The first steps towards the development of standard Basque or euskara batua were taken only relatively recently, in 1964. There are some reasons that explain this late development. Basque has not had official status until the last few decades and, consequently, until recently it was not used in the schools or in the administration. Historically, Basque has not been much used for any other written purposes either. French and Gascon had that function in the Northern Basque Country, and Spanish in the Southern Basque Country. The communicative domain of Basque language was thus restricted to oral communication within certain areas, and for that purpose, the local or regional variety was enough. Nevertheless, apart from these main reasons, other facts have to be taken into account as well to explain the late development of a unified form of Basque; in particular, the influence of the opinions expressed by Larramendi and Arana Goiri.

In the foreword to his 1745 dictionary, Manuel de Larramendi (1690-1766) wrote that all dialects were valuable and that all of them should be used. This was written in the heat of an argument. According to some of his contemporaries, Basque was an uncouth language, lacking rules of grammar and impossible to be reduced to them. It was for this reason that it was fragmented into many dialects and completely distorted. In order to confront that view, Larramendi made the claim that God himself created Basque and its dialects at the Tower of Babel. Hence, all Basque dialects were valuable and correct. This viewpoint led to the idea of strengthening all dialects, and consequently, to the development of regional written varieties of Basque—the so-called literary dialects—instead of the development of a single standard language for written purposes.

When Sabino Arana Goiri (1865-1903) founded the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV-EAJ), he defended the idea of an independent Basque Country, with a federal structure, where each province in the federation should have its own standard dialect. In his essay Lecciones de ortografía del euskera bizkaino [“Lessons on the orthography of Bizkaian Basque”], he wrote that six dialects were needed; not one common standard language. Notice that, although traditionally seven Basque provinces are distinguished, in Sabino Arana’s conception Low Navarre would be part of Navarre and, therefore, six dialects would be sufficient (Arana Goiri 1896 [1980]: 822).

Three main periods can be determined on the path to the unification of Basque: a) The period before the 20th century, b) the first half of the 20th century, and c) the period after 1950. Let us consider these three periods one by one.

Before the 20th century

Although not many steps towards unification were taken before the 20th century, we find some progress in two areas.

On the one hand, two dialects become socially dominant: The speech of the coast of Lapurdi and that of the region of Beterri in Gipuzkoa. In the 17th century, Lapurdian clergymen who were in favor of the Catholic Counter-Reformation published high-quality written work, including P. Axular’s masterpiece, Gero (1643). Due to this publishing activity, the variety of Basque used in this body of work, which reflected the Basque spoken in the area of Donibane-Lohizune, Ziburu and Sara, became the model to follow for writers from the Northern Basque Country. Regarding the Southern Basque Country, there was a revival in favor of Basque starting in the 18th century, which grew stronger in Gipuzkoa, and the work written there, particularly the books by Agustin Kardaberatz from Hernani, created a model in this area.

Some steps were also taken to regulate orthography. In this too, the Northern Basque Country was the pioneer. Martin Duhalde (1809) made the argument that instead of blindly following the orthographic rules of French, it was more appropriate to take Basque’s distinctive phonological structure into account. Jean-Pierre Darrigol (1827) followed Duhalde’s lead, proposing five main orthographic innovations: a) instead of writing g or gu depending on the following vowel, g alone was to be written, b) c and qu were to be excluded in favor of k, c) c and ç were excluded in favor of z, d) y was excluded in favor of i, and e) v was excluded in favor of b.

Augustin Xaho’s (1810-1858) influence in the spreading of these orthographic conventions is undeniable, as well as Prince Bonaparte’s (1813-1891). It was the latter author who brought these orthographic rules to the Southern Basque Country. At the end of the 19th century, Sabino Arana Goiri and Resurrección M. Azkue each published an essay on orthography, both around 1896.

The first half of the 20th century

After Sabino Arana Goiri’s death, a new era started with the Basque Nationalist Party’s magazine Euzkadi. In 1910, the editors of the magazine asked its readers whether the unification of the Basque language was necessary, and if so, how and what was to be united. The opinion in favor of unification prevailed, and several important essays were published in this connection in the pages of this magazine. We must highlight Federico Belaustegigoitia’s (1916) and Koldobika Eleizalde’s (1919a,1919b) writings. Although these authors were both members of the Basque Nationalist Party, they did not agree with Arana Goiri on this matter and considered standardization indispensable. Also, in spite of the fact that both of them hailed from the western area, they favored Gipuzkoan Basque for the unification of the language.

