LINGUAE VASCONUM PRIMITIAE - Euskaltzaindia

pride, left him feeling rather amazed (miraz nago) in observing that while
no Basque, in spite of the fact that there were among them not a few
«skilled, hard-working and genteel» ones, had previously tried to show the
world that the Basque language was «as good as any tongue to write in»
and at the same time he had a certain hope that «upcorninq generations
might be motivated to perfect it», for which he did not balk at crying
«Heusksre ja/gi adi dentzere», (Basque, go forth and dance).
Mitxelena was able like no other how to sense and express this happy
and delightful entry of the Basque language onto the literary stage when
he wrote, «few languages have made as joyful an entry into literature as
Basque did when the poet Etxepare called for it to dance. This (...) made
it greater and he was fully aware that he was doing something greater
for, in other words, he was the first to introduce Basque onto the world
stage. When he ended his verses by writing «debile principium me/ior
fortuna sequetur» (out of a humble beginning may better fortune follow),
he undoubtedly believed that he was laying the first milestone which
would mark the way down through the centuries 11,
There has been a great deal of speculation from Prince Lucien
Bonaparte's day down to the present regarding the archaic nature of
Etxepare's language viz-a-viz Joannes Leizarraga's or, if you prefer, vice
versa. Of course, Mitxelena never ever made comparisons between the
two and spoke in no uncertain terms about the archaic nature of Leizarraga.
However, he seems to be inclined to follow the view of Prince Bonaparte's
that there is a greater degree of archaism in the language of the translator's
Testamentu Berria when he, in our opinion, quotes a questionable reference
from a passage by Schuchardt 12.
In effect, when the latter states that Leizarraga's language is no
less odd for the Basque of his age than Luther's German was for his
contemporary Germans - something which is so plainly obvious that he
might have meant something else since Luther and Leizarraga were
almost contemporaries who were separated by only fifty years - by this
he does not intend, in our opinion, to play up the archaic nature of
Leizarraga's language as opposed to Etxepare's but rather, he simply
seeks to excuse himself, as it were, from offering the new edition of the
Testamentu Berria which he prepared, in contemporary speech and
spelling to the taste of the modern reader and in the same way as Inchauspe
had done some years back with Axular's Gero. He reproduces, on the
11 MITXELENA, Koldo, «Euskalliteraturaren etorkizuna», Mitxelenaren Euskalldazlan Guztiak
IV, n", 24, Donostia, Euskal Editoreen Elkartea, 1988, p. 24.
12 MICHELENA, Luis, Historia de la Literatura Vasca, Madrid, Ed. Minotauro, 1960, p. 50.
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