates." A transitive verb, for those whose grammar is a little rusty, is one that takes a direct object, as opposed to an intransitive verb, which doesn't. For example, In the sentence, John died, "died" is an intransitive verb. In the sentence "John threw the ball to Richard," "threw" is the transitive verb and "ball" is the direct object, since it's receiving the action. Richard is the indirect object.

   So in Basque, one can say,

   Gorbeian elurra egiten du neguan
   'In Gorbea, it snows in the winter'
   (literally: 'In Gorbea, (it) makes (a) snow in winter')

   (I thank Itziar Laka of the University of the Basque Country for this example and information on weather predicates from his Basque or Euskara webpage.)

   What this shows is that there are no true weather verbs in Euskara. Rather, weather predicates are composed of the verb "egin," 'to make, do,' and the corresponding weather noun in a determined noun phrase, which is declined in the absolutive case.

   Basque also has several other unique features among the Indo-European languages. It lacks the passive voice, and another oddity is that there are no reflexive pronouns such as myself/himself/herself/ourselves/themselves, although it has the standard set of pronouns. In an interesting article on Basque, Jon Patrick, a professor of psycholinguistics, points out, "Generally it can be said that Euskara (or Basque) has a limited vocabulary but a comprehensive set of grammar rules that makes language generation a highly constructive/creative act, whereas English relies on an extensive vocabulary to provide a breadth of expression. To my mind this feature makes Euskara a more powerful language than English, for example, one word in Euskara can have up to 458,653 different forms just using up to 2 levels of recursion of the standard suffixes."

   So Basque is a fascinating and even unique language among the many more famous European languages, and I wanted to include the above information in my review to perhaps pique your curiousity and motivate you to learn a little more about Basque if only for that, and this is an excellent beginner's book that should serve you very well in that regard. Each chapter will help you progressively build your Basque skill, and contains vocabulary building lists, discussions of the grammar, and exercises and drills to reinforce the concepts presented in the test. The grammar is presented as it is need to understand what is going on in the conversations and phrases, so it's not a rigorous approach to the grammar, but it's fine for a beginner's book like this. But if you're like me and you want a more systematic treatment of the grammar, you'll probably supplement this book with a real grammar book on Basque on the side.

   Hence, throughout the book, you'll find discussions on such topics as inflections or declensions of nouns and adjectives, verb conjugations and how to form the present, past, future, and conditional of verbs, and other topics on grammar. So overall, another excellent beginer's language book from Hippocrene. Once you've mastered this book you should be ready to go on to the intermediate level in your Basque studies.




2. The author of this book makes reference to my online grammar of Basque (just type Basque grammar in your favourite search engine and you'll find it free in the internet): the author thanks "...itziar laka for his examples..." (just see below in the summary of the book).
   Two remarks:
   (1) Do please never refer to a person whose gender you don't know assuming maleness; througout my academic life I have been transformed into a man by strangers a few times; it is most disturbing, and makes women even less visible than we already are.
   (2) I happen to be a woman; anyone familiar with Basque culture, not even necessarily a speaker of the language knows that Itziar is a very stereotipycal female name among us (Itziar is in fact a very common and widespread Basque name, inside and outside the Basque Country, just type it in your search engine again). The fact that the author of a Basque grammar does not know this makes it extremely doubtful (or alternatively awfully surprising) that the material is either reliable or first-hand, or even both.



3. I have seen this book in the store and the library, but do not own a copy. HOWEVER, the reason I am adding a 5-star review is to correct a wrong inflicted on this author by a supposed Basque expert with apparently very low ethics and credibility herself.
   
   The reviewer named Laka gave this book a 1-star rating even though she admits she has never read it. She is basing her "review" on a misunderstanding. She thinks the author referred to her name Itziar as masculine when she is a woman and that is apparently a common woman's name in the Basque country. What a stupid reason to give a book you have never seen a low grade.
   
   In reality, it was NOT the author who referenced Itziar as masculine, but another online reviewer (who was being complimentary of her, I might add). The author of this book makes no mention of this Itziar Laka anywhere. He has been wrongly accused by an ignorant college professor.
   
