Bascophone

EUZKO GOGOA. […] The works of many of the leading bascophone authors of the day appeared in this journal.

His own involvement into collaborationalism is remote, limited to wild enthusiasm when meeting German bascophone linguists.

The 1978 legislative elections are sometimes seen as the first time that Basque nationalism was connected with the so-called ethnic vote, as the Basque-speaking zones of the inland attained higher scores than French-speaking areas (Vrignon 1999: 224). Indeed, roughly speaking, 6 per cent of votes in the francophone urban area of Bayonne–Anglet–Biarritz were cast in support of the nationalist parties during the cantonal elections of 1998–2001, as opposed to almost 15 percent in the Euskera-speaking interior (Table 5.1). A closer look on Table 5.1, however, puts this image into perspective because in the interior the highest nationalist votes were cast not in the most bascophone areas, but in the interior of Labourd.

The law divides the community into three specific areas: the bascophone, or Basque speaking, zone, the mixed zone and the non-bascophone, or non-Basque speaking, zone (see Figure 1). […] The Basque language is recognised as an official language only in the so-called ‘bascophone’ zone, where 10.8% of the total population lives. […] In public life, the law recognises that the inhabitants of the bascophone zone have the right to use the Basque language in their dealings with the administration.

On the other hand, Basque-related circles claim that official use of euskara as the institutional framework would right a democratic deficit and a social injustice. They are not demanding a return to an exclusively bascophone Basque country.

Through unyielding commitment and strategizing, the proponents of the IM eventually expanded beyond the realm of bascophone preschooling and embarked on the running of bilingual primary schools by 1974.

Sentences like (13) are very difficult to accept. The first one, for instance, is quite incomprehensible out of context, and will be dismissed by any bascophone hearing it without other explanation.

According to Haritschelhar, nobody is in a position to say how many bascophones there are on the French side of the border, although he suggests a tentative figure of some 80,000 speakers.