Basque ethnography at a glance

‘Two Guipuzcoans from Mutriku and Elgoibar in the square in Elgoibar (Gipuzkoa)’. Author: Juan San Martín, 1960. Source: GipuzkoaKultura.

Recently, on a trip to Venice, I saw a shop window with a jacket for sale and a sign that identified it with the word ‘giacca’.

I didn’t hesitate to take a photo and send it to a friend, one of those who delight in linguistic curiosities, accompanied by an audio to explain it to him, since it is obvious that ‘giacca’ is similar to the word ‘jaka’ that we use in Basque to call that same garment.

Traveling alone has these things, there are moments of boredom that you don’t know how to fill. But the fact is that my friend liked the story of that word so much that he encouraged me to tell it.

Moreover, it is not recorded in the Basque Etymological Dictionary of Euskaltzaindia, so the explanation seems appropriate.

The jacket, as a garment, seems to have its origins in the Middle Ages or early Renaissance, as a doublet, which is a tighter version of the short tunic worn by working-class men. As we well know, it is an outer garment that reaches below the hip, with sleeves and open at the front with a button that allows it to be opened and closed as desired.

Well, apparently, and and with the approval of most linguists,, our word ‘jaka’, as well as the Italian ‘giacca’ mentioned above, arise from the French name of the person Jacques, that is, our Jagoba, Jakue… or the Spanish names Santiago, Jacobo…

Because French peasants were known by the nickname ‘Jacques’, since it was a very common given name among them. In the same way, the nobles called the serfs and peasants who worked on their lands ‘Jacques’ in a derogatory way.

Jacket from a shop in Venice. Source: Félix Mugurutza: Félix Mugurutza.

Therefore, the doublet (‘jipoi’ in basque) that they used to wear became known as ‘jaque’, ‘the garment of the Jacques, the peasants’.

By the way, in Basque, the word doublet is ‘jipoi’, which also means ‘beating’ or ‘hammering’.

But let’s get back to our business. And lo and behold, from the ‘jaque’ of that social stratum that they considered so low, the word ‘chaqué’ in French later emerged, a formal suit considered the most proper label for the upper classes.

However, that’s as far as Basque language went, always so delicate and conservative with the foreign terms it adopts as its own. Because other languages ​​that surrounded it went further in their evolutions and used the diminutive of ‘jaque’, ‘jaquette’, to name the jacket, a kind of reduced doublet, that is, splitting the term to differentiate between the original and the new garments, ‘jaque’ and ‘jaquette’.

Hence the Spanish word ‘chaqueta’ was coined from ‘jaquette’. Needless to say, when we use the English jacket version, we’re talking about the same thing.

In English, the term ‘hanseline’ was also used to refer to jackets. But let us not be mistaken, since Hansel, that name of a person that we also recognize thanks to the stories of our childhood, is the ancient Germanic equivalent of Jacques.

This is how all the roads we try to follow will lead us to the name of Jacques, which has been so common and popular among the peasants of France.

So much so that the dozens of popular rebellions that peasants led in the Middle Ages and in the Ancien Régime (the first in 1385) are known as ‘jacqueries’ when we study history.

Who would have told us that the ‘jaka’, the suit that symbolized the most popular and rural strata in history, would eventually become the opposite case, that is to say, a garment that signifies decorating with elegance, or what´s the same, wearing ‘chaqué’.

Brought to our present state, the jacket, especially on the Cantabrian side of the Basque Country, was not part of the daily work dress. But it has been indisputable in situations of certain public exposure such as weddings, funerals or business deals of importance. That’s why you couldn’t miss the jacket in our farm closets.

Who would have told us that the word jaka would take us so far in history. And on the map, since I had to pedal on my bike to Venice, be able to see it, feel it and bring it to these lines.

Felix Mugurutza – Researcher