No comments about Texts, Documents and Extracts: Bible Ot (Anecdota Oxoniensia Medieval and Modern Series Vol 10).

No comments about Assimil Language Course : Iniciacion al Euskara (Basque for Spanish Speakers - Book and three audio compact discs.

No comments about THE SPANISH LANGUAGE TOGETHER WITH PORTUGUESE, CATALAN, AND BASQUE.

No comments about An introduction to the Basque language,: Labourdin dialect.

1 comments about MLS Easy Immersion Basque Pro.

1. I've studied many languages (Spanish, German, Russian, Japanese, Chinese). I've used many software packages that claim to teach a foreign language. None of been very good, but MLS Easy Immersion Basque Pro is by far both the worst of the lot and also the worst commercial software I've ever encountered. It is not user friendly. It is not easy to navigate. The speech assessment function does not display the proper written word while teaching one to pronounce. For example, when it teaches you to pronounce one word, it displays the spelling of a different word.
   
   The software really doesn't teach you anything. It is a disorganized collection of tests and malfunctioning audio. I assess its worth at zero.
   
   I'd like to return it, but it is difficult to return software. I'm thinking of keeping it to show people what bad software looks like.

No comments about Talk Now! Basque.

No comments about Learning Basque CDs & text.

3 comments about Odysseus and the Sea Peoples: A Bronze Age History of Scotland.

1. 
   ...until I hold my breath.
   
   A century ago Samuel Butler built a case that "The Odyssey" was written by a woman in Sicily. George Bernard Shaw listened to one of Butler's lectures and became convinced. Robert Graves, author of "I, Claudius" was sufficiently intrigued that he later wrote a novel with Butler's claims as the basis. Whether true or not, it's generally agreed that "The Iliad" had a different, earlier author.
   
   However, the gyst of this book is that the story of Odysseus was borrowed by the Greeks from the British Isles, and that when restored to what is in Nyland's opinion their correct context, 1000 years is added to Scottish and Irish history. In a way, Nyland follows a number of others before him, such as whoever claimed that someone named Brutus fled Troy and founded Britain, or Vergil who composed "The Aeneid" to create a mythic past for Rome, or even those who sinisterly claim that somehow the Europeans are the real Jews and the modern Jews imposters, or Martin Bernal who claims all kinds of things.
   
   Following an historian named Edward Furlong, Nyland finds the supposed British roots to placenames and other words in the Odyssey. He also links the ancient Ogam inscriptions of the Celts (a writing system that is quite pre-Roman, not "early Christian" as Nyland states, and found throughout western Europe at the very least) with Basque. He assures us that the tale has been "dreadfully distorted and added to", which is something I'd apply to Nyland's book.
   
   It's still worth reading, because of the actual historical details he includes, and entertaining because of his unsubstantiated leaps. Go ahead, give it a try.
   
   Nyland used to have a website only. The website was still up last I checked, complete with the warning that he isn't "Dr. Edo Nyland, professor emeritus of geo-physics at the University of Alberta".
   
   



2. Attempting to illuminate the links between Marija Gimbutas' Old Europe and the birth of Western Civilization, Nyland focuses on the Homeric epic of the Odyssey to show how it was transposed in locale from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, from goddess worshipping sea-farers to patriarchal culture heroes. His primary tool is an idiosyncratic linguistic analysis of geographic names based on the Basque language, backed up with a close reading of the text. His speculations on the origins and diaspora of the Sea Peoples, Odysseus' kin, becomes a revelation with immense historical ramifications.



3. First, from the product description here at Amazon:
   
   "His next effort is expected to be the translation of the 1200-year-old Aurai'cept na n' ees, the operations manual of the Benedectine monks. It was writte in codified Basque shorthand and promises to be very time-consuming."
   
   This is nonsense. The 'Aurai'cept na n' ees' [sic], or more properly the 'Auraicept na n-Éces', is a 7th century Irish text, and most certainly not written in Basque. The 'Auraicept na n-Éces' is a grammar text with some valuable parts dealing with old Irish ogham.
   
   Second, the book itself: more nonsense. It is nothing but strongly revisionist history that M. Gimbutas would have adored during the last ten years of her career. I would put it nearly on a par with the Oera Linda hoax, except that the author of this text seems genuinely serious about what is being written.
   
   Reviewing it in any more depth than this would be a waste of time.

No comments about The Sardine Deception.

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