Basque and Oiartzun

The Southern Basque Country

The map in Figure 1 shows the seven historical Basque provinces. The four largest provinces—Araba, Biscay, Gipuzkoa, and Navarre (the Southern Basque Country)—fall on the Spanish side of the border and the three smaller provinces—Lapurdi, Lower Navarre, and Zuberoa (the Northern Basque Country)—fall on the French side. Today, there are roughly 660,000 speakers of Basque (Trask, 1997:5), who make up a third of the roughly two million inhabitants of the Basque Country. All but approximately 80,000 speakers live in the southern provinces (Trask, 1997:5).

The Basque Country (adapted from Trask, 1997).

The map in Figure 2 shows that the predominantly Basque-speaking areas are clustered in the northern part of the Southern Basque Country along the mountains bordering the coast. Basque has been losing ground to Spanish, retreating northward, since at least the seventeenth century, and by the mid-eighteenth century most of southern Navarre and Araba were largely Spanish-speaking (Trask, 1997:46). During the Franquist dictatorship (1937–1975), Basque continued to recede rapidly, partly as a result of official oppression of the Basque language, but also as a result of massive immigration to Basque factory towns from other parts of the Iberian peninsula, especially Andalucia, Extremadura, and Galicia (Urla, 1987).

Basque dialects (adapted from Trask, 1997).

Immigration to urban areas helps explain another important factor bearing on Basque dialect contact: Basque lacks an important urban center that can serve as a metropolitan prestige variety. Basque has receded from the southern provincial capitals, Iruñea (Navarre), Gasteiz (Araba), and Bilbao (Bizkaia), but it is still used to some degree in the Gipuzkoan capital, Donostia, where it is the mother tongue of 28% of the population (Basque Statistical Office, 1996).

Oiartzun

Oiartzun is located in the northeastern corner of Gipuzkoa, a ten-minute drive from the provincial capital, Donostia. To the east and south it borders the municipalities of Lesaka and Goizueta across the provincial border with Navarre. To the west, it borders the Gipuzkoan municipalities of Lezo and Errenteria and, to the north, Irun, which shields it from the French border, just 10 minutes by car (see the map in Figure 2).

Oiartzun's political boundaries are roughly contiguous with a geographical boundary. Oiartzun lies in a valley closed on three sides. The valley opens to the northwest, along its border with the municipalities of Errenteria and Lezo (see the map in Figure 3). Immediately past Errenteria is the industrial port town of Pasai where the Oiartzun River drains into the Bay of Biscay. The eastern and southern parts of the valley, bordering the Navarran municipalities of Goizueta and Lesaka, are especially mountainous. Oiartzun's villages (auzoak), where most of the population lives, are clustered in the flatter, central parts of the valley.

Oiartzun (adapted from Fraile & Fraile, 1996).

In recent centuries, Oiartzun's economy was based not only on agriculture, but also on mining, metallurgy, and timber production. However, especially after the end of the Franquist dictatorship, Oiartzun began to diversify economically. Several tracts of land along the Oiartzun River, especially in the northern and western parts of the valley, were rezoned for industrial activity and a large shopping center. In addition, a major highway connecting Donostia with the French border in Irun was cut through the northern tip of the municipality in the early 1970s. Table 1 shows that today a relatively small part of the economically active population works in agriculture.

Employed population aged 16 and over, by branches of activity

Oiartzun is similar to other towns in the greater Donostia area in terms of economic activity. However, Oiartzun differs from the other towns around Donostia, including its immediate neighbors, Errenteria and Lezo, in that industrialization came much later and immigration has been relatively light. Persons born outside the Basque Autonomous Community²

The Basque Autonomous Community consists of the southern provinces of Araba, Gipuzkoa, and Biscay. It excludes Navarre and the three northern provinces.

account for 7% of Oiartzun's population, but 25% of the population of the more heavily industrialized Errenteria. Partly as a result of its late industrialization and light immigration, Oiartzun has remained heavily Basque-speaking. Table 2 shows that the percent of the population reporting Basque as a mother tongue and the language spoken at home is much higher in Oiartzun than in the Greater Donostia Area or in Gipuzkoa as a whole.

