Level C1 · Part One, Chapter 8
The Basque squire: broken Castilian on purpose
A squire from the Basque country speaks to don Quixote in a Castilian that is wrong in every line, and wrong in the same ways each time. Cervantes invented a foreign accent on paper, and this is how he did it: missing articles, verbs in the wrong person, words out of order. Don Quixote replies in perfect Spanish, and then in Spanish two hundred years old.
The passage, exactly as Cervantes wrote it
Miguel de Cervantes, Part One, Chapter 8. Public domain, and not adapted, shortened or modernised in any way.
Anda, caballero que mal andes; por el Dios que crióme, que, si no dejas coche, así te matas como estás ahí vizcaíno. Entendióle muy bien don Quijote, y con mucho sosiego le respondió: — Si fueras caballero, como no lo eres, ya yo hubiera castigado tu sandez y atrevimiento, cautiva criatura. A lo cual replicó el vizcaíno: — ¿Yo no caballero? Juro a Dios tan mientes como cristiano. Si lanza arrojas y espada sacas, ¡el agua cuán presto verás que al gato llevas! Vizcaíno por tierra, hidalgo por mar, hidalgo por el diablo; y mientes que mira si otra dices cosa. — ¡Ahora lo veredes, dijo Agrajes! —respondió don Quijote.
Go on, knight, and bad luck go with you. By the God who made me, if you do not leave the coach, as sure as I am a Basque standing here, you are killing yourself. Don Quixote understood him perfectly well and answered very calmly: If you were a gentleman, which you are not, I would already have punished your foolishness and your insolence, wretched creature. To which the Basque replied: Me not a gentleman? I swear to God you lie, as sure as I am a Christian. If you throw down lance and draw sword, you will soon see who carries the cat to the water. Basque by land, gentleman by sea, gentleman in spite of the devil, and mind you lie if you say anything else. Now you shall see it, as Agrajes said! replied don Quixote.
The same thing in Spanish as it is written today
Read the two side by side. What has changed between them is the syllabus of this level.
Vete, caballero, y que te vaya mal. Por el Dios que me creó, que si no dejas el coche, tan cierto como que soy vizcaíno que te mato. Don Quijote lo entendió muy bien y le respondió con mucha calma: Si fueras caballero, que no lo eres, ya habría castigado yo tu tontería y tu atrevimiento, miserable criatura. A lo que el vizcaíno replicó: ¿Que yo no soy caballero? Juro a Dios que mientes, tan cierto como que soy cristiano. Si tiras la lanza y sacas la espada, ¡ya verás qué pronto te gano! Vizcaíno por tierra, hidalgo por mar, hidalgo a pesar del diablo, y mira que mientes si dices otra cosa. ¡Ahora lo veréis, como dijo Agrajes!, respondió don Quijote.
What changed, form by form
| In the text | Today | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| crióme | me creó | Enclitic pronoun on a preterite. Normal at the start of a sentence in 1605, but not after que, so wrong even then. |
| si no dejas coche | si no dejas el coche | No article. The Basque drops them all through his speech. |
| así te matas | así te mato | The wrong person of the verb. He means I kill you and says you kill yourself. |
| como estás ahí vizcaíno | tan cierto como que soy vizcaíno | He swears by his own identity and gets the person wrong again. |
| ya yo hubiera castigado | ya habría castigado yo | Pluperfect subjunctive in the main clause. Still correct, and still how many Spaniards say it. |
| tan mientes como cristiano | mientes, tan cierto como que soy cristiano | The oath squeezed into a single clause. |
| si lanza arrojas y espada sacas | si tiras la lanza y sacas la espada | Object before verb and no article, the pattern Cervantes gives him all the way through. |
| el agua cuán presto verás que al gato llevas | verás qué pronto llevo el gato al agua | Llevar el gato al agua, to come out on top. He scrambles the idiom until it says something else. |
| mientes que mira si otra dices cosa | mira que mientes si dices otra cosa | Verb first, object last, every word out of its slot. |
| veredes | veréis | The old -edes ending. Don Quixote answers broken Castilian with ancient Castilian. |
The syntax
Cervantes builds the Basque's Castilian out of a few consistent faults rather than random noise. Articles disappear, objects move in front of their verbs, pronouns land in the wrong place and verbs go into the wrong person. That consistency is why a Spanish reader understands every word and still hears a foreigner. Don Quixote's reply is flawless, with a pluperfect subjunctive where modern Spanish prefers the conditional perfect, which was the normal way to say it at the time.
What a Spanish reader hears
Two stereotypes are being played at once. Basques in 1605 were famous for bad Castilian and for claiming that every one of them was a hidalgo by birth, and the squire does both in a single breath: his grammar collapses at the exact moment he insists on his rank. Don Quixote then answers with a line from Amadís, ahora lo veredes, dijo Agrajes, which was already a proverbial quotation. So the fight begins between a man who cannot speak Castilian and a man who can only speak it out of a book.
Where the course prepares you for this
- Irregular preterite: ser, ir, estar, tener, hacerLesson 22The Basque squire