   A reader posted a comment to her bad review trying to alert her to her error. I went further and tracked down her e-mail and sent her a polite note explaining her error. She has ignored these and let her 1-star review stand. Thus the reason for my 5-star effort to make up for her error.
   
   Hope this all makes sense. It's a good book from all I can tell and considering the dearth of materials for Basque, we should be thankful it exists at all.

5 comments about Colloquial Basque: A Complete Language Course (Colloquial Series (Book Only)).

1. Alan King made a very good manual, it is hard to make something like this for the language that is not similar to anything we know, but however it is really easy to learn basque with his book.



2. I recently bought this book and tape to prepare for my trip to Euskal Herria. I read the book a few times and listened to the tape when I was at work or around the house. For every bit of effort I put into learning, my reward was 100%.

   Although I had never studied Spanish or Euskera before, these tapes helped me get by. When I arrived in San Sebastian, I found that the tape was extremely accurate in the way people spoke. I kept popping out little phrases I had memorized from the tape. These helped me with the necessities, like greetings, asking directions, and finding what I needed in San Sebastian.

   It's amazing how far I was able to stretch a conversation just by knowing the basics and the functional words. Once I got past the day-to-day survival, I really began to learn the language.

   Once I began to learn the language, people opened up to me in a way they never would have to an English- or Spanish-speaker. Euskera is undergoing a huge revival and it is exciting to be a part of that. And the Basque people will love you for showing them the respect to try to learn their language.

   I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in the language or is planning on visiting Euskal Herria. It will give you the base to begin communicating much sooner and at a deeper level.




3. I recently bought this book and tape to prepare for my trip to the Basque Country. I read the book a few times and listened to the tape in the background at work and home. For every bit of effort I put into learning Basque, the reward was 100%.

   When I got to San Sebastian, I found that people spoke very much like they did on the tapes. Even though I had never studied Basque or Spanish prior to buying the tapes I was able to get around. I was able to ask for directions, greet and introduce myself, and buy food. By the time I arrived, I had heard the tapes so much that little phrases kept popping out.

   Having this as a base I was able to begin speaking to people both quicker and at a deeper level. It was amazing how far I could stretch a conversation based on simple grammar and vocabulary.

   Once I became to speak some of their language, the Basque people really opened up to me. They really appreciated the effort I made to learn their language. And now is a great time to learn Basque. It is undergoing a revival so both kids and adults are going to school to learn Basque.

   This book and tape helped me a lot! Now that I am home I still listen to the tapes to refresh my memory. To the authors I say eskerrik asko!!




4. [Thoroughly revised on 2008-05-15]
   This course is designed for anyone who wishes to learn the basics of Basque for travel or further study. It is both practical, with broad coverage of basic grammar and expressions you would be likely to need, and at the same time linguistically sound, with clear explanations of the grammar. And it's got tapes.
   
   There are twelve units in the book, most of which begin with a dialogue and a list of vocabulary used in the dialogue. These are followed by sections entitled "Doing things with words", "Saying what you mean", "Grammatical nuts and bolts" and similar headings, and containing a mixture of useful structures and vocabulary. Many of these also have short exercises, the answers to which are in the back of the book. A second dialogue is followed by similar grammar and vocabulary sections, and finally a culture section ("Language and Life") with more, slightly less useful vocabulary.
   
   The dialogue follows the story of Elin, from Wales, who is visiting the Basque Country. Thankfully for the reader she is treated as nearly Basque, so we are spared the excesses found in some language courses. However, there is still a strong emphasis on topics such as travelling around and meeting people. The dialogues appear to be relatively natural, but they do seem to lack many useful phrases.
   
   Unit 8 replaces the dialogue with a longer text, which seems a little out of place. There are also no lists of the vocabulary used in the text of Unit 8 or of any dialogues in the latter part of the book, which makes looking up vocabulary rather more tiresome. Those following this course will probably want to purchase a dictionary, since much of the vocabulary isn't listed in the vocabulary section at the back of the book either. (I would somewhat cautiously suggest buying the more expensive Basque-English dictionary by Aulestia and White, and perhaps its English-Basque counterpart, rather than the cheap and nasty two-in-one dictionary I opted for. There is also a good online Morris Student Plus dictionary at [...]
   
