Many outsiders are not aware that Spain has four official languages, each tied to a distinct region and set of autonomous communities. Castellano, or as we Americans would say, “Spanish,” is the most common, native to the central and southwestern regions of the country. While there are notable differences, the Spanish language spoken in Latin America is mostly derived from Castellano.
This post is the first part of a series. To view the second part where I explain “Ongi etorri, egun on, and gabon,” click here.
Catalan is primarily spoken in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and Valencia (where it’s known as Valencian), which lie mostly along the northeastern coast near the French border. Galician is native to Galicia, in the far northwest of Spain, bordering Portugal. These are both romance languages, and therefore share much of their vocabulary and structure with Castellano, while mixing in characteristics of the language of their neighboring countries. While recognizably different languages, if you are aware that “wine and cheese” is vino y queso in Castellano, you should have no problem recognizing viño e queixo in Galician. Likewise, if you know a little French, you should easily recognize vi i formatge in Catalan.
Euskara is the fourth most-spoken within the politically designated boundaries of Spain, and is native to the Basque Country, Euskal Herria, situated along the Bay of Bizkaia, straddling the border of Spain and France. Despite its presence in both countries, Euskara is distinctly not-Spanish, and not-French. In fact, Euskara predates both, as well as Latin, Greek, and all other languages in modern-day Europe. It has little-to-no commonality with romance languages; returning to my earlier example, in Euskara, “wine and cheese” is ardoak eta gazta.
Rachel and I first visited Bilbao (as a couple, Rachel studied abroad here) in 2019, during a six month “sabbatical” from our careers. At that time, Euskara, the ancient Basque language, was a curiosity for us; we’d see the long and complicated names in places such as signs for the metro station (Zazpikaleak, or “Seven Streets,” was closest to the apartment we stayed in), or translations into three languages on municipal buildings. For some time, however, we were under the misconception that it wasn’t all that commonplace in daily life; Castellano remains the most common language here as throughout Spain, and we would routinely hear foreign tongues such as German, French, or Arabic in public. Early on, however, we did not “hear” a great deal of Euskara.
We now attribute this to our early inability to listen for the sonic signature of Euskara. Because it’s used by a population group who are also native speakers of Castellano, if you aren’t paying attention the two sound very similar. Where the words look very different when written down, the basic phonetics and pronunciation remain similar, and again, because it’s the same people, the accent does not change. Over time, we’ve learned to identify conversations in Euskara based on a few common patterns:
- Setting and context: Basques will tend to use Euskara more frequently among friends and family. Not surprisingly, as you would expect one would only use the language in cases where they are confident the recipient will understand them. This extends to our ability to recognize its usage. If we can recognize that a pair of people are familiar with one another, and their accents sound Spanish, they may in fact be speaking in Euskara. This is even more true with children; youth have a higher rate of Euskara fluency than older adults because of its relatively recent emphasis in public education, and young parents will frequently speak to their children in Euskara to bolster this fluency (we’ll observe young parents speaking to their children in three or four languages, for that matter).
- Word endings: While pronunciations are very similar, there are certain patterns that are much more common in Euskara than in Castellano. To me, these are easiest to identify at the end of words. For example, the letter “k” at the end of a word denotes that it is plural, replacing the letter “s” in English or Castellano. Thus, my example of ardoak actually means the plural “wines,” but you rarely ever hear ardoa on its own, since you are buying a round for your neighbors, right? There are also a lot of Euskara words that end in -atu, or with the letter u in general, which is not common practice in Castellano.
- Word replacements: Here is where our actual (limited) understanding of Euskara comes into play; the replacement of certain Castellano words in daily conversation with their Basque equivalents. In this case, we may not recognize 99% of the words we are hearing, however, having encountered certain common words like bat (one) or bai (yes) being frequently substituted in for their Castellano counterpart, we’ve grown to be able to pick them out from an actual Euskara sentence.
Over time we have observed the impact of Euskara on the culture of the people and the city of Bilbao. The language itself might be the most critical part of the Basque identity, and where a couple of generations ago that language was under threat by the fascist Franco regime, today, it is growing back into its rightful place as a mainstream tongue in the region. Among our older neighbors, whose usage of Euskara was suppressed under Franco, the few who have true fluency carry their hard-fought knowledge with pride and deep connection to their heritage. Among the youth, Euskara is increasingly a part of daily life, to some it has become ordinary, even boring.