The Basque Nationalist Party, however, did not favor the unification of Basque. The group Euzkeltzale-Bazkuna argued against unification in the essay Sobre la unificación del euzkera [“On the unification of Basque”] in 1916. Thus, the discussion that the magazine Euzkadi started on establishing the foundations of a common standard language was cut off, and those in favor of unification tried to achieve this through other means: In 1918, Euskaltzaindia, the Academy of the Basque Language, was created in the Southern Basque Country under the aegis of the four provincial governments.

From its inception, the goal of Euskaltzaindia was the unification of Basque. Two of his most-prominent members, Arturo Campion and Pierre Broussain, wrote an essay on unification and organized a four-day conference to discuss this essay. Sixteen more essays were read at this conference, in favor and against unification. When analyzing these essays, we come to the following tally:

• 1. In favor of unification: 12.
• 2. Against unification: 5.

When looking at the numbers, those in favor of unifying the written language clearly prevailed. There was, however, a strong voice among the opponents: The Basque Nationalist Party itself. In fact, there were differences even among those in favor of unification. We can group the opinions in favor of unification as follows:

• a. In favor of Gipuzkoan Basque: 4.
• b. In favor of “complemented Gipuzkoan” (Gipuzkoan complemented with elements taken from other dialects): 2.
• c. In favor of “complemented Basque”: 2.
• d. In favor of a combination of Gipuzkoan and Lapurdian: 1.
• e. In favor of Bizkaian Basque: 1.
• f. In favor of reconstructing “Original Basque”: 1.

Considering this situation, Euskaltzaindia decided to give up on the unification project. In the event, its president, Resurrección M. Azkue, kept working in favor of his own proposal, “complemented Gipuzkoan”, and under his leadership, a small group of followers gathered around the project. In Azkue’s view, Gipuzkoan Basque was the most solid foundation for unification, but he also saw the need to use other dialects to complement it for the creation of a unified standard language. By doing that, a unified form of Basque would be richer and could be accepted by all Basques. His proposal seemed reasonable, but it did not succeed. The main reason was that Azkue was not specific at all about the details of his proposal, and in order to “complement” Gipuzkoan Basque, different authors included whatever they saw fit, without any clear criteria.

The second half of the 20th century

The long military dictatorship that followed the Spanish Civil War (1939-1975) almost resulted in the extinction of Basque. It was around 1960 that Basque society started to wake up. The first ikastolak (Basque schools) were created around this time, and a few years later night schools were also founded. Their goal was both to teach those who knew Basque to read and write in their language, and to teach the language to those who did not speak it, and had to start learning it from the very beginning. In order to move forward with these projects, textbooks and all kinds of materials were needed, and for that, the unification of Basque was essential.

There were many who wanted to fight against the prohibition and punishment for speaking Basque and wanted to use it in public. Those who were brave enough wanted to bring Basque from the farms into the streets, to spread it from the oral to the written domain and from their close knit communities to the whole Basque Country. All of this led to a widespread realization that it was necessary to unify Basque.

Among those in favor of standardizing the language, the first question that arose was which dialect to choose as the basis of the unified language. Three solutions were proposed. Some were in favor of the Classical Lapurdian language of the 17th century. This view was promoted in intellectual circles centered in Bilbao, including writers like Xabier Kintana and Imanol Berriatua and the magazine Anaitasuna. Some other Bizkaian authors were even more precise. In their opinion, standard Basque already existed: Joanes Leizarraga crafted it when he translated the New Testament into Basque in 1571. Federico Krutwig (1921-1998) made this claim in the 1950s. In his view, Leizarraga’s writings contained the most elegant and sophisticated type of language ever used in Basque.

Others were of the opinion that Central or Gipuzkoan Basque would be a more appropriate foundation for a standard language. Jose Luis Alvarez Enparantza “Txillardegi” and Koldo Mitxelena were in this camp. Their reasons were the following:

• a. It was better to use a type of language that was alive rather than one from centuries ago.
• b. Since Gipuzkoa is in the middle of the Basque Country, its speech is the easiest to understand for all Basque speakers.
• c. Along with the Western dialect, it is the one with the greatest number of speakers.
• d. The urban areas of Gipuzkoa were the ones where the greatest number of Basque speakers was concentrated: Pasaia-Lezo-Errenteria-Oiartzun, Donostia, Andoain-Hernani, Tolosa, Beasain-Ordizia, Urretxu-Zumarraga-Legazpi, Azkoitia-Azpeitia, Zumaia-Zarautz-Orio, etc. From these urban areas, standard speech could spread with ease.
• e. It was a prestigious variety. Starting in the 18th century, Gipuzkoan Basque was used by priests and monks, verse-singers (bertsolaris) and writers alike. In the Southern Basque Country, the speech of Tolosa, in particular, was considered “correct Basque.”