Population by mother tongue and language spoken at home

In 1967, toward the end of the Franquist dictatorship, a clandestine Basque-medium school (ikastola) was established in Oiartzun (as in many other Southern Basque towns) in defiance of the Franquist government's ban on Basque language instruction. The school survived the remaining years of the dictatorship (until 1975) and later obtained legal status as a private school and flourished in the post–Franquist period of Basque language and cultural activism. During the 1980s, Oiartzun's other school—a public school—also began offering Basque-medium instruction, and today the overwhelming majority of students in Oiartzun's two schools are enrolled in Basque-medium programs. The remainder are enrolled in bilingual programs in which both Basque and Spanish are used as the medium of instruction. No students are enrolled in exclusively Spanish-medium programs (informant data; see Basque Statistical Office, 1996).

The development of Basque-medium instruction in Oiartzun is directly relevant to the present study because the Basque used in schools is a standardized variety called Batua (B). It seems plausible, then, that the use of B as a classroom language would influence speech outside the classroom and hence shape the development of the local dialect over time. Moreover, because B has been introduced only in the last thirty years, locals' exposure to it varies by age. All of the younger speakers in the present study (20–25 years old), but none of the middle-aged and older speakers (over 40), received B-medium primary and secondary instruction. Indeed, the possibility that B's use in the classroom has shaped young people's nonclassroom speech is part of the popular local discourse about language. When I commented to informants and other locals that young people seemed to speak very differently from older people, several people explained the difference in terms of the use of B in the classroom (and in the media). One of the goals of the present study was to examine this claim.

Dialect contact

The Gipuzkoa–Navarre border is roughly contiguous with a dialect boundary. Basque dialectologists have traditionally grouped the varieties to the east of the border into a dialect called Goinaparrera (High Navarran: HN) and varieties to the west of the border into a dialect called Gipuzkera (Gipuzkoan: G) (Bonaparte, 1863; Irizar, 1992; Zuazo, 1998a, 1998b). However, Oiartzun and the neighboring municipalities of Lezo, Irun, Hondarribia, and Errenteria have historically formed an exception to this rule. Although politically these towns have belonged to the province of Gipuzkoa since the fourteenth century, the local dialects are historically much closer to HN than to G (Bonaparte, 1863; Zuazo, 1998a, 1998b).

However, over the last few centuries, the dialect of Oiartzun has increasingly adopted the features of G and lost many of the features of HN. In 1745, Larramendi, a Jesuit priest and philologist, reported that -en was the suffixal future marker used in Oiartzun for the class of verbs ending in -n (i.e., the form used in most Navarran dialects) (Zuazo, 1997). But by 1863, Louis-Lucien Bonaparte noted that -go was the future form used exclusively in Oiartzun (i.e., the form used in G). Recent evidence from several authors has suggested that many of these changes may still be in progress. Older speakers tend to use eastern HN forms, and younger speakers prefer western G forms (Fraile & Fraile, 1996:237; Zuazo, 1997:419–420).

This process of dialect shift is not unique to Oiartzun. Similar shifts involving the same linguistic features discussed here have been reported along the length of the dialect boundary (Olano, 2000; Zuazo, 1998b; Zubiri, 2000). Zuazo (1997, 1998a) argued that this process has advanced far enough that the dialect boundary should be redrawn to group Oiartzun and several other historically HN-speaking towns as varieties of G rather than HN. The map in Figure 4 compares Bonaparte's dialect boundaries with Zuazo's updated boundaries, redrawn to reflect dialect shift over the intervening 134 years.

Bonaparte's 1863 dialect boundary and Zuazo's 1997 boundary (adapted from Olano, 2000).

Several factors may help explain this change in Oiartzun. First, during the late middle ages, Oiartzun changed hands politically from Navarran to Gipuzkoan control. During the middle ages, Oiartzun belonged to the Kingdom of Navarre,³

Second, for the last few centuries, Oiartzun has had much closer trade ties with its G-speaking neighbors to the west than with its HN-speaking neighbors to the east. This is partly a consequence of the local geography. As mentioned before, Oiartzun lies in a valley enclosed on three sides. From the open western side Oiartzun is easily accessible, but the mountains surrounding the valley make Oiartzun much less easily accessible from the other three sides, particularly from the east and south (i.e., from Navarre). Today, only one paved road, built just sixty years ago, connects Oiartzun directly with its Navarran neighbors across the mountains. As a result, the people of Oiartzun have had much closer trade ties with neighbors to the west than with those to the east and south.

