- Without background work, there are no movies, and on the other side of the cameras there are more people than those who care. Gorka Lazkano started working long before he got to the shoot; he spent most of the hours between books, making visits, gathering ideas and drawing conclusions; in short, about a linguistics of an unproven time. He did it in Errementari, now he did it in Irati. Lazkano has adapted Basque to the eighth century.
You have addressed Paul Urkijo’s bet and challenge. He likes
to step back in time, travel back through mythology and give a lot of importance to language. I enter the play.
A lot of work. Yes,
yes. And quite a lot of headaches. But it's a land he likes. For each case, I had to document more and adjust more or less.
How does a language adapt to a time when we know little? That's the first question: what was there at the time? You start researching, and you see there's nothing collected. The first
sentences date from the 11th or 12th century.
There's a theorization that says that in the 8th century, there was something called the Basque Batua. Per unit, scenario or situation facing dialects. To define its characteristics, I referred to the philological authorities: books, network texts and experts. Iñaki Camino, Fonética Histórico Vasca de Koldo Mitxelena, there are also many theses...
"We wanted to color language without intent on doing philological studies."
Have you found something clear, concrete and absolutely safe? No, no. According to the evolution of language, there may be a consensus there, but then, of course, the branches of theorization are a thousand. My role has
been to dye the script and not do a philological study, so we've taken some licenses intentionally, knowing it was actually "more correct" to use another form. In short, I wanted to give a little colour to language, always trying to get as close as possible to philological research.
What licenses have you enjoyed? Some can be debatable. For example, in the case of boring, there is a broad consensus and there
are tests that reached Álava, which we know, in the 11th century. There's toponymy. You might think, or have taken, that the phenomenon of boring h was already widespread. For example, by doing the Hitan we have decided not to rent it, it can also be controversial.
Why?
The Fifth Xabier claims that it began to consolidate in the sixteenth century, but shortly before. However, we also think that, as many people do not know Hitan, because non-allocutive use can
be a way to facilitate it. We've put the Hitan in, yes, but in a more understandable way for everyone. It's not our job to teach Hitano.
Let it be
understandable. Yes, understandable and credible, combine both.
Let's also talk about verbal forms. What forms and what forms prevail? According to
Joseba Lakarrak, Sulatino and Roncalés could be the strongest dialectors of the oldest Basque. So I started, for example, using the keel instead of the decline with. We thought about using it at the beginning, we pulled it out to be more understandable. As well as other elements.
The same is true of the verbal system: we have opted for the batua, but there is a mixture between the old and the modern. We've created a fantastic unified Basque.
Another element for dye: phonetics. Where to put the
H boring, we've made a number of decisions that can be debatable to have a hue, to give it homogeneity, to have everyone talk similarly, even if the records are different. This was helped by Elisa Almandoz, who made some lectures in Lekaroz to work on the accentuation of the Baztan area.
The blacksmith experience would also have served you. I had more help in Errementari. So I went to Koldo
Zuazo, gave me the texts and the opinions that were happening to him. In this I have not sought so much. UPV professor Oroitz Jauregi has given me quite a few tips, especially on phonetics. I was happy because he confirmed to me some of the things I had deduced, such as the wetting and the pronunciation yota de j.
"We've made decisions that can be debatable to have a hue, to give homogeneity."
Dualism: different simple peoples and cultured peoples speak. I think Errementari
became more evident, but here too there is an effort. To the plain people I never put, the neologisms we have avoided in general, but the story has asked many times. For example, counting: it is nothing old, but we have used it for the sake of intelligibility.
On the other hand, factory words are only noble and clergy. Words that cure uses, like postulation. In addition, in the peñas of the small population they eat vowels, "will come". Vocal consumption is more modern dialectically, but differentiation provides this popular language. For example, pagans speak with rhymes.
Sometimes you don't look that much at language? Better, I think. I think it's always bad when it gets attention. I say this in general. I think the picture has
changed a lot, the Basque is becoming more and more natural in theatre, cinema and literature. We have also followed that chain.
Paul passes the scripts, you adapt the Basque, Pauli... and then deliver them to the actors. They embody the script. There you see the result. Every actor moves in their own way, in their working world, from here to there, and the possibilities for trial are very scarce. With the script, I prepare notes about language: like saying j, you have to do this accent, dial accents, vocal meetings...
Each actor comes from home working more or less. In the shoot we get together and try to find the unit.
Edurne Azkarate tells us he has been excited about this work. Much has been involved and it has
been very nice, because that broad range of advice I give you is adaptable. It is great for me to hear from these big players something that I have written or adapted, but there has never been anything closed, because they have a lot to add. They have a thousand times more experience than me and many actors have worked in the Basque Country in their career.