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Basque ( ; ) is a language spoken by
Basques The Basques ( or ; ; ; ) are a Southwestern European ethnic group, characterised by the Basque language, a Basque culture, common culture and shared genetic ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. Basques are indigenous peoples, ...
and other residents of the Basque Country, a region that straddles the westernmost
Pyrenees The Pyrenees are a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. They extend nearly from their union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, reaching a maximum elevation of at the peak of Aneto. ...
in adjacent parts of northern Spain and southwestern France. Basque is classified as a
language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...
(unrelated to any other known languages), the only one in
Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
. The Basques are indigenous to and primarily inhabit the Basque Country. The Basque language is spoken by 806,000 Basques in all territories. Of them, 93.7% (756,000) are in the Spanish area of the Basque Country and the remaining 6.3% (50,000) are in the French portion. Native speakers live in a contiguous area that includes parts of four Spanish provinces and the three "ancient provinces" in France.
Gipuzkoa Gipuzkoa ( , ; ; ) is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the autonomous community of the Basque Country. Its capital city is Donostia-San Sebastián. Gipuzkoa shares borders with the French department of Pyrénées-Atlantiqu ...
, most of
Biscay Biscay ( ; ; ), is a province of the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Autonomous Community, heir of the ancient Lordship of Biscay, lying on the south shore of the Bay of Biscay, eponymous bay. The capital and largest city is Bilb ...
, a few municipalities on the northern border of
Álava Álava () or Araba (), officially Araba/Álava, is a Provinces of Spain, province of Spain and a historical territory of the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Country, heir of the ancient Basque señoríos#Lords of Álava, Lordship ...
and the northern area of
Navarre Navarre ( ; ; ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. ...
formed the core of the remaining Basque-speaking area before measures were introduced in the 1980s to strengthen Basque fluency. By contrast, most of Álava, the westernmost part of Biscay, and central and southern Navarre are predominantly populated by native speakers of Spanish, either because Basque was replaced by either
Navarro-Aragonese Navarro-Aragonese was a Romance language once spoken in a large part of the Ebro River basin, south of the middle Pyrenees; the dialects of the modern Aragonese language, spoken in a small portion of that territory, can be seen as its last remain ...
or Spanish over the centuries (as in most of Álava and central Navarre), or because it may never have been spoken there (as in parts of Enkarterri and south-eastern Navarre). In
Francoist Spain Francoist Spain (), also known as the Francoist dictatorship (), or Nationalist Spain () was the period of Spanish history between 1936 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death i ...
, Basque language use was discouraged by the government's repressive policies. In the Basque Country, "Francoist repression was not only political, but also linguistic and cultural." Franco's regime suppressed Basque from official discourse, education, and publishing, making it illegal to register newborn babies under Basque names, and even requiring tombstone engravings in Basque to be removed. In some provinces the public use of Basque was suppressed, with people fined for speaking it. Public use of Basque was frowned upon by supporters of the regime, often regarded as a sign of anti-Francoism or
separatism Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, regional, governmental, or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seekin ...
. Overall, in the 1960s and later, the trend reversed and education and publishing in Basque began to flourish. As a part of this process, a standardised form of the Basque language, called Euskara Batua, was developed by the
Euskaltzaindia Euskaltzaindia (; often translated Royal Academy of the Basque Language) is the official academic language regulatory institution which watches over the Basque language. It conducts research, seeks to protect the language, and establishes stand ...
in the late 1960s. Besides its standardised version, the five historic Basque dialects are Biscayan, Gipuzkoan, and Upper Navarrese in Spain and Navarrese–Lapurdian and
Souletin Souletin or Zuberoan () is the Basque dialect spoken in Soule, France. Souletin is marked by influences from Occitan (in particular the Béarnese dialect), especially in the lexicon. Another distinct characteristic is the use of verb forms, a ...
in France. They take their names from the historic Basque provinces, but the dialect boundaries are not congruent with province boundaries. Euskara Batua was created so that the Basque language could be used—and easily understood by all Basque speakers—in formal situations (education, mass media, literature), and this is its main use today. In both Spain and France, the use of Basque for education varies from region to region and from school to school. Basque is the only surviving
Paleo-European language The Paleo-European languages (sometimes also called Old European languages) are the mostly unknown languages that were spoken in Neolithic Europe, Neolithic () and Bronze Age Europe () prior to the spread of the Indo-European languages, Indo-Eur ...
in
Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
. The current mainstream scientific view on the origin of the Basques and of their language is that early forms of Basque developed before the arrival of
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
in the area, i.e. before the arrival of
Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...
and
Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...
in particular, as the latter today geographically surround the Basque-speaking region. Typologically, with its agglutinative morphology and
ergative–absolutive alignment In linguistic typology, ergative–absolutive alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the subject of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the subject of a transitive verb. Exa ...
,
Basque grammar This article provides a sketch of Basque grammar. Basque is the language of the Basque people of the Basque Country or Euskal Herria, which borders the Bay of Biscay in Western Europe. Noun phrases The Basque noun phrase is structured quite di ...
remains markedly different from that of
Standard Average European Standard Average European (SAE) is a concept originally introduced in 1939 by American linguist Benjamin Whorf to group the modern Indo-European languages of Europe with shared common features. Whorf argued that the SAE languages were characteri ...
languages. Nevertheless, Basque has borrowed up to 40 percent of its vocabulary from Romance languages,"Basque Pidgin Vocabulary in European-Algonquian Trade Contacts." In Papers of the Nineteenth Algonquian Conference, edited by William Cowan, pp. 7–13. https://ojs.library.carleton.ca/index.php/ALGQP/article/download/967/851/0 and the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...
is used for the
Basque alphabet The Basque alphabet is a Latin alphabet used to write the Basque language. It consists of 27 letters. List of letters The letters of the Basque alphabet are the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet plus . The letter is officially not c ...
.


