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Comment by jng | Hacker News Reader

I'm Basque, I'm a very long time HN regular, and I love linguistics related topics. So I'm keen to see this, but I still don't fully understand how this makes it to the front page :)

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I recently discovered and started frequenting all the internet resources that have grown around the language learning community (there's a lot of websites, youtube channels with polyglots showing off, etc).

As a Spaniard, it was really surprising to see how popular the Basque language is around those circles. I think it's a mix of the historical quirkiness of it being a pre-roman western European language, and the bragging potential for language learners due to how niche and unrelated to other languages it is.

If you ever need to make some money on the side, there are sites where you can book conversations with native speakers to practice, and basque is really in demand, so an euskaldun can make good money :)

Yes, that's true. I also think this is due the history of linguistics itself as a field. Until the 19th century, I think scholars focused on european languages. Nearly all of them of indoeuropean origin: Maltese probably just ignored, Finnish and Hungarian found to be distantly related (I never saw Estonian mentioned in older texts), and Basque was "the mysterious isolate".

Please share with me some links to those sites where I could make some side money just by speaking some Basque, sounds like a good mental break from programming :)

https://www.italki.com/ – I've heard from language learners that it's actually a very good way of learning, if you can't do full immersion (compared to stuff like srs, duolingo, grammar books, etc.)

General amusement, historical quirkiness, an interesting ad hoc linguistic interoperability framework (between two quite thoroughly-distinct languages) - lots of reasons :)

Agur!

(It's been too long since I visited your country - such a beautiful place!)

The article makes it clear this is not a mix of Icelandic and Basque but rather a Basque pidgin found in Iceland.

Is the Icelandic connection somehow linked with the Basque national dish (and seeming national obsession) salted cod baked in olive oil? I went once and we were literally served it for every meal except breakfast. We visited a lot of different places and our hosts were always very proud of their particular method for making it and keen to show off their skills, but they didn't realise the last people we had been to see had the same idea. Its delicious, but it became a bit of a running joke the fourth or fifth time we had it! I really liked the Basque country, great cities and beautiful landscape.

My guess is that cod is widespread in countries around the North Atlantic. Hospitality in a bit of an excessive degree and bordering on comical annoyance due to unawareness is an even more widespread phenomenon around the world, as attested, among other, by many Hollywood comedies such as "My great Greek wedding" and others :)

Very glad you enjoyed it, and if you drop by Barcelona where I live now, I'll happily make sure you try 4 or 5 instances of the single best paella in the world.

Cod is pretty widespread, but salted cod is not common here in the UK or I think in Ireland and I had never come across that particular way of cooking it before. When we eat it, traditionally it is street food cooked from fresh, battered and deep fried, which can be nice if it's done right but many places mess it up and the fish gets too oily.

That paella sounds nice. Barcelona is also a great city, great food, culture, beaches, amusement park on a mountain! Seville, Madrid, Cordoba and Granada, even Valladolid are also great. The only Spanish city I didn't like was Malaga. In fact, I think that in general Spain is excellent at urbanism and liveable cities.

The Portuguese are also mad for salt cod. There's a dish called bacalhau à brás which is shredded salt cod, grated potato, and sliced onion, bound up with eggs and cooked to a scrambled consistency, and is one of my all time favourite dishes:

https://www.mulherportuguesa.com/receita/bacalhau-a-bras-tra...

Do you have disconcertingly long earlobes?

Is this a Basque thing? I have significant Basque ancenstry and people have always pointed out how long my earlobes are.

Apparently it is yes.

Is it the opposite of elves then?

Basque are the orcs of Europe?

LOL! From a basque . My wife is asking what have I read.

Just quite long ones. Nobody got disconcerted so far, afaik :)

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