Euskararen historia eta filologia: arazo zahar, bide berri

Abstract

This paper deals with the relationship between philology -in the sense of textual criticism- and the study of the history of the Basque Language. Classical philological problems are addressed such as text dating or the discovery of texts origins, authorship or sources. These are matters in which the contribution of historical linguistics is crucial for successful research.
   We argue that reciprocally textual analysis can and must make interesting contributions to the study of language history. For instance, in historical dialectology, in lexicography or in morphology (the rise and chronology of some suffix, for instance), the ideas based in certain written evidence must be verified to avoid the danger of arriving at totally wrong conclusions. We highlight the importance and difficulties inherent to the task of establishing a periodization for language history based on internal linguistic evidence or evidence ofanother kind.
   Koldo Mitxelena's works are nearly perfect embodiment of linguistic and philological knowledge. They thus serve to vindicate the need for historical linguistic research which takes need of textual variety and theoretically minded philological studies which are devoided of anecdotals pursuits.