Names of the language

In Basque, the name of the language is officially (alongside various
dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...
forms). In French, the language is normally called though has become common in recent times. Spanish has a greater variety of names for the language. Today, it is most commonly referred to as , , or . Both terms, and , are inherited from the Latin
ethnonym An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
, which in turn goes back to the Greek term (), an
ethnonym An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
used by
Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...
in his (23 CE, Book III). The Spanish term , derived from Latin , has acquired negative connotations over the centuries and is not well-liked amongst Basque speakers generally. Its use is documented at least as far back as the 14th century when a law passed in
Huesca Huesca (; ) is a city in north-eastern Spain, within the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Aragon. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Aragon between 1096 and 1118. It is also the capital of the Spanish Huesca (province), ...
in 1349 stated that —essentially penalising the use of Arabic, Hebrew, or Basque in marketplaces with a fine of 30 sols (the equivalent of 30 sheep).


History and classification

Although the Basque language is geographically surrounded by
Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...
, it is a language isolate that is unrelated to them or to any other living language. Most scholars believe Basque to be the last remaining descendant of one of the
pre-Indo-European languages The pre-Indo-European languages are any of several ancient languages, not necessarily related to one another, that existed in Prehistoric Europe, Asia Minor, Ancient Iran and United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern_Asia, Southern Asia before ...
of prehistoric Europe. Consequently, it may be impossible to reconstruct the prehistory of the Basque language by the traditional
comparative method In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards ...
except by applying it to differences between Basque dialects. Little is known of its origins, but it is likely that an early form of the Basque language was present in and around the area of modern Basque Country before the arrival of the Indo-European languages in western Europe during the 3rd millennium BC. Authors such as
Miguel de Unamuno Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (; ; 29 September 1864 – 31 December 1936) was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, professor of Greek and Classics, and later rector at the University of Salamanca. His major philosophical ...
and Louis Lucien Bonaparte have noted that the words for "knife" (), "axe" (), and "hoe" () appear to derive from the word for "stone" (), and have therefore concluded that the language dates to prehistoric Europe when those tools were made of stone. Others find this theory unlikely. Latin inscriptions in preserve a number of words with
cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...
s in the reconstructed proto-Basque language, for instance, the personal names and ( and mean 'young girl' and 'man', respectively in modern Basque). This language is generally referred to as Aquitanian and is assumed to have been spoken in the area before the
Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establis ...
's conquests in the western
Pyrenees The Pyrenees are a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. They extend nearly from their union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, reaching a maximum elevation of at the peak of Aneto. ...
. Some authors even argue for late Basquisation, that the language moved westward during
Late Antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...
after the
fall of the Western Roman Empire The fall of the Western Roman Empire, also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome, was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vast ...
into the northern part of
Hispania Hispania was the Ancient Rome, Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two Roman province, provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. During the Principate, Hispania Ulterior was divide ...
into what is now the Basque Country. Roman neglect of this area allowed Aquitanian to survive while the Iberian and
Tartessian language Tartessian is an extinct Paleo-Hispanic languages, Paleo-Hispanic language found in the Southwest Paleohispanic script, Southwestern inscriptions of the Iberian Peninsula, mainly located in the south of Portugal (Algarve and southern Alentejo), ...
s became extinct. Through the long contact with Romance languages, Basque adopted a sizeable number of Romance words. Initially the source was Latin, later Gascon (a branch of
Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...
) in the north-east,
Navarro-Aragonese Navarro-Aragonese was a Romance language once spoken in a large part of the Ebro River basin, south of the middle Pyrenees; the dialects of the modern Aragonese language, spoken in a small portion of that territory, can be seen as its last remain ...
in the south-east and Spanish in the south-west. Since 1968, Basque has been immersed in a revitalisation process, facing formidable obstacles. However, significant progress has been made in numerous areas. Six main factors have been identified to explain its relative success: # implementation and acceptance of Unified Basque (Batua), # integration of Basque in the education system # creation of media in Basque (radio, newspapers, and television) # the established new legal framework # collaboration between public institutions and people's organisations, and # campaigns for Basque language literacy. While those six factors influenced the revitalisation process, the extensive development and use of language technologies is also considered a significant additional factor.


