언어의 접촉과 공존

Contact and Coexistence of Languages: Analysis of Basque Case in Spain

In this study the Basque Area(Euskal Herria in Euskera) refers to the seven provinces that are located in Spain and France and where the Basque language has been spoken from several thousand years ago, at least by some part of their population. In this area Basque was the majority and dominant language until a few centuries ago, but from the 16th century, due to the Spanish and French presence in the political life of the area, the Basque language was weakened seriously, and now, at the end of the 20th century, only about 16.5% of its population speaks and understands it well. This is somewhat odd in comparison of Cataluña, Galicia, Puerto Rico, Southwest of USA, etc, that have experienced the similar situation but much more of their population speaks their own languages fluently. In this study we attempt to investigate the reason of this oddness. First, in the second chapter, we will show the historical changes of the Basque Area and its languages, mainly from the 16th century, and in the chapter 3 we will introduce the actual situation of Basque language in this area. In the chapter 4 we will present a number of factors that seem to have brought about the weakness of the Basque language, comparing this area with some other bilingual areas.