Basque language

and anything else labeled anti-Spain.

So if you were trying to speak Catalan, if you were Basque, if you were Galician, if you were Valenciano, and I even asked my mom this, I was like, okay, what do you remember from the time of Franco? It's like, I remember that we weren't allowed to speak Valenciano, that my mom and her mother, my grandmother, was not allowed to speak Catalan.

It was banned.

You could not speak the autonomic languages.

So I said to the doctor, I said, hablas ingles? And because everybody in Spain uses the familiar form, right? And so he looked at me and he said, hablas valenciano? And I'm like...

What? So he flipped it and he said, do you speak Valencian? Because now everybody that's listening, you probably know this, that besides Spanish, you've got Catalan, you've got Valenciano, you've got Euskera from the Basque country, you've got Galician from Galicia, all these different other languages.

And he flipped it and asked me if I spoke Valencian.

And I said, no, I don't.

Completely different.

Which is completely different.

So, and then if you go to the Basque country...

Most of those other languages, though, they do speak Castilian Spanish.

Welcome back to Learn Basque with Vexingo.

I am Lucas.

And I am Luna.

Ozo gaxo ada.

Well done.

You are speaking Basque with confidence.

I feel ready to order lunch right now.

Me too.

lot of mid-sized languages.

Catalan, Welsh, Basque, Irish.

They're not just languages, they're identity claims.

The act of speaking them is loaded in a way that speaking English never is.

Welcome back to Learn Basque with Vexingo.

Hi, everyone.

I am so glad we are here again.

Welcome back to Learn Basque with Vexingo.

I am Lucas and this is Luna.

We are so glad you are here.

So, if I want to eat, do I say nahi dat jan?

Exactly.

But in Basque, we usually put the verb at the end or group the desire together.

The most natural way is jan nahi dat.

Jan nahi dat.

Welcome back to Learn Basque with Vexingo.

I am Lucas, and this is Luna.

Hi, everyone.

Thank you for listening.

Okay, today we are talking about wanting things.

In Basque, the verb is nahi.

It means to want.

Oh, that sounds simple.

Roughly a quarter, according to his survey, spoke no French at all, and another quarter could barely contain a sustained conversation in it.

At this time, France was mostly regional languages, pockets of Basque, Breton, Alsatian, Corsican, Ossetan, Arbitan, Catalan, little feudal holdovers with their own cultures and languages.

In other areas, sort of spoke French, but not le bon usage, no patois that was so distinct as to be debatable as to whether or not you were speaking a French dialect or a separate distinct French language.

And if you're curious as to what constitutes the difference between a dialect and a language, the answer is an army.