"Ave Maria" is the same in every tongue

[muckefuck]

Yesterday afternoon, killing time on the Loyola between the end of the book sale and the beginning of dinner with zompist and La Iquiteña, we ended up goofing off in front of the Madonna della Strada Chapel (closed for the summer while it receives the attentions of some huge crane). Above the main entrance are inscribed the words to the "Ave Maria" in Latin and we joked about what names could be formed from them. ("Fructus Ventris", anyone?) They mentioned that they'd been compiling a list of what I call "Marionyms"--personal names connected in some way with the BVM.

That's when I mentioned the huge list of bizarre Marionymns listed in my Basque dictionary. I know, "bizarre" hardly need be said when the subject is Basque, but what makes these truly odd is that I can see no connexion at all between the names and their referents or--in most cases--and parts of the Basque vocabulary. (I may be good at this, but I'm no Edo Nyland!) I can illustrate what I'm getting at with examples of the most popular Marionyms in Catalan. Alphabetically, they are:

• (Maria dels) Àngels "Mary Queen of Angels"
• Concepció "Conception (of Jesus)"
• Dolors "Sufferings"
• Lurdes "Our Lady of Lourdes"
• Montserrat "Our Lady of Montserrat ['serrated mountain']"
• Mercè "Our Lady of Mercy" [Patroness of Barcelona]
• Neus "Our Lady of the Snows"
• Núria "Our Lady of Núria [a Pyrenaean valley]"
• Pilar "Our Lady of the Pillar" [Patroness of Zaragoza]
• Virginia "of the Virgin"

All very straightforward: Three toponyms from locations of shrines, four abstract qualities or mysteries, two names of objects associated with Mary at certain shrines (ask e. about the Pillar at Mary's shrine in Zaragoza; the original Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows is located high in the French Pyrenees).

Now compare this to the Basques:

• Ainhoa "Our Lady of Ezpeleta"
• Aintzine "Our Lady of Biskaia"
• Aitziber "Our Lady of Urdiain"
• Aloña "Our Lady of Oñati"
• Arantzazu "Our Lady of Oñati"
• Arrate "Our Lady of Eibar"
• Begoña "Our Lady of Bizkaia"
• Dorieta "Our Lady of Leniz"
• Erdotza "Our Lady of Markina"
• Estibalitz "Our Lady of Araba"
• Eunate "Our Lady of Muruzabal"
• Gardotza "Our Lady of Berriatua"
• Idoia "Our Lady of Isaba"
• Idurre "Our Lady of Motriko"
• Iratxe "Our Lady of Estella"
• Itziar "Our Lady of Deva"
• Izazkun "Our Lady of Tolosa"
• Koru "Our Lady of Donostia"
• Leire "Our Lady of Sangüesa"
• Olatz "Our Lady of Azpeitia"

It may be the case that the shrines themselves are (or were at one time) located in tiny hamlets outside the cities who claim their patronage and, thus, bear their names. (This was true, for instance, in the case of little Itziar.) There's also the notorious habit among the Basques of giving every damn feature in their area its own unpronounceable name. Still, I can come up with plausible etymological suggestions for only a handful of these, e.g. Arantzazu means "hawthorn patch", Arrate is a "stone door" (metaphorically, a narrow pass), Erdotza could be a variant of erdoza "pasture". (The most unfortunate is Idoia, which either means or is a homonym for "the mud".) The names sound so obscure, you may be wondering how many are actually in use. Well, so far, all the ones I've searched are. (Does anyone want to interview Idoia Bilbao to find out what life is like when your name is Mud?)

Comments

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

All I have to say is, Basque really hurts my head. ;_;