At first, there was an intense dispute among the defenders of these three models, but at the end, Gipuzkoan or Central Basque was chosen as the foundation for the standard. Once the dialectal foundation was chosen, regulation was needed: orthography, morphology and the exact form of words (arrain or arrai ‘fish’, beldur or bildur ‘fear’, etc., etc.) had to be settled. At this point, pronunciation was not considered, since it was a matter of unifying the written language. The decision was made not to exclude anything in the lexicon and syntax. In other words, it was accepted that dialectal words and distinctive structures should have their place in standard Basque.

Regarding morphology and the shape of words, on the face of it, the choice of verbal forms for the standard language should have been the most difficult puzzle to solve, given the multiplicity of available options; but, in fact, this problem was solved quite rapidly. It was orthography that caused the most problems. In particular, two orthographic rulings of  the Basque Academy turned out to be controversial: the decision to keep the grapheme h, and the decision not to indicate the palatalization of consonants due to a preceding i orthographically; that is, writing in, il, or it: baina ‘but’, langile ‘worker’, ditu ‘s/he has them’ (instead of baiña, langille, dittu). In the Southern Basque Country, and mainly, in Bizkaia, people concerned with the Basque language were sharply divided in two groups regarding these orthographic matters. The future of standard Basque was at stake. Some years had to pass before matters improved, but eventually things were solved somehow.

Let me add that, in my view, it made a lot of sense to include the grapheme h in the orthographical system of the standard language. This letter has always been used in texts in the Northern Basque Country. In addition, even if the letter h was not part of the Southern orthographic tradition, it appears that, centuries ago, aspiration in pronunciation occurred throughout the Basque Country. In fact, without writing h, problems would arise. For instance, after the loss of aspiration, the original word aho ‘mouth’ was and is pronounced ago, abo, aba or ao depending on the dialect. In this situation, it was logical to choose the original form for the written standard. Concerning palatalized sounds, they do not occur everywhere in the Basque Country. In some places this pronunciation has not spread: In most of Lapurdi and Low Navarre, Aezkoa and Burunda, palatalization is almost completely absent. In places where it has spread, it does not always have the same strength. Palatalization is weak in Zuberoa, the east of Navarre and in some areas of western Bizkaia (Arratia, Zeberio, Orozko and Txorierri). Taking this situation into account, the Euskaltzaindia’s decision was correct. It is preferable not to indicate palatalized consonant in the spelling, and let speakers pronounce the relevant words in their own way.

The consequences of standardization in Basque

Standard Basque or euskara batua has made its way into Basque society since it was first developed. At this stage, it is possible to discuss some of the consequences of the standardization process. To begin with, I think the decision to base the standard on the Central dialect was correct. Most of the decisions taken in the specification of the details of the standard have been correct as well. Apart from that, the existence of a standard has been highly beneficial for Basque society. These are the outcomes I would highlight:

• a. All Basque speakers can now communicate with each other in Basque; there is no need to use another language.
• b. Doors have been opened for the normalization of Basque: The language can now be used in education, administration, media, and all types of written communication.
• c. It is possible for native speakers of other languages to learn Basque; many “new Basque-speakers” have in fact learned the language since 1964.
• d. A bridge has been built over the administrative border and the North and the South are closer than they were.
• e. Basque has greater prestige. It is no longer a collection of “dialects;” but a real “language.”