   For people wishing to learn Basque, especially outside the Basque country, the options are limited. Basque is not an easy language for English speakers to learn, but those wishing to come to grips with the language will find that Alan King and Begotxu Olaizola Elordi's course provides a practical introduction to the language.



5. I have used a lot of language tools and classes, and this is hands down the most confusing. Maybe I'm a slower study than the others who reviewed this book, but learning seems quite inefficient. This is because grammar is not explained well (often times the explanations are incomplete, or the reader is told to just "study these examples") and the topics seem to bounce around. That's unfortunate, because Basque is so different from English. A more intuitive unfolding of grammar would help the reader a lot. I've learnt Greek and Japanese with greater ease, and I would guess that those languages are just as difficult for the native English speaker. Unfortunately, there's really not much of a choice for anyone who wants to learn Basque -- there's just nothing out there.

5 comments about Lonely Planet Europe Phrasebook.

1. This book has several advantages over other phrasebooks:
   * Its got most of Europe (except Eastern) covered, including Irish!
   * It is small - about the size of two decks of cards.
   * It has the english phrase, the phrase in the translated language and then in blue how you actually pronounce the phrase. The pronunciations are spot on - the best thing about this book.
   * It has phrases on absolutely everything - I even got to use my Greek phrase for "I would not like it extracted please" when I spoke to a greek student at the Oktoberfest who was studying dentistry. Everything's covered: getting on buses, going to the laundromat, getting directions, etc. About 20 pages on each language with everything that you will need to get by for a while.
   * It's cheap and all in one book.
   * A must have for anybody going to Europe who doesn't speak all their languages - I think that's everyone.



2. If you plan to travel all over Europe, this book may get you through and save the time and trouble of carrying a different phrasebook for each country. It is small, just slightly larger than the average palm and full of basic phrases.
   It doesn't cover every language but DOES include Basque, Catalan, Welsh, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, Dutch, French, German and a wealth of others.
   WHat I especially liked:
   1. The tips on how to break the ice in each country and join in conversations
   2.Menu decoders and suggestions for each country
   3.Essential words to get you through transportation checkpoints and on your way
   4. Some of the basic sports and festivals in each country.
   5. Written FOR the traveler with a strong emphasis on the most essential situations when a phrasebook might be needed.



3. it is great to see the smaller langauges of Europe in this guide!!
   
   WE DO EXIST REMEMBER!!
   
   Irish, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Basque and Catalan take their positions as European languages of note!
   
   All BRITISH and SPANISH people should know some words in THEIR lesser used languages! Otherwise they are not really British/Spanish!!!



4. An excellent quick reference for all your travel language necessities in Europe. And it's a handy little size too.



5. I love this book. It's taken me from Ireland to France, Belgium, England, Wales, the Neathelands and countries in-between. It's tiny and is filled with helpful phrases in an easy-to-read format. Also, it's very durable. I love all Lonely Planet books!
   
   Helpful tip: I always cover my phrasebooks with a plain cover to avoid standing out as a tourist.

4 comments about The Basque Language: A Practical Introduction (The Basque Series).

1. This book is an excellent refence book if one wants to use it in this manner. I have this book and have enjoyed it. The only problem I have is that there isn't any tapes that come with it so that a person can hear what the language sounds like. However, the author has remedied this with a slightly less expensive language learning set called "Colloquial Basque" that contains tapes so you can hear the Basque language spoken. This set happens to cost much less. If you want to find it here, just look up the title and you will be able to see the price for it here at amazon.com



2. There are no other Basque language textbooks to speak of, so this one is necessarily the best, because it is a competent attempt. If you're a serious learner, this book will put you a good ways towards achieving your goal.