Gipuzkoan towns to the west have provided markets or access to markets for some of Oiartzun's most important products. From Roman times through the 1980s, mining and metallurgy were important economic activities in Oiartzun. The mountains forming Oiartzun's eastern and (to a lesser extent) southern borders were rich with iron and other mineral deposits. This, combined with the fact that the Oiartzun River and its tributaries provided ample hydraulic power for foundries and easy access to the nearby seaport of Pasai, made Oiartzun an ideal location for metallurgy. At the port of Pasai to the west, Oiartzun exported its metal products and occasionally imported raw minerals for processing in Oiartzun's foundries (Lekuona, 1995:140). Oiartzun's mountainous topography and generous annual rainfall also made it an ideal location for timber production. Historically, much of the timber produced was consumed as fuel in Oiartzun's foundries. However, the shipyards at the port of Pasai were also an important market for Oiartzun's timber (Lekuona, 1995:142).⁴

The fact that, in recent centuries, Oiartzun has had relatively strong commercial ties to western towns and relatively weak ties to eastern towns may help explain why western features have increasingly replaced eastern features in local speech. Olano (2000:141–142) suggested that similar historical factors may explain a dialect shift in Areso and Leitza, two Navarran towns to the south of Oiartzun along the dialect boundary. According to Olano, as the nearby Gipuzkoan town of Tolosa (across the dialect boundary) developed as an important market, locals increasingly came into contact with G speakers and lost contact with other HN speakers (particularly from Iruñea). As a result, eastern G features have increasingly replaced western Navarran elements in the local speech.

A third factor explaining the encroachment of G in historically HN-speaking areas is the emergence of G as a prestige dialect in the Southern Basque Country since the eighteenth century (Zuazo, 2000:37–60).⁵

At the same time, Gipuzkoa was emerging as the center of literary production in Basque, and most of the new texts were written in G. This literary flourishing was led by Larramendi and his followers, including the Oiartzuarran Mendiburu (1708–1782) and Agustín Kardaberaz (1703–1770) from nearby Hernani. During the same period, Navarre lacked any serious literary production in Basque (Jimeno Jurío, 1998:142).

Several pieces of evidence suggest that church services were a primary conduit through which G was introduced into the non-G-speaking towns bordering the G dialect area (Olano, 2000:143). The following quote from author Fernando Artola, a resident of the neighboring port town of Hondarribia, highlights the difference between the G verbal forms det/degu used in sermons and the Navarran form dut/dugu used in day-to-day speech outside of church:

A similar process seems to have occurred along the dialect boundary between G and its western neighbor, Bizkaian (see the map in Figure 2). The following quote from the Biscayan priest Uriarte, discussing the Bizkaian-speaking Deba valley in 1859, shows that G was also the language used in sermons, even in certain Bizkaian-speaking areas:

The following quote from Louis-Lucien Bonaparte, in 1863, makes a similar observation that G was the language used in sermons in the Bizkaian-speaking town of Bergara:

Hence, the church seems to have been a primary vehicle through which G came to be seen as a prestige variety outside the G dialect area. At the same time that G was emerging as a prestige dialect, however, HN was decreasing in importance. During the seventeenth century, the presence of Basque in the Navarran capital, Iruñea, weakened considerably (Jimeno Jurío, 1998:144–146) and the province found itself without a Basque-speaking cultural center. As a result, Basque speaking towns in the western areas of the province increasingly looked to Gipuzkoa for cultural and commercial purposes (Olano, 2000:142; Zuazo, 2000:57).

Over the last thirty years, this dialect contact scenario has been complicated by the emergence of a literary standard: B. The development of a literary standard has been a goal of Basque language planners since the birth of The Basque Language Academy (Euskaltzaindia) in 1918. The development of B was interrupted by the civil war (1936–1939) and the Franquist dictatorship, but was resumed in the 1960s. In 1964, the academy published a standard orthography for B, and since then it has gradually developed syntactic and morphological norms to serve as a standard. These norms mainly come from the most central dialect, G, but include contributions from all dialects, especially the Northern Basque dialects, Lapurdian and Low Navarran (Trask, 1997). Today, B is used in most print publications and on the region's Basque-language television station and radio stations. More importantly, B is the language of instruction in all government-run Basque-medium schools and in the overwhelming majority of private Basque-medium schools.

Research on language attitudes in the Basque Country has suggested that this process of constructing B as a standard has been remarkably swift (Amorrortu, 2000; Echeverria, 2000; Urla, 1987, 1993), and field observations for the present project supported this view. One informant observed that, when Oiartzuarrans appear as interview guests on the local town radio station, they often suddenly begin speaking with more B forms. Another reported not liking to write e-mails to friends in B, as opposed to the local dialect, because “it seems formal to me.”