On the other hand, in my opinion, some questionable decisions were made regarding the propagation of the language throughout society. I will mention three:

• a. There has been no real consideration of differences between how to promote standard Basque in areas where Basque was spoken and in areas that were monolingual in Spanish. Standard Basque was introduced in the same way in monolingual Spanish-speaking towns like Tudela and Vitoria-Gasteiz and in strongly Basque-speaking Lekeitio and Azpeitia, to give some examples. In areas where Basque was widely used, the presence of the local dialect was not considered.
• b. Euskara batua has been presented as “good” and “appropriate” Basque, so that non-standard Basque would tend to be considered “bad” and without rules of grammar. Due to this, dialects were set on a losing path. Regarding the future, it would be advisable to view the standard language and the dialects as complementary, each with its on domains of use.
• c. Euskara batua has only been developed for formal endeavors: for textbooks, literature, etc. As a consequence, in areas of the Basque Country where the language had disappeared and is being reintroduced, there is no informal register in Basque. Neither is there a form of language that could be used in informal situations in activities involving Basque-speakers from different dialectal areas. An “informal” or “colloquial standard” has yet to be developed.

Up

Although the codification of standard Basque or euskara batua started only in 1964, some regional models for writing have existed since the 17th century. Six written or literary dialects of Basque have been developed over the centuries:

Coastal Lapurdian

This written dialect was developed in the 17th century by Lapurdian clergymen involved in the Catholic Counter-Reformation. The development of this written variety occurred naturally. It should be kept in mind that there was not any obvious model before then. Before the 17th century, only two books in Basque had been published in the Northern Basque Country: Bernard Etxepare’s (1545) book Linguae Vasconum Primitiae, and Joanes Leizarraga’s (1571) Calvinist translation of the New Testament. Each of these authors essentially used his own speech. Etxepare wrote in the variety of Garazi, and Leizarraga, apparently, in that of Beskoitze. Neither of these two models had any followers.

In the 17th century, the Lapurdian Coast was the most advanced area in the Northern Basque Country. The main urban areas (Donibane-Lohizune and Ziburu) were located there and they were the most economically strong. Consequently, the readership for books written in Basque was mostly found in this zone. Moreover, the writers themselves hailed from this same area. Working together, they published high quality work; including the literary masterpiece of this school, Gero ‘Later’ by P. Axular, parish priest of the town of Sara. This literary activity brought the Coastal dialect of Lapurdi to a prominent position.

Unfortunately, the predominance of Coastal Lapurdian as a written dialect was short-lived. It started in 1617, when Eztebe Materra published his Dotrina christiana, and ended in 1643 with Axular’s Gero. Nevertheless, its influence never completely faded. The Basque of Sara is still considered prestigious, especially in the Northern Basque Country.

Zuberoan

Linguistically speaking, Zuberoan is a very distinctive dialect, and historically its speakers have lived quite apart from other Basque speakers; its administration, church and economy being more closely linked to the Gascon-speaking region of Béarn. This explains why Zuberoans used their own dialect in their written work. Nonetheless, writers like Tartas and Oihenart, for instance, were familiar with the Coastal dialect. Perhaps because the school of writers who used Coastal Lapurdian was so short lived, Zuberoans did not feel the need to adopt this model.

Beterri Gipuzkoan

The first revival in favor of Basque occurred in the mid 18th century, and Gipuzkoa was its center. By this time, the economy of the Lapurdian Coast had declined considerably, and the Basque language played a very limited role in the life of the region. Therefore, Basque activists in Gipuzkoa did not pay any particular attention to the Coastal Lapurdian dialect. In Gipuzkoa, the urban centers (Donostia/San Sebastián, Hernani, Andoain, Tolosa) were located in the Beterri region, and the promoters of the Basque language resorted to the Basque spoken there. The Jesuit Agustin Kardaberatz (1703-1770) composed work of very elegant style, which contributed to increasing the reputation and fame of this dialect. In the Southern Basque Country, the speech of Tolosa has been considered the best and most refined.

Markina Bizkaian

The revival of Basque in Bizkaia occurred at the beginning of the 19th century. Juan Antonio Mogel (1745-1804) was its leader, but truth to be told, Mogel himself did not intend to make the dialect of Bizkaia a literary dialect. He published his first book, Eracasteac ‘Instructions’ (1800) in the dialect of Gipuzkoa. His reasoning behind this decision was that the book would reach a larger readership that way. He believed that most Basques could understand Gipuzkoan Basque, and thus took the writings of Kardaberatz and the Gipuzkoan Basque of Beterri as his models.

Mogel’s decision to write in Gipuzkoan was not understood by some of his fellow Bizkaian priests. In their view, it simply was not right for a Bizkaian priest to publish in Gipuzkoan Basque, the dialect of another province. Because of this critical reaction, Mogel published a second version of his book, this time written in Bizkaian Basque, or more precisely, in the speech of Markina, his hometown, in 1803.

