Archaic or European Spanish?

Question

I have been reading Spanish short stories, particularly one entitled El Coronel de Caballería by Hector Alberto Murena, an Argentinian writer, in which I am encountering a conjugation I have never seen. Maybe they are from archaic Spanish. Maybe they are from European Spanish. Here's an example: "...aunque hablase en tono alto..." In this case word/conjugation in questions is "hablase". Any ideas?

Answer 1

Yep, it's the imperfect subjunctive of hablar! It may be more common to see "hablara" but "hablase" means the same thing.

edit: it's not archaic though, people still use it : )