San Adrian (tunnel)

The San Adrian tunnel or Lizarrate represents the most outstanding milestone in the historic inland Basque route of the Way of St. James. It consists of a natural cave carved by water erosion in the rock (called Lizarrate, arguably stemming from "leize arrate", 'the stone gate of the cave') with an opening on either side north and south; it also holds an hermitage inside. The tunnel provides a natural passage dividing the provinces of Gipuzkoa and Álava/Araba (the actual borderline locating at the Alto de la Horca).

The Spanish-Basque linguistic boundary of the twentieth century was established in this area, the next village south, Zalduondo, having been predominantly Spanish speaking during that period. Nowadays many hikers cross the tunnel in order to gain access to the nearby peaks, forests and grazing fields, namely Aratz, Aizkorri and Urbia.

As so many times in Basque place- and person-names, this name of worship (San Adrian) has gone through a mutation arguably brought about by scribes and people ignorant of Basque. The pass itself is attested as Leizarrate at the beginning of the 17th century, while nowadays this naming (in the modern form Lizarrate) is usually limited to the rock in Spanish, with Basque still retaining the name Lizarrate also with its original meaning – i.e. to refer to the tunnel. Originally the hermitage may have been dedicated to the "Sancta Trinitate" or Holy Trinity. Yet the word, like many Romance and Latin words turns out messy to pronounce in Basque, and it underwent a reduction (along the phonetic rules exhaustively described by K. Mitxelena) that ultimately resulted in Sandrati or Sandratei, as locals call it. Other phonetic outputs as attested in place-names around the area include Sandrati, Santa Tria and variations, especially in the lands of Álava/Araba extending south of the mountain range that San Adrian provides the pass for: Santa Tria (village Audikana), San Tetria (village Contrasta 1556, leftover place-name of a former hermitage otherwise called in Romance San Adrian).

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Wikipedia