In the aftermath of this dispute, the idea of developing a literary dialect based on Bizkaian speech took root, even though Mogel did not agree with this point of view. When he wrote, Mogel had the whole Basque Country and the unity of the language in mind, and he saw writing in the Gipuzkoan variety of Beterri as the best way to reach the widest Basque readership possible. On the other hand, when he wrote for people in his geographical vicinity, he used the speech of Markina, not a type of unified Bizkaian.

Given the high quality of Mogel’s works, however, the variety of Markina, in which he wrote, became a model for many who came after him, and this is how the Basque of Markina became a literary dialect. This written model was mainly successful in the eastern part of Bizkaia, in the regions of Durangaldea and Lea-Artibai. Prince Louis-Lucien Bonaparte (1813-1891) also played a direct role in this. When he needed something written in Bizkaian Basque to provide a model for this dialect, he chose the speech of Markina. Later, at the end of the 19th century, Sabino Arana Goiri (1865-1903) promoted the Basque of Markina as well, mostly because of the admiration that he had for P.P. Astarloa, a writer from Durango who had used this written model. After that, this written variety did not have any more relevant followers and its use declined.

Unified Bizkaian

There are two main subdialects in Bizkaia: The easterly and the westerly subdialects. The followers of Mogel were from the eastern area, but writers from the western zone of Bizkaia did not find Mogel’s model as close to their own speech and took a different path. At first, things were carried out sensibly, as we see in Pedro Antonio Añibarro’s (1748-1830) writings, but things got off the rails later. Because of a misguided desire to write in “pure” Bizkaian, some authors made an effort to make their written Bizkaian as different as possible from other dialects, giving priority to forms only used in Bizkaia, many times including some very recent innovations found only in some small corner of this province. On the other hand, any features that Bizkaian Basque has in common with other dialects were looked upon with suspicion and often attributed to contamination from Gipuzkoan. We can see this in Juan Mateo Zabala’s (1848) grammar. He regarded forms like nebazan ‘I had them’ and gintzan ‘we were’ as the true Bizkaian verb forms, as opposed to Gipuzkoan nituen and ginen. In this, he was completely wrong: nituen and ginen are common Basque, whereas nebazan and gintzan are recent analogical creations that have arisen in some small corners of Bizkaia. As J. M. Zabala’s grammar was the first grammar of Bizkaian Basque, it was very influential.

Towards the end of the 19th century, another negative trend hit Bizkaian Basque: Purism. There were two tendencies within the puristic movement, Arana Goiri’s and Azkue’s. Arana Goiri attempted to purify the language by removing all foreign elements; but Azkue’s behavior was even more pernicious. He saw Basque as a damaged language, in need of repair, and he believed that the way to fix it was to go back the roots of the language. Since the roots of the Basque language are actually unknown, he made them up. Due to all of this, Bizkaian Basque noticeably distanced itself from other dialects from the 19th century on. Not only that; it distanced itself from its original nature.

Navarrese-Lapurdian

After Coastal Lapurdian had lost its unifying force, writers from Lapurdi and Low Navarre no longer had a clear model to follow; and each one used the speech of their own local area. Nevertheless, as time passed, some tendencies became predominant and spread and thus unity was regained. It seems that the Catholic Church was the main promoter of regional linguistic unity, since priests needed a model for the Catholic Mass and prayer books to be used in Lapurdi and Low Navarre. In fact, it was a priest who specified and regulated the model: Pierre Lafitte, with this Grammaire basque (navarro-labourdin littéraire), published in 1944.

Some outcomes and comments

Written or literary dialects have been successful and long-lived in the Basque Country. Larramendi and Arana Goiri and their followers were some of their staunchest supporters. Larramendi wrote that God created Basque and its dialects, and therefore, that the dialects were all valid and should be used. Truth to be told, he expressed that in the heat of an argument, as some others believed that dialectal fragmentation was a sign of a broken language, the result of Basque being an uncouth and unruly language.

Larramendi presented two solutions. Sometimes, he expressed the idea that Basques should use their own dialect, but be able to understand also the other dialects. Some other times, however, he mentioned the Ancient Greek model, where different dialects were used for different literary genres.

Sabino Arana Goiri was also against developing a single unified Basque language. Because he defended a federal structure for the Basque Country, he claimed that each historical province should hold on to its differential characteristics, including its own dialect. Many of his followers and fellow members of the Basque Nationalist Party followed this view on the language as well.