3. Well there are not many Basque grammars available owing, I assume, mainly to Basque's relative obscurity. In this grammar, however, Alan King has managed to organize the grammar well for those who are just beginning to study the language (i.e. a properly ascending difficulty level), yet also includes a good amount of information for those who want it, from cultural notes to the differences between the different Basque dialects.
   
   The book includes a written conversation in almost every chapter, which is followed by new vocabulary. Next comes a number of grammar points with practice (answers to the questions are found in the back of the book). There are also review chapters which allow the student to review the grammar and vocabulary from previous chapters.
   
   Finally, there is a reference section at the back of the book, which contains anything from an elementary reading section to an explanation of the semi-complicated Basque verb system (it also includes a pronunciation guideline, rules for sentence structure, small dictionary for important words used in the book)
   
   Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and found it helpful for my purposes. It reminded me structurally of Wheelock's Latin. My only complaint would be that I would have liked to have more examples of some of the more complicated grammar points. This, however, is to be expected given that this grammar is only intended as an introduction.



4. This coursebook is by the same author as Colloquial Basque, but content overlap is minimised and the style of the two books differs somewhat. The present book is a much heftier work, but is also a much drier read. Although I've given it four stars, I would recommend it only for more serious students, who have few alternatives anyway. Colloquial Basque, which comes with tapes and a generally more modern style, would be more suitable for most other people.
   
   The best feature of The Basque Language: A Practical Introduction is the grammar section at the end of the book. This provides a handy summary of all the grammatical points which appear in the book, and includes a general explanation of their use. The book also includes a selection of readings, with various passages about the Basque Country and related topics (some of them by King himself), excerpts from a play and several novels, and a selection of both traditional and more modern songs.
   
   The units themselves mostly consist of a short dialogue followed by grammatical notes and exercises. Unfortunately the grammar sections and exercises are all mixed in together, and there are no fun headings ("Saying what you mean", "Doing things with words") such as appear in Colloquial Basque. Apart from making the chapters less interesting, this can also make it more difficult to find things in preceding chapters. Explanation of the grammar is also often poor or lacking altogether, although thorough explanation is provided at the back of the book.
   
   Serious students of Basque will find this book to be an invaluable reference. Many people, however, will find Colloquial Basque to be a more practical introduction to the language.

3 comments about Beginner's Basque (Hippocrene Beginner's).

1. I have several of the Hippocrene books, such as the beginner's book on Arabic and their Spanish Grammar, which is the best brief grammar of Spanish that I have, and their language books are some of the best values out there considering the quality and features you get for the price.

   This is another fine book from Hippocrene on Basque, or Euskara, as the Basques call it, a language that is uniquely different from the other European languages. Basque is what linguists call an ergative language, unlike most Indo-European languages. In fact, Basque is the only ergative language in Europe. In ergative languages, the subject is marked with an agentive prefix or postfix, so that the direct object of a transitive verb has the same case as the subject of an intransitive verb. This is what is called the ergative case, and its case marker is different from the absolutive case for subjects of transitive verbs.

   There are three grammatical cases in Basque, the ergative, absolutive, and dative, although there is something that could be called the vocative, too. And there is something called the partitive although it is not a true grammatical case since it has a semantic meaning and not a pure grammatical function. The ergative case is marked with what is called an "epenthetic" k at the end of the word. Epenthetic letters occur in Basque when certain word syllables or word morphomes adjacent to each are forbidden, and so an extra letter is inserted in between.

   One odd aspect of Basque transitive verbs is known as "weather predicates." A transitive verb, for those whose grammar is a little rusty, is one that takes a direct object, as opposed to an intransitive verb, which doesn't. For example, In the sentence, John died, "died" is an intransitive verb. In the sentence "John threw the ball to Richard," "threw" is the transitive verb and "ball" is the direct object, since it's receiving the action. Richard is the indirect object.

   So in Basque, one can say,

   Gorbeian elurra egiten du neguan
   'In Gorbea, it snows in the winter'
   (literally: 'In Gorbea, (it) makes (a) snow in winter')

   (I thank Itziar Laka of the University of the Basque Country for this example and information on weather predicates from his Basque or Euskara webpage.)