Rachel and I have been talking about taking Euskara classes since we arrived, but have not yet taken that leap. We know it is not easy; reaching any sort of conversational level would be much more than a casual commitment. Still, we have been able to pick up a few words here and there through simple exposure to the community.
Here, and in future posts, I’ll introduce a few of those Euskara words, not just to give their dictionary definitions, but to tell the story of how we came to learn them. This isn’t a list of every Euskara word we know, as you’ll see a number of others that are mentioned in passing, but rather the ones that make their way into everyday life; those that we actually “use,” and those that we think there is some story or significance to how we learned them.
Aupa
Let’s start with a word that isn’t technically Euskara, but is undeniably Basque. We were introduced to the word by Martin, our tour guide for our first hike to the top of Mount Pagasarri, the tallest of the peaks visible from central Bilbao. His instruction was to say it when we passed locals on the trail. Aupa is one of the most common words that you will hear as you wander the streets or the trails anywhere in País Vasco. Typically, the pronunciation (to my American ears), is a bit closer to aww-paw than it is to oh-pa like you might hear at a Greek restaurant in the US.
So, what exactly does aupa mean? Nothing exactly, it’s kind of a catch-all word for a lot of things. Most commonly, its sort of a replacement for “hello,” but it’s not actually the word for “hello” in Euskara (more on that in a future post). Usually it’s more of a casual expression used in passing, like a wave of the hand. Aupa is also an exclamation, particularly around sports-watching, with Aupa Athletic being a common scream during fútbol matches. However you choose to use it, as long as you say it about 100 times per day, you’ll be doing just fine.
Eskerrik Asko
Unlike Aupa, this is an actual expression in Euskara, one that is heard all over, but you have to be paying attention to recognize it. Like much of the spoken Basque language, the accents and pronunciations are such that a casual listener may think they are just hearing Castellano. Because Bilbao has a neighborhood named Casco Viejo (directly translated as “old helmet,” but colloquially “old town”), for a while I thought that people were exclaiming <something> Casco, like maybe “he wants a helmet.” It wouldn’t make sense, I know.
I can’t place an exact moment of when we would have picked up on the meaning of Eskerrik Asko, but it’s prominent placement on bar napkins throughout the city provide a hint. Eskerrik Asko is simply “thank you,” and replaces “gracias” in Bilbao when receiving the kaña and pintxo you just ordered.
(A side note, there are a couple of other Euskara words in the images that don’t make it into our everyday conversations, but we do recognize. Etortzeagatik is essentially “for coming,” completing the napkin expression as “thank you very much for coming.” Which also points to the fact that eskerrik asko is actually “thank you very much,” not just “thank you” on its own. But, we almost never hear eskerrik without asko, the lone exception being the occasional mil eskerrik, meaning “one thousand thank yous,” when one simply isn’t enough. Finally, txapeldunak means “champions,” and derives from another Euskara word, txapela, which is a type of hat typical of País Vasco. So, txapeldunak also means “people wearing hats,” because if you win the championship, then you get to wear the hat.)
Agur
This might actually be the Euskara word we hear with the most frequency around Bilbao. Early on I had the impression it was a shortening of the Spanish hasta luego (meaning “until later,” or “see you later”) to “ha-lu,” which I’ve heard (but not verified) is a practice in northwestern Spain. Going back to how u, endings are common in Euskara, in agur the g and the r are practically (albeit, not completely, and it varies) silent, and so it often comes out sounding a lot like “ah-ooo,” with emphasis on the second syllable.
My most significant memory of hearing agur was on a metro train. We use public transit extensively when getting around the outskirts of the city, and it gives us unique moments to observe the countryside and the people. On this day, a younger woman sat down next to an older one, and after a few minutes realized they knew each-other. As one of them got up, I heard the characteristic, aguuuur, and responding agur, agur, agur. I asked my Spanish teacher the next day in class, and learned that agur means, as you might expect, “goodbye.”
Why would I say that agur is the word we hear most? First of all, while locally much of the commonly used Euskara expressions are split in their usage with their Spanish equivalent (as-in, we don’t strictly use eskerrik asko throughout the day, gracias still sees about a 50% share), agur has almost universally replaced adios. In Bilbao, the word adios practically does not exist, and you will give yourself away as a tourist as soon as you use it.