If we consider the consequences of the development of literary dialects, we can see that they brought, at least, one positive outcome: they have been a unifying instrument for the language. When considering the possible drawbacks, there are two that come to mind:

• a. They have hindered the unification of the language in the entire Basque Country.
• b. The wish to differentiate each dialect clearly from the others has contributed to deepeneng and enlarging the differences that existed among them.

Up

When languages are spoken in large areas, and especially, in more than one country, they tend to be adapted to the way of speaking in each place and “local standards” are created. For example, English is spoken in many countries and, thus, local standards have developed in the United States, Australia, Belize, United Kingdom, the Philippines, South Africa, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, Canada, Malaysia, Singapur, Trinidad and Tobago, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, etc.

Closer to Basque, there is variation as well in the form of standard Spanish that is used in Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, and in other countries. The same holds true for French: Within French, we can find different local standards in Belgium, France, Haiti, Cameroon, Canada, Congo, Luxembourg, Mali, Morocco, Monaco, Réunion, Senegal and Switzerland.

Those local standards incorporate words and idioms from each country or region, and often also some distinctive phonological, morphological and syntactic characteristics. In the case of the Basque Country, it would be beneficial to allow for some variation or flexibility in the standard, since there are substantial differences among dialects, from Zuberoa to Bizkaia. The goal should be clear. On the one hand, we must guarantee the unity of the language, so that all speakers can understand each other easily and comfortably; but at the same time, speakers must be provided with models that are as close as possible to their own natural way of speaking. At the local level, local linguistic models should have a place in schools, administration, institutions and media, as well as all messages, notes and advertisements with a restricted local audience.

CHARACTERISTICS OF LOCAL STANDARDS

Here I shall specify some of the linguistic features where flexibility in the standard would be desirable, taking the current dialects into account (for further details see Zuazo 2014)

Up

The Western dialect, together with Zuberoan, is the one that is most distant from the rest of dialects. It seems thus reasonable to adapt standard Basque to this dialect to a certain extent. Here I will mention some dialectal features that could become part of the Western standard.

Up

ARANA GOIRI, Sabino

- 1896. Lecciones de ortografía del euskera bizkaino. Reprinted in Obras completas de Sabino Arana Goiri (II): 810-982. Donostia: Sendoa, 1980.

AZKUE, Resurrección Mª

- 1896. Proyecto de ortografía. Bilbo: Müller y Zavaleta.

BELAUSTEGIGOITIA, Federico

- 1916. La unificación del euzkera. Bilbo: Imprenta de J. Echenagusia.

DARRIGOL, Jean-Pierre

- 1827. Dissertation critique et apologétique sur la langue basque. Baiona: Duhart-Fauvet.

DUHALDE, Martin

- 1809. Meditacioneac gei premiatsuenen gainean, cembait abisuekin, othoitcekin eta bicitceco erregela batekin. Baiona: Cluzeau anayen baithan.

ELEIZALDE, Koldobika

- 1919a. La lucha por el idioma propio. Bilbo: Bilbaína de Artes Gráficas.

- 1919b. "Metodología para la restauración del euzkera". Primer Congreso de Estudios Vascos: 428-439. Bilbo: Bilbaína de Artes Gráficas.

EUZKELTZALE-BAZKUNA

- 1916. Sobre la unificación del euzkera. Bilbo-Abando: Grijelmo.

HUALDE, Jose Ignacio and Koldo ZUAZO.

- 2007. “The standardization of the Basque language”. Language Problems and Language Planning. Amsterdam: John Benjamin Publishing Company, 31-2, 143-168.

LAFITTE, Pierre

- 1944. Grammaire basque (Navarro-labourdin littéraire). 2nd expanded ed. Donostia: Elkar, 1979.

LARRAMENDI, Manuel

- 1745. Diccionario trilingüe del castellano, bascuence y latín (2 issues). Donostia: Bartolomé Riesgo Montero.

ZABALA, Juan Mateo

- 1848. El verbo regular vascongado del dialecto vizcaino. Donostia: Ignacio Ramón Baroja.

ZUAZO, Koldo

- 2005. Euskara batua. Ezina, ekinez egina. Donostia: Elkar.

- 2014. Euskalkiak. Donostia: Elkar.

- 2019. Standard Basque and its Dialects. London and New York: Routledge.

Up