Living in a land where ‘es’ means no

Basque is not an easy language. It doesn’t look like other European languages with its clusters of ‘t’s and ‘x’s and frequent ‘k’s. It’s not related to other languages — not any, anywhere — and it doesn’t sound like other languages: where else does ‘es’ means ‘no’?

Originally I was keen for the children to learn Spanish from this trip, but now that they are being more and more exposed to Basque, I think it’s brilliant. They won’t get particularly proficient in either in the four months that we are here, but learning a language at their age is as much about learning that there are other languages, and sounds, as it is about being able to communicate in that language. By exposing them to Basque, this education goes even further, they are receiving a free lesson in the importance of cultural identity. They accept it as read that schools will teach in Basque even if the pupils speak Spanish when they’re at home.

The brilliant thing is that just because they can’t communicate in either language it doesn’t stop them enjoying school, and they are learning bits and pieces — H now proudly responds to the register with ‘hemen nago’ which means ‘I am here’, and J comes home telling us words for different colours and counting up to 10. They have thrown themselves into lessons — H has a Spanish line in a play this afternoon, and I flicked through J’s maths book last week and it was full of sums. And when there was a school trip to see a film in Basque as part of San Sebastian’s Human Rights Film Festival there was no way they were going to miss out. True, the film was Paddington 2. (I was cynical at first, but it is a film about doing the right thing, taking in a lost bear, communities coming together to let good triumph. That works for me.) They knew the story, but they must have listened a bit too, as afterwards they said that people said ‘kaixo’ a lot. It means hello.

But their enthusiasm to be part of things isn’t limited to the moving image. Next up is an overnight school trip heading out into the countryside to learn about country things. From the website this looks like candle making, bread baking and exploring pre-historic caves. Again, both are adamant they want to go. I point out there won’t be English speakers around for a full two days, even at bedtime, but it doesn’t put them off.

A little thing like language isn’t going to get in the way of them being happy and making friends. At the weekend we went to the beach with one of the mum’s from school and her son who is in J’s class. The children spent hours digging holes and making sandcastles, the two boys cracked up in giggles spooning sand down the front of their swimming trunks — sharing the international language of potty humour.

I’ve been into school too. They were celebrating multi-culturalism and asked me to come in and read a book to J’s class in English. I found a copy of Giraffes Can’t Dance. The class is only just starting to learn English, so I helped them along with a bit of mime which led to me swish-swishing on stage — a dance that is globally recognised even when done by me! There’s another thing we don’t need language for, to be able to embarrass our children in public, although I like to think J was secretly quite proud.