Minoritised languages and unrealised sociolinguistics: Basque women speakers, anomalies, and non-knowledge

This article arises from an interest in understanding the elements involved in a phenomenon identified as the feminisation of the Basque language. Examination of the aspects underlying this supposed feminisation has led us to explore the interest that the linguistic practices of women have generated in the field of Basque sociolinguistics. To this end, the authors examine a corpus of texts published by intellectuals concerned with the Basque language. This analysis allows us to conclude that the approach taken in Basque sociolinguistics tends to label the linguistic practices of Basque women as anomalies. We link this attitude towards female Basque speakers to voids in knowledge (i.e., non-knowledge) within Basque sociolinguistics, and the absence of correlations to feminism. We contend that, by examining the exceptionalness attributed to the behaviour of certain types of speakers as well as addressing non-knowledge in language studies, we open up a necessary area of analysis for the future of minoritised languages.