bonaparte's basque dialect map
Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew came to the Basque Country five times. His works were particularly important for the study of the Basque language as they were the first academic study of the Basque dialects: Carte des sept provinces basques, 1863. He used information from sources all over the Basque Country, for example Jean Duvoisin, a customs captain from Lapurdi; brother Jose Antonio Uriarte; father Jose Samper; Mariano Mendigatxa, from Bidankoze; Prudencio Uhalde; Klaudio Otaegi from Zegama; Aita Ibarnegarai; Emmanuel Intxauspe Kalonje from Zuberoa. His way of working was to ask these people to translate famous passages from the bible into the Basque of particular places and he also collected and studied their old manuscripts. He classified eight dialects into three main groups and fifty varieties into twenty-five sub- dialects. Bonaparte received some criticisms, mostly because of the translations and because of basing the dialects, sub-dialects and their study on religious texts, but there is no doubt that the work Bonaparte did was enormously important for the Basque language.