Linguistic forms in variation in Oiartzun

Zuazo (1997) discussed thirty features that distinguish G and HN dialects. This article focuses on five of these: two are individual lexical items, two are vowel alternations in auxiliary verbs, and the final one is the presence or absence of apheresis on a set of main verbs. These features were chosen in the present study for three reasons. First, it was clear from field observations and the dialectological literature (Fraile & Fraile, 1996; Zuazo, 1997) that there is substantial variation in all of these forms in local speech. Second, all are high-frequency items and hence are likely to produce a sufficient number of tokens with which to perform multivariate analysis. Finally, these elements come from different parts of the grammar. One is a phonological process, and the other four concern the lexical selection of three types of morphemes: auxiliary verbs, a conjunctive operator (akin to English but), and an adverb (akin to English well).

Auxiliary verbs

Basque has two types of verbs: synthetic and analytic. Synthetic verbs contain the verb stem and all associated inflectional material in a single word. By contrast, analytic forms divide the verbal labor between a main verbal chunk, to which aspectual morphemes may suffix, and an auxiliary containing tense and inflectional material. The auxiliary includes (i) a root, (ii) an optional past tense morpheme, (iii) an optional potentiality morpheme, and (iv) person and number morphemes that agree with the subject, object, and indirect object (Artiagoitia, 2000). The verbal root encodes the fact that the selection of the auxiliary depends on whether the verb form is transitive/intransitive, on one hand, or indicative/subjunctive (potential, imperative), on the other.⁹

Hence, there are four different auxiliary roots: izan (indicative, intransitive), *edun (indicative, transitive), *edin (subjunctive/imperative/potential, intransitive), and *ezan (subjunctive/imperative/potential, transitive). The verbs *edun, *ezan, and *edin are starred in observance of the fact that these forms never surface in the free-standing infinitive forms given here, but are always inflected.

(1) and (2) (using standard B forms) illustrate how different auxiliaries are selected depending on the transitivity of the construction.

In (1), the transitive verb *edun is selected because the verb takes a (pro-dropped) direct object (‘us’), which it agrees with in person and number. By contrast, the intransitive verb ‘go’ in (2) requires the selection of izan.

In addition to serving as auxiliary verbs, izan and *edun also function as the verbs ‘be’ (cop) and ‘have’, respectively. (3) and (4) are examples of these alter egos for izan and *edun.¹¹

When serving as a verb akin to English ‘have’ rather than as an auxiliary, these forms are often described in Basque grammars as forms of ukan, which is an infinitive form expressing ‘have’.

(3) and (4) show that, in these verb forms, agreement functions exactly as described for auxiliaries. In (3) izan agrees with the pro-dropped subject, and in (4) *edun agrees with both the pro-dropped 1sg subject and the overt object ‘that’.

The root vowel in certain forms of izan and *edun is one of the features that distinguish G and HN dialects (Zuazo, 1997, 1998a). Let us consider the verbal forms and linguistic environments in which these alternations appear.

izan

Table 3 compares inflectional paradigms for izan in HN, G, and B. (The capitalized forms are the elements in variation examined in the present study.) This table shows dialectal alternations in the root vowel for 2sg formal, 2pl, and 1pl forms. The root vowel is a in HN and B forms and e in G forms. As mentioned before, the new standard, B, is largely based on G, but the verbal paradigms discussed here are the exception to this pattern.

izan, present tense

In Oiartzun's dialect (and in other central dialects), intervocalic /r/-deletion applies, so that the capitalized forms in Table 3 almost always surface as z[a]/z[e.a] and g[a]/g[e.a]. This is problematic for the purpose of the present analysis because it obscures the underlying forms of z[a]/g[a]. One possibility is that z[a]/g[a] are underlyingly /gara/ and /sara/ and are derived through intervocalic /r/-deletion followed by vowel shortening, as in (5).

A second possibility is that g[a]/z[a] are underlyingly /gera/ and /sera/ (just like g[e.a]/z[e.a]) and are derived through intervocalic /r/-deletion followed by /e/-deletion, as in (6).

