The Interaction between orality and literacy in the Basque Country

Abstract

In the last decades, many authors have started choosing Basque, originally an oral language, as the language in which they write their literary works. Basque culture prizes oral manifestations, like improvised verses, legends and storytelling. The value placed on orality has an influence on recent texts written in Basque in a variety of manners, as authors use the same techniques that are usually utilized in spoken language, insert oral traditions or orature in the written works and get ideas for them from stories they were told orally. At the same time as oral traditions are influencing written texts, higher levels of literacy among verse improvisers is impacting many aspects of oral manifestations. Therefore, we can say that while oral tradition has an influence on novels written in Basque, literacy affects Basque oral manifestations. The Basque culture has traditionally been perceived as a rural and uncivilized one, partly due to the fact that it has been a predominately oral culture. In present day Western societies, literacy tends to be linked to civilization, whereas orality is often associated to lack of it. While some forms of Basque oral traditions and forms of orature started having prestige only when their performers began to be educated, Basque writers often use their literary works to undermine this polarized idea about literacy and civilization and orality and lack of it. Even though it has not always been like this, nowadays, Western societies rely on the written text in order to store and transmit information, as it is seen as permanent and invariant, while the oral text would be invariable and ephemeral. Basque forms of orature, oral traditions and written literary works often show us that the written word can easily disappear, while the oral word can remain over time. In conclusion, we cannot understand orality and literacy, civilization and lack of civilization, and permanence and impermanence as opposed to each other, as all these concepts interact with each other.