no book in Basque older than two hundred years. But, its strangeness and
isolation once allowed for, there is in reality much to defend in the
Basque language. As spoken, it is far from being harsh, and falls
pleasantly, often softly, on the ear; the sounds are clear, the
articulations rarely, hurried as with the French. The words, other than
a few proper names, do not exceed a sober and reasonable length, and as
to spelling, every letter has its assigned use and duty; there are no
phonetic drones. The original root-forms are short and always
recognizable; the full words grow from these by an orderly if intricate
system of inflections and the forming of derivatives.

The inflections are, it must be admitted, intricate. Each noun boasts
two separate forms, and each of its declension-cases keeps a group of
sub-cases within reach for special emergencies. There are only two
regularly ordained verbs,--"to be" and "to have"; but they don different
canonicals for each different ceremony, and their varying garbs seem
fairly without limit. In the Grammaire Basque of M. Gèze, published in
Bayonne, I count no less than one hundred and eight pages of
closely-set tables needed to paint the opalescent hues of these
multiform auxiliaries,--and this only in one dialect, out of six in all.
M. Chaho, an essayist of weight and himself a Basque, informs us
artlessly and seriously that one counts a thousand and forty-five forms
for their combined present indicatives, and a trifle over ten thousand
forms for the two fully expanded verbs; and yet the language, he hastens
to add, is so magically simple that even a Basque child never makes an
error!

As to its appearance in print, the reader may judge for himself, for
here is one of their favorite love-songs. These light songs abound, many
being surprisingly delicate and dainty.