Alavese dialect

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Alavese, or Arabako euskara in Basque and vasco alavés in Spanish, is an extinct Basque dialect that was once spoken in Álava, a province of Spain’s Basque Country. Today, Aramaio and Legutio near the northern border with Biscay do not speak Alavese; they use a variant of Biscayan Basque instead. In Álava today about 25% of people speak Basque, but most are speakers of Standard Basque learned in school or brought from other parts of the Basque Country.

In 1997, linguist Koldo Zuazo, building on work by Koldo Mitxelena, described three main linguistic zones running north to south in Álava. These areas mix Western and Navarrese features to different degrees depending on location. Notable differences include vocabulary and grammar, such as instrumental forms like -gaz or -rekin meaning “with,” and endings like -rean or -tik, as well as sound variants such as barria/berria meaning “new,” elexea/elizea meaning “church,” and padura/madura meaning “swamp.”

The Alavese dialect is poorly documented. The Lazarraga manuscript, found in 2004, is the only substantial known piece of Alavese prose. Before that discovery, evidence was very scarce, and some Basque inscriptions once claimed to be in Alavese on pottery shards from Iruña-Veleia were later shown to be forgeries.