Secondly, though I mention that agur means goodbye, it also takes on a bit of the Hawaiian “aloha”-like role around here. This caused us a bit of confusion in the early going, as we’d pass someone we know in the street, and their response to our aupa would be a long aguuur. Why would someone be saying goodbye to us when we are first seeing them, are they telling us to go away? We have verified with our neighbor who is a native speaker, while agur primarily means “goodbye,” it’s also perfectly acceptable as a “hello,” particularly when passing someone in the street. Much like aupa, however, it is not actually the word for “hello” in Euskara, but I will save that for a future post.
Finally, one last reason why I believe the usage of agur is so common; I am reasonably confident that it is every Basque baby’s first word, not ama (mother) or aita (father), though those are common as well. I mentioned earlier that young parents will typically speak to their children in Euskara. When a baby is still of stroller age, it is common for older Basques to approach that baby and speak to them in Euskara as well, and 100% of those interactions will involve the adults leaning in and repeating agur, agur, aguuur. Once the children are toddlers, and are starting to speak themselves, many of them will start to wave at passers-by and say agur themselves.
I had a vision that this one post would cover all dozen or so Euskara words that we use, but as I write, I realized I had a bit more to say than I originally thought. Because of this, I decided I will split up into several posts. Perhaps I will add more content about our recently-gained knowledge of the Euskara language in a post next week. In the meantime, aguuuuuuuur.
The above three words may not actually be the first we learned, but they had to be the first three I wrote here. The reason is a film that, at its time, was, at the time, the most popular and profitable Spanish film ever made. In our first several months here, our neighbors routinely told us that we needed to watch it. When they gave us recommendations for which small towns we should visit in the Basque Country, sometimes those recommendations would be accompanied by pointing out that they were in the movie. That movie is Ocho Apellidos Vascos, meaning “Eight Basque Surnames,” though it’s been released in English under the less interesting title, “A Spanish Affair.”
Ocho Apellidos Vascos is not exactly something you would consider high art, it’s basically considered to be a cheesy rom-com, even by the die-hard fans that recommended it to us. At its core, it is a play on Spanish stereotypes, and conversely, stereotypes of the not-Spanish Basques. In the case of the latter, even though those stereotypes could be perceived as joking at the Basque’s expense, in many cases they are spot-on, and to the locals, hilarious. The movie was produced in partnership with Euskadi Irrati Telebista (EITB), the Basque Autonomous Community public media service, so I consider the jokes to be Basque-sanctioned. The EITB partnership also means they make a point to show incredible vistas of beautiful towns in the region, such as the famous town of Getaria, which spurred a massive spike in tourism after the film’s release.
The central storyline of Ocho Apellidos Vascos follows a Spanish man who meets a Basque woman at a bar in Sevilla, the latter having donned a very not-Basque flamenco dress. After she abruptly departs to return to her Basque homeland, he follows, reading a Castellano-to-Euskara translation dictionary on the bus ride. On arrival, through a series of staged events, he ends up in a situation where he must take on a false Basque identity, complete with a set of seven made-up Basque last names (and one Spanish, by mistake, which nearly gives up his ruse).
Among the stereotypes are the radical change in appearance imposed on the main character to fit-in to his imposter Basque role. There’s a moment in the movie where he emerges from his makeover with a spiky punk rock haircut, ripped jean jacket with patches, a Palestinian keffiyeh, and other adornments, looking a bit like an extra in a Billy Idol music video. This is meant to be a caricature of Basque fashion, but to us, it was spot on; walk around Casco Viejo on a Friday night and you really will see kids dressed like that.
So they nailed the appearance, but our lead character’s knowledge of Euskara is, like our own, not-so-great after only having spent one bus ride trying to memorize the dictionary. This leads to numerous set pieces where, to “prove” that he is Basque, he is placed in situations where he must demonstrate his Euskara. In some cases, he wings it by reading generic phrases off of nearby signs. In others, he makes excuses, such as pointing out during a protest that if all of their chants are in Euskara, then the stupid Spaniards won’t know what they’re protesting against. Both spot-on, again; the Basques really do protest every day, they really do chant in Euskara, and I really never know what they’re asking for. On multiple occasions, when pressed into a situation where he must say something in Euskara, he invariably gets frustrated and returns to the only three words he knows:
Aupa, eskerrik asko, agur.
Pingback: The Dozen or so Euskara Words we Know (and Use) in Bilbao, Part 2 – DC Engineer
Pingback: The Dozen or so Euskara Words we Know (and Use) in Bilbao, Part 3 – DC Engineer