The second possibility would mean that there is no lexical variation between the capitalized forms in Table 3, since both [ge.a] and [ga] are underlyingly /gera/, and that variation between forms is orthogonal to the question of the shifting isogloss between G gera and HN gara. However, this possibility seems implausible because /e/-deletion before /a/ is otherwise absent from the local phonological system. A convenient minimal pair is the discourse marker zera ‘like’, ‘I mean’, which is homophonous with 2sg formal in G. In Oiartzun, this ubiquitous element never surfaces as *z[a] but always as z[e.a]. The unavailability of *za as a discourse marker would be mysterious if there were a rule of /e/-deletion, as in (6). We assume, then, that ga and za have the derivation shown in (5) and that lexical variation exists between /e/-root forms and /a/-root forms, as described in other towns along the dialect boundary (Olano, 2000; Zuazo, 1997, 1998b; Zubiri, 2000).

*edun

Table 4, which compares inflectional paradigms for *edun in B, G, and HN, shows variation between all first and second person forms. The root vowel of *edun is e in G forms and u in HN and B forms. Notice also that 2sg informal forms agree with the gender of the interlocutor: the form is dun when addressing female interlocutors and duk for male interlocutors. As with izan, HN and B forms for *edun are identical, except for 2pl formal.

*edun, present tense (with third person singular object agreement)

In the auxiliary system described so far, adressee agreement is only triggered when a familiar interlocutor is an argument of the verb, as a subject, object, or indirect object. This system is referred to as zuka. However, Basque also has a parallel set of auxiliary forms with allocutive agreement: that is, agreement is triggered even when the interlocutor is not an argument of the verb. In the Southern Basque Country, this set of forms, referred to as hika, is used only in informal speech (Echeverria, 2000).¹²

Some Northern dialects have an additional set of allocutive forms for formal addressees (Oyharçabal, 1983).

(7) and (8) contrast zuka (nonallocutive) and hika (allocutive) forms.

In the forms in (8), the final n morpheme on the auxiliary marks agreement with the interlocutor's gender (feminine) even though the latter is not an argument of the verb. These examples also show that allocutive agreement triggers an alternation in auxiliary selection: *edun is selected even though the construction is intransitive (Oyharçabal, 1983:94, fn. 7). Because they are subject to the same pattern of root vowel alternation as discussed for nonallocutive forms, allocutive forms have been included in the present data set.

Apheresis

A second feature identified by Zuazo (1997) as distinguishing G and HN dialects is apheresis: deletion of a word-initial atonic vowel when the following syllable is stressed. Apheresis is a characteristic feature of HN varieties but is uncommon in G dialects. The dialectological literature on apheresis in HN communities (Fraile & Fraile, 1996; Txillardegi, 1987; Zuazo, 1997, 1998b) and field observations for the present study suggest that the rule applies only to front vowels /i/ and /e/ and much less so to the back vowel /a/; it does not target /u/, /o/, or any diphthongs. Apheresis is especially common in the set of high-frequency verbs shown in Table 5. When apheresis applies, these verbs lose the word-initial front vowel (/i/ or /e/): for example, /i.ku'.śi/→[Øku'.śi].

Verbs to which apheresis applies

Historically, the word-initial elements were derived from a verbal marker (/*e/) that applied to verbs (Trask, 1997:154). Over time /*e/ raised to [i] before a high vowel in verbs with more than two syllables (Trask, 1997:154). Note, however, that both izan and ikasi appear to violate this rule: both have an initial i- and no following high vowel (and in addition, izan is bisyllabic). In the case of izan, initial i- forms part of the verb root (visible in the form na-iz in Table 3) and is not a prefix. Ikasi, on the other hand, seems to be a true exception to this rule (Trask, 1997:154).

Nonverbs also undergo apheresis. In the interviews conducted for this study several nonverbs, such as

‘house’ and ‘house’ and

[local neighborhood name], were also observed. For the present study, though, only the verbs in Table 5 were examined.

mino/baino

The conjunction akin to English ‘but’ is typically

(mino and bino in Basque orthography) in HN dialects and

(baino) in G dialects (Zuazo, 1997, 1998b). The B form is

(baina). In the present data, several intermediate forms of the first vowel also occurred, such as

. Mino and baino also serve in their respective dialects as the comparative conjunction, akin to English ‘than’. Occurrences of these forms in comparatives, however, were not considered here.

ongi/ondo

English adverbial ‘well’ typically appears in G dialects as ondo [on.do] and in HN dialects as ongi

. In B, both forms are used. These elements are transparently bimorphemic. The first syllable in each, on, exists as a free-standing adjective meaning ‘good’ in both dialects. The second elements, -ki/-to, are adverbial markers. Dialectal alternation in the adverbial suffix is visible in a handful of other forms (e.g., hobe-ki/ hobe-to ‘better’), but only ondo/ongi were considered here.

