Gerhard Edelmann
University of Vienna, Austria

Euskara/Basque: The importance of status for the development of a pluricentric language.

Key words: Basque (Euskara) as a pluricentric language, political status, prestige, unification of language

The Basque language (Euskara) is the only surviving Pre-Indo-European language of Western Europe. It is characterised by a rather high degree of dialectal divergence. The Basque country (Euskal Herria) has a total area of 20.947 km2, both on the north side of the Pyrenees in France and on the south side of the Pyrenees in Spain. Euskara is spoken by around 800.000 speakers, who call themselves euskaldunak.
Traditionally, Spain and France have been centralistic countries which have always tried to strengthen the roles of their state languages Spanish and French. After the end of Franco's authoritarian regime, which repressed the Basque culture and language, the Spanish Constitution of 1978 created the Autonomous Communities of Euskadi and Navarra and granted substantial rights to the Basque culture.
Today, the whole Basque speaking territory is divided into three different political administrations: the Basque Autonomous Community (Euskadi) and the Autonomous Community of Navarra in Spain as well as the French Basque country, which is part of the Department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

In my contribution I will present the Basque language, its existing varieties, different aspects of its pluricentricity, the role of unification of the language and the importance of the political status for the development of a language.
The political status of the language varies in the different areas where it is spoken: According to the Statute of Euskadi, Euskara is considered as “the own language” of the Basque people, whereas in the Autonomous Community of Navarra Basque is the official language only in the Basque-speaking parts. In France the Basque language has the status of a regional language. According to the established criteria, Basque is a pluricentric language.
In the whole Basque country the number of speakers has significantly risen from 600.000 to 800.000 in the last 30 years. However, interestingly enough, Basque is not developing in the same way in all three territories. In Euskadi there is a clearly positive development, whereas in Navarra, the increase is smaller, and in the French Basque country the opposite trend is observed.
The different development in the three parts of the Basque-speaking territory clearly indicates the importance of status for the development of a language. Euskaltzaindia, the Academy of the Basque language, created a unified stan-dard form of Basque, the Euskara batua, which is used in the administration of Euskadi and by the media and in education also outside the Autonomous Community of Euskadi. Due to Euskera batua, the language has gained prestige. An interesting question is whether the development in Euskadi can help to improve the situation of the language in France, where, to date, it only has the status of a regional language.