The Basque Identity

In English, it's the Basque Country. In Castillian Spanish, el País Vasco. In Basque? Euskadi.

The Basque Country is something different to everyone. This oddball province of Spain, graced with a completely unique language and as well as a distinctive culture, struggles to identify with the rest of Spain. A sometimes violent separatist movement headed by ETA, or Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Freedom), a terrorist organization whose bombings and assassinations have led to the death of over 900 people since its founding in 1959, is the fruit of this failure to subgroup of the province has been calling for freedom from Spain and the formation of a new Basque nation, fully independent from its brethren. The question is: why? Why did the Basque country turn out to be so different from the rest of Spain? The answer lies in the language.

Thousands of years ago, before Roman rule of the Iberian peninsula, there existed a tribe called the Vascones in the modern-day regions of Aragón and Navarra, as described by the Greek historian Strabo. Part of the original Paleolithic peoples of the peninsula, it is this tribe that gave us the first iteration of the modern Basque language, a language that is basically a remnant of the pre-Roman languages developed and spoken there.

Basque-speaking peoples persisted under myriad conquests and governments, somehow always managing to keep their language and their identity alive. It is through this common bond of language that their culture began to develop: Basque speakers historically would stick together in their own communities, and within their own niche they made their own culture instead of simply going with the one that arose and evolved through the events that shaped Spain into what we know it as through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and today, a Spain shaped by a hybridizing blend of Roman-European and Arabic traditions.

Today, the Basque language is restricted to a small area detailed in the map. Even in the Basque country, only about 25% of the population can still speak it, with only 10% being able to read and write it - some basis for such a virulent separatist movement.


The interesting thing about the Basque language is that it is the one language of its language group - no other language in the world is anything like it. Basque is the last remnant of the traditional, pre-Roman language of Spain, one of the only pre-Indo-European language families still spoken in Europe. As such, it needs to be preserved. But this fact also leads to another important conclusion.

The thing is, the Basque country isn't a group apart from Spain: the Basque country is Spain, in its oldest, purest form. The Basque tradition reaches back millennia to the very roots of a people. While Spain evolved and took on many different traditions throughout its history, the Basque people quietly preserved our ancestral selves. There is nothing wrong with the hybridized Spain, of course. All these influences are what made and continue to make Spain so unique and relevant in European history. Instead of trying to estrange itself from the people that are its descendants, Euskadi should be proud to be a part of the nation that its ancestors fostered, close brothers with instead of stepchildren of the Spanish land. Because the Basque aren't outcasts; if anything, they're every Spaniard's core self.

"Plus Ultra" - Historical and Philosophical Perspectives

Sorry for the long hiatus - I've been incredibly busy lately. I worry that I'm beginning to show signs of noob-bloggeritis, i.e. starting a blog and then letting it go by the wayside. I'll work harder from now on to keep those posts coming. For now, I'll set my goal at one a week (and hope I start getting some more readers).

I felt I'd like to take some time this week to talk about Plus Ultra. Besides being the name of this blog (its main and most important application), it is the national motto of Spain, and as such merits discussion.


Author Earl Rosenthal has traced the origins of this phrase back to the ancient myth of the Pillars of Hercules, which mark each side of the Strait of Gibraltar (which Spain forms one half of) and were supposedly the boundaries of the world. Upon them was inscribed Nec Plus Ultra, Latin for "nothing further beyond." These pillars, and the worlds Plus Ultra, are now symbolically intertwined on Spain's coat-of-arms, which one can see on the Spanish flag.

It was the Holy Roman Emperor Carlos V who adopted Plus Ultra as his personal motto in the sixteenth century, as a reminder not to be afraid to take risks and go "further beyond." The saying gained traction and was given as encouragement to soldiers, sailors, and the conquistadores to break the boundaries of the known world and go above and beyond their call of duty, and eventually becoming the motto of the entire Habsburg line of Spanish kings.

More interesting than the history, however, is the philosophical side of the Plus Ultra coin. Why does it fit as the Spanish motto? How does it hold its meaning today?

The arguments one could give for Plus Ultra as motto have a strong basis in history; traditionally, it has been the Spanish who have been at the cutting edge and have gone beyond what one might consider prudent or likely for them to do. Just look at the conquest of the New World; the flat earth fear is a myth, but it still took a lot of guts and courage to sail off without knowing where you're going or how far it will be to get there. The Portuguese explorers that discovered sea routes to Asia had it easy; all they had to do was follow the African coastline and keep it in sight. The Spanish were sailing straight into an ocean that was uncharted and altogether unknown.

More than discovering the New World, however, it is the audacity of the conquistadores that is most astounding. Putting aside the moral debate over their bloody conquests, let us look at the courage that it took them to achieve what they did. Look at Francisco Pizarro, for example: deep in the South American continent with a hundred-odd men, with no means of resupply or communication with other Spaniards, going into a total unknown. Sure, steel weapons and horses and his European diseases were stacked in his favor; but when he came upon the Incan emperor, with his 80.000 man army, instead of cutting and running Pizarro decided to attack. He seized the emperor as his hostage and fought off the thousands of Incans in a bloodbath at Cajamarca, and eventually conquered the entire Incan Empire. Again putting the moral question aside, this was a brilliant and courageous act on his part. No one would expect a hundred Spaniards to conquer the dozens of thousands of Incas, and yet they did. They went further beyond any other conquest before them, more so than even Hernán Cortés did.

But how does this continue to apply to modern Spain? We are not, after all, engaged in any more sweeping wars of conquest nowadays (or wars at all, really). Plus Ultra has gone underground. Instead of being at the forefront of national actions, one can now see it reflected more in the people. The peaceful, determined, and phenomenally successful transition to a stable democracy that followed the end of dictator Francisco Franco's reign displayed this. Spain's economy displays this. At a time when many European economies are stagnant or even in decline, Spain's economy is showing a steady growth rate of 3% annually. Since the utter ruin of post-Civil War Spain is rising a renewed, invigorated economic force that is starting to stand on its own two feet. Despite fears that a housing "bubble" is forming, Spain's economy will likely continue to exhibit growth due to developments in other sectors, perhaps merely tempered somewhat by a cooling down of the real estate market. The Spanish people are consistently seeking ways to do more with their lives, and the economic growth reflects this. Like the myriad and iconic construction cranes that dot the Spanish landscape, Spaniards are standing up and building a better future out of what could have been a bleak outlook. Spanish vision, tenacity, and perseverance have overcome many obstacles in the past and will hopefully continue to do so in the future. That is Plus Ultra.