Hypotheses

The primary goal of the study was determine whether quantitative, apparent-time evidence exists for changes in progress in the forms discussed here. If, as the dialectological literature suggests, these isoglosses are moving eastward, then we could expect older speakers to prefer HN forms (ongi, mino, HN forms of auxiliary verbs, and apheresis) and younger speakers to prefer G forms (ondo, baino, G forms of auxiliary verbs, and absence of apheresis). Indeed, many of the dialectological sources (Fraile & Fraile, 1996; Zuazo, 1997) have suggested that these changes are occurring relatively rapidly.

Irizar (1992) and Fraile and Fraile (1996) both observed differences among Oiartzun's villages in the use of these features. In general, Fraile and Fraile (1996:237) found that speakers in the eastern villages of Gurutze and Ergoien, which border Irun and the Navarran municipality of Lesaka, were particularly likely to use eastern HN features. Likewise, Irizar noted a higher use of G verbs in the western village, Iturriotz, which borders the Gipuzkoan municipality of Errenteria.

During the Franquist dictatorship (1939–1975), mobility in Spain was more restricted than it is today. Through the 1970s, few people in Oiartzun owned cars, and train and bus service was relatively limited. One 45-year-old informant recalled as a child never dreaming of owning a car. Another 41-year-old informant remembered as a child knowing of only four or five cars in the whole town and recounted a period of transition when people began acquiring cars very rapidly.¹³

Until about 1980, children attended the small village schools where they tended to form tight friendship networks. As a result, according to informants, residents typically developed strong allegiances to their village. An important way in which local village identity is expressed and reproduced is the annual jaiak. During the summer, each village holds a local festival in which the residents gather for several days for food, drinks, music, dancing, and a variety of sports. During one year's jaiak in the village of Iturriotz, one informant recalled a large banner in the plaza that expressed the village's pride at the expense of the town: Iturriotz saluda a Oiartzun ‘Iturriotz sends greetings to Oiartzun.’

In the early 1980s, the village schools were closed, and children were sent to one of two centralized schools serving the entire town.¹⁴

In her research on language, identity, and gender in Donostia secondary schools, Echeverria (2000) discussed how the use of prestige language in Basque is gender-patterned: informal, allocutive (hika) forms are much more common among male speakers than among female speakers. The author's field observations and interview data suggested a similar pattern in Oiartzun. Community members reported that men used hika much more than women, and several younger women informants reported not “knowing” hika at all. In addition, older speakers were found to use hika more than younger speakers. Data collected in sociolinguistic interviews generally supported these views. In the recorded data, hika was used by male speakers of all ages, but especially older speakers. In contrast, the few female speakers who did use these forms were over 70 years old.

Echeverria explained this difference in terms of an ideological link between language use and gender. Masculinity is iconically linked (Gal & Irvine, 1995) to allocutive use through its connotations of “spontaneity, directness, naturalness, anger, and fun,” which in turn index masculinity (reminiscent of Bourdieu's discussion of la gueule), and through its association with traditional Basque life. The use of allocutive forms is associated with “authentic” Basque life partly because these forms are most common in rural areas. Echeverria argued that men have much greater visibility in popular representations of these traditional spheres than women, and that “authentic” Basque-ness is thereby constructed as masculine. In the school materials she examined, images of individuals engaged in “authentic” Basque roles, such as farmers and fishermen, or in traditional sports were much more often male than female. Echeverria argued that this gendered opposition between solidarity and prestige forms is recursive (Gal & Irvine, 1995) at other linguistic levels, including the oppositions Basque/Spanish and Batua/dialect. Echeverria's finding that the use of prestige versus solidarity forms in the Southern Basque Country is broadly gender-patterned is consonant with work in other Western contexts (Gal, 1979; Labov, 1972; Trudgill, 1995) suggesting that women tend toward prestige forms more than men.

The opposition between G and HN could be hypothesized to carry similar symbolic value. G is historically a prestige form associated with formal domains including the Church and literature. Field observations suggest that contemporary speakers continue to perceive G as prestigious. One informant described G as sounding pijua ‘snobby’. Another described G /e/-root *edun forms, such as det, as being xuabeagoa ‘softer, smoother’ than HN /u/-root forms, such as dut (see Table 4). If, indeed, the greater use of G forms in Oiartzun reflects a change from above, then we could expect that female speakers would use G forms more than male speakers.