Hizkuntz eskuliburuen tradizioa Euskal Herrian: I. "L'interprect ou Traduction du François, Espagnol et Basque" (~1620)

Abstract

In this paper I introduce and edit the first part (grammatical paradigms and a short French-Basque vocabulary) of Voltoire's L'Interprect... (Bordeaux ~1620). This text has already been partially analysed in previous works (cf. Lakarra 1993 and later). It is a Basque representative (together with A short method to learn the Biscayan language, by R. Micoleta (Bilbao 1653)) of a special type of lexicographic and grammatical text which was often found in Europe but seldom amongst us, and which became popular in the XVI and XVII centuries for the teaching of very diverse languages.
   The textual history of L'Interprect is particularly complex. There are several undated editions which differ considerably from each other. The part which is presented here did not appear in most of later editions, since these only included the practical dialogues for treaders and travellers from the second part (which will be the object of future studies).
   Amongst the most remarkable characteristics of this text we could mention its intricate graphic system and the many first appearances of words, both borrowings and native ones. We include an appendix with a reversed lexicon (Basque-French) and a shorter internal word list.