Sonarrat,
Even if Basque and Spanish are completely different
gramatically, they are VERY similar phonetically. In fact
one of the reasons why spanish phonetic system is simpler
than let's say Italian, French (and even Catalonian and
Galician - that are in the same family of languages) may be
that Spanish may have been strongly influenced by Basque
speakers in its origin. Spanish was born in the northern
part of Castille, and particularly in a region that would
include the wine region of La Rioja (that includes an small
portion of and has boundary with the basque country). Of
course, then spanish has also strongly influenced basque
current use phonetics (and you will notice the difference if
you hear a french-basque speaker).
Also, even if basque is confined to an small territory,
there are multiple dialects (some of them exclusive to a
village) , and in some villages you may find people that
pronounce the S closer to SH as you describe, but that would
uncommon (so maybe it was excesive to say the sound does not
exist). I think you may found a very 'liquid' S in words
that start with X such as in the name Xabier closer to the
SH sound that any other.
The basque language used in the media and schools and
universities has been standarized by the basque language
academy in a form know as Batua (unified), that is strongly
influence by the dialect that is spoken in the province of
Guipuzcoa. Now, most young people has learnt basque language
taht follows that "standard". If you lisen to Basque TV or
Radio(and they are a good source of cyling information)
I you want to get a feeling for how basque sounds (batua)
(and how it is written), you can listen to the Public Basque
Broadcasting Corporation (Eusko Irratia).
eitb.comeuskaraOpen ↗
Then click on the Euskadi Irratia or the Euskadi Gaztea
buttons on the top right-hand online frame. Check it out!
Also:
I had never hear about the relationship with mongolian...
Recently there has been claims that basques may have been
related to the Berber in north africa, but the language is
considered a family by itself, not related to any other
Indoeuropean language. Probably basques are what is left of
some of the people that lived in the Iberian peninsula
before the Fenicians/Greeks/Romans arrived. It is possible
that there would be other peoples that spoke similar
languages but they were little by little assimilated.
"Sonarrat" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:in article [email hidden]-
online.net, alex at [email hidden] wrote on
5/19/04 5:36 PM:
Quoted message said:It is pronounced this way because it is a typical Basque
name. It is
quite
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:straightforward, it is pronounced [Yose:ba ]. The same
applies for
other
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:cyclist like Somarriba (Joanne) that is pronounced
aproximately Yoanne.
Regarding the SH sound, it does not exist neither in
basque or spanish phonetics.
Are you sure? I have access to a guide to the Basque
language, complete with audio tape, through my library.
According to the guide, the authors
of
Quoted message said:which are Basque, the letter 's' carries a 'sh' sound, and
the letter 'z' sounds like our 's', i.e. straight through
the teeth, and not with an
added
Quoted message said:vibration like the English 'z'.
I don't know exactly how the accenting works, but
"Haimar Zubeldia" is probably pronounced something like
"AIY-mahr SU-bel-di'-a," based on this guide. "Aitor
Silloniz" - "AIY-tor shiy-O-nis." "Joseba Beloki" - "Yo-SHAY-
bah Beh-LOW-key."
I may have my recollection of the time I spent studying
this book all
wrong,
Quoted message said:but it wasn't THAT long ago. Also the Basque language
really has next to nothing to do with Spanish. It has more
in common with traditional Mongolian than Spanish, if you
can believe that...
-Sonarrat.
