Note 4 — An Essay on the Basque Language,

Of these arrondissements, of these provinces, none is entirely Basque in a linguistic point of view, except Guipuzcoa. Navarre is only half so, Alava only a tenth part. A little less than a fourth part has to be subtracted from Biscay, and certain Gascon villages from the arrondissements of Mauléon and Bayonne in France. Neither Bayonne, nor Pampeluna, nor Bilbao are Basque.4 And, moreover, skirting the districts where the Basque is the native idiom of the majority of the inhabitants, on many points there is an intermediate zone in which Basque is known only by a minority of the population; nevertheless, this zone must be included in the geographical area of the idiom, since the persons who speak Basque in it know it as their native language, and have never learnt it. This zone is most extensive in Navarre, but exists also in Alava and in Biscay. In France there is no analogous mixed zone; and, as M. P. Broca remarks (“Sur l’Origine et la Repartition de la Langue Basque,” Paris, 1875, p. 39), “the demarcation is brusque, and may be indicated by a single line.” The Basques, moreover, in this respect, present some curious points for study. “In the valley of Roncal the men speak Spanish together; with the women they speak Basque, as do the women to each other. A similar state of things is to be observed at Ochagavia in Salazar. But this custom is not observed in the Roncalese villages of Uztarroz and Isaba, where the men among themselves speak indifferently Basque or Spanish.” (Prince L. L. Bonaparte, “Etudes sur les Dialects d’Aezcoa,” &c., p. 3).