   What this shows is that there are no true weather verbs in Euskara. Rather, weather predicates are composed of the verb "egin," 'to make, do,' and the corresponding weather noun in a determined noun phrase, which is declined in the absolutive case.

   Basque also has several other unique features among the Indo-European languages. It lacks the passive voice, and another oddity is that there are no reflexive pronouns such as myself/himself/herself/ourselves/themselves, although it has the standard set of pronouns. In an interesting article on Basque, Jon Patrick, a professor of psycholinguistics, points out, "Generally it can be said that Euskara (or Basque) has a limited vocabulary but a comprehensive set of grammar rules that makes language generation a highly constructive/creative act, whereas English relies on an extensive vocabulary to provide a breadth of expression. To my mind this feature makes Euskara a more powerful language than English, for example, one word in Euskara can have up to 458,653 different forms just using up to 2 levels of recursion of the standard suffixes."

   So Basque is a fascinating and even unique language among the many more famous European languages, and I wanted to include the above information in my review to perhaps pique your curiousity and motivate you to learn a little more about Basque if only for that, and this is an excellent beginner's book that should serve you very well in that regard. Each chapter will help you progressively build your Basque skill, and contains vocabulary building lists, discussions of the grammar, and exercises and drills to reinforce the concepts presented in the test. The grammar is presented as it is need to understand what is going on in the conversations and phrases, so it's not a rigorous approach to the grammar, but it's fine for a beginner's book like this. But if you're like me and you want a more systematic treatment of the grammar, you'll probably supplement this book with a real grammar book on Basque on the side.

   Hence, throughout the book, you'll find discussions on such topics as inflections or declensions of nouns and adjectives, verb conjugations and how to form the present, past, future, and conditional of verbs, and other topics on grammar. So overall, another excellent beginer's language book from Hippocrene. Once you've mastered this book you should be ready to go on to the intermediate level in your Basque studies.




2. The author of this book makes reference to my online grammar of Basque (just type Basque grammar in your favourite search engine and you'll find it free in the internet): the author thanks "...itziar laka for his examples..." (just see below in the summary of the book).
   Two remarks:
   (1) Do please never refer to a person whose gender you don't know assuming maleness; througout my academic life I have been transformed into a man by strangers a few times; it is most disturbing, and makes women even less visible than we already are.
   (2) I happen to be a woman; anyone familiar with Basque culture, not even necessarily a speaker of the language knows that Itziar is a very stereotipycal female name among us (Itziar is in fact a very common and widespread Basque name, inside and outside the Basque Country, just type it in your search engine again). The fact that the author of a Basque grammar does not know this makes it extremely doubtful (or alternatively awfully surprising) that the material is either reliable or first-hand, or even both.



3. I have seen this book in the store and the library, but do not own a copy. HOWEVER, the reason I am adding a 5-star review is to correct a wrong inflicted on this author by a supposed Basque expert with apparently very low ethics and credibility herself.
   
   The reviewer named Laka gave this book a 1-star rating even though she admits she has never read it. She is basing her "review" on a misunderstanding. She thinks the author referred to her name Itziar as masculine when she is a woman and that is apparently a common woman's name in the Basque country. What a stupid reason to give a book you have never seen a low grade.
   
   In reality, it was NOT the author who referenced Itziar as masculine, but another online reviewer (who was being complimentary of her, I might add). The author of this book makes no mention of this Itziar Laka anywhere. He has been wrongly accused by an ignorant college professor.
   
   A reader posted a comment to her bad review trying to alert her to her error. I went further and tracked down her e-mail and sent her a polite note explaining her error. She has ignored these and let her 1-star review stand. Thus the reason for my 5-star effort to make up for her error.
   
   Hope this all makes sense. It's a good book from all I can tell and considering the dearth of materials for Basque, we should be thankful it exists at all.

No comments about Basque-English, English-Basque Dictionary (The Basque Series).

No comments about Basque-English English-Basque Dictionary and Phrasebook.