Hypotheses concerning Basque's connections to other languages

Many linguists have tried to link Basque with other languages, but no hypothesis has gained mainstream acceptance. Apart from pseudoscientific comparisons, the appearance of long-range linguistics gave rise to several attempts to connect Basque with geographically very distant language families such as Georgian. Historical work on Basque is challenging since written material and documentation has been available only for some few hundred years. Almost all hypotheses concerning the origin of Basque are controversial, and the suggested evidence is not generally accepted by mainstream linguists. Some of these hypothetical connections are: * Ligurian substrate: this hypothesis, proposed in the 19th century by d'Arbois de Jubainville, J. Pokorny, P. Kretschmer and several other linguists, encompasses the Basco-Iberian hypothesis. * Iberian: another ancient language once spoken in the
Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...
, shows several similarities with Aquitanian and Basque. However, most scholars say that there is not enough evidence exists to distinguish geographical connections from linguistic ones. Iberian itself remains unclassified. Eduardo Orduña Aznar claims to have established correspondences between Basque and Iberian numerals and noun case markers. *
Vasconic substratum hypothesis The Vasconic substrate hypothesis is a proposal that several Western European languages contain remnants of an old language family of Vasconic languages, of which Basque language, Basque is the only surviving member. The proposal was made by the G ...
: this proposal, made by the German linguist
Theo Vennemann Theo Vennemann genannt Nierfeld (; born 27 May 1937) is a German historical linguist known for his controversial theories of a " Vasconic" and an " Atlantic" stratum in European languages, published since the 1990s. He was professor of Germa ...
, claims that enough toponymical evidence exists to conclude that Basque is the only survivor of a larger family that once extended throughout most of western Europe, and has also left its mark in modern Indo-European languages spoken in Europe. * Georgian: linking Basque to the
Kartvelian languages The Kartvelian languages ( ; ka, ქართველური ენები, tr; also known as South Caucasian or Kartvelic languages Boeder (2002), p. 3) are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primarily in Geor ...
is now widely discredited. The hypothesis was inspired by the existence of the ancient
Kingdom of Iberia In Greco-Roman geography, Iberia (Ancient Greek: ''Iberia''; ; Parthian: ; Middle Persian: ) was an exonym for the Georgian kingdom of Kartli or Iveria ( or ), known after its core province. The kingdom existed during Classical Antiquity and ...
in the
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...
and some similarities in societal practices and agriculture between the two populations. Historical comparisons are difficult due to the dearth of historical material for Basque and several of the Kartvelian languages. Typological similarities have been proposed for some of the phonological characteristics and most importantly for some of the details of the ergative constructions, but they alone cannot prove historical relatedness between languages since such characteristics are found in other languages across the world, even if not in Indo-European. According to
J. P. Mallory James Patrick Mallory (born October 25, 1945) is an American archaeologist and Indo-Europeanist. Mallory is an emeritus professor at Queen's University, Belfast; a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and the former editor of the '' Journal of ...
, the hypothesis was also inspired by a Basque place-name ending in ''-dze'' which is common in Kartvelian. The hypothesis suggested that Basque and Georgian were remnants of a pre-Indo-European group. *
Northeast Caucasian languages The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or Vainakh-Daghestani, or sometimes Caspian languages (from the Caspian Sea, in contrast to ''Pontic languages'' for the Northwest Caucasian languages), is a langu ...
, such as Chechen, are seen by some linguists as more likely candidates for a very distant connection. * Dené–Caucasian: based on the possible Caucasian link, some linguists, for example
John Bengtson John D. Bengtson (1948-2024) was an American historical and anthropological linguist. He had been president and vice-president of the Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory, and had served as editor (or co-editor) of the journal '' ...
and Merritt Ruhlen, have proposed including Basque in the Dené–Caucasian superfamily of languages, but the proposed superfamily includes languages from North America and Eurasia, and its existence is highly controversial. *
Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
: a genetic link between Basque and the Indo-European languages has been proposed by Forni (2013), though his contributions to the hypothesis have been rejected by most reviewers, both including scholars adhering to the mainstream view of Basque as a language isolate (Gorrochategui, Lakarra), as well as proponents of wide-range genetic relations (Bengtson).


Geographic distribution

The region where Basque is spoken has become smaller over centuries, especially at the northern, southern, and eastern borders. Nothing is known about the limits of the region in ancient times but on the basis of toponyms and epigraphs, it seems that in the beginning of the
Common Era Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the ...
it stretched to the river
Garonne The Garonne ( , ; Catalan language, Catalan, Basque language, Basque and , ; or ) is a river that flows in southwest France and northern Spain. It flows from the central Spanish Pyrenees to the Gironde estuary at the French port of Bordeaux � ...
in the north (including the south-western part of present-day France); at least to the
Val d'Aran Aran (; ; ) (often known as the Aran Valley, or Val d'Aran in Aranese Occitan; in other forms of Occitan: ''Vath d'Aran'' or ''Vau d'Aran'', in Catalan: ''Vall d'Aran'', in Spanish: ''Valle de Arán'') is an autonomous administrative entity (form ...
in the east (now a Gascon-speaking part of
Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...
), including lands on both sides of the
Pyrenees The Pyrenees are a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. They extend nearly from their union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, reaching a maximum elevation of at the peak of Aneto. ...
; the southern and western boundaries are not clear at all. The
Reconquista The ''Reconquista'' (Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese for ) or the fall of al-Andalus was a series of military and cultural campaigns that European Christian Reconquista#Northern Christian realms, kingdoms waged ag ...
temporarily counteracted that contracting tendency when the Christian lords called on northern Iberian peoples (Basques,
Asturians Asturians () are a Romance ethnic group native to the autonomous community of Asturias, in the North-West of the Iberian Peninsula. Culture and society Heritage The Asturians have Celtic ( Astures) and Latin cultural origins, most notably f ...
, and "
Franks file:Frankish arms.JPG, Aristocratic Frankish burial items from the Merovingian dynasty The Franks ( or ; ; ) were originally a group of Germanic peoples who lived near the Rhine river, Rhine-river military border of Germania Inferior, which wa ...
") to colonise the new conquests. The Basque language became the main everyday language, while other languages like Spanish, Gascon, French, or
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
were preferred for the administration and high education. By the 16th century, the Basque-speaking area was reduced basically to the present-day seven provinces of the Basque Country, excluding the southern part of Navarre, the south-western part of
Álava Álava () or Araba (), officially Araba/Álava, is a Provinces of Spain, province of Spain and a historical territory of the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Country, heir of the ancient Basque señoríos#Lords of Álava, Lordship ...
, and the western part of Biscay, and including some parts of
Béarn Béarn (; ; or ''Biarn''; or ''Biarno''; or ''Bearnia'') is one of the traditional provinces of France, located in the Pyrenees mountains and in the plain at their feet, in Southwestern France. Along with the three Northern Basque Country, ...
. In 1807, Basque was still spoken in the northern half of Álava—including its capital city
Vitoria-Gasteiz Vitoria-Gasteiz (; ; also historically spelled Vittoria in English) is the seat of government and the capital city of the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Country and of the provinces of Spain, province of Álava in northern Spain. I ...
—and a vast area in central Navarre, but in those two provinces, Basque experienced a rapid decline that pushed its border northwards. In the
French Basque Country The French Basque Country (; ; ), or Northern Basque Country (, or , ), is a region lying on the west of the French department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Since 1 January 2017, it constitutes the Basque Municipal Community (; ) presided ...
, Basque was still spoken in all the territory except in
Bayonne Bayonne () is a city in southwestern France near the France–Spain border, Spanish border. It is a communes of France, commune and one of two subprefectures in France, subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques departments of France, departm ...
and some villages around, and including some bordering towns in
Béarn Béarn (; ; or ''Biarn''; or ''Biarno''; or ''Bearnia'') is one of the traditional provinces of France, located in the Pyrenees mountains and in the plain at their feet, in Southwestern France. Along with the three Northern Basque Country, ...
. In the 20th century, however, the rise of
Basque nationalism Basque nationalism ( ; ; ) is a form of nationalism that asserts that Basques, an ethnic group indigenous to the western Pyrenees, are a nation and promotes the political unity of the Basques, today scattered between Spain and France. Since ...
spurred increased interest in the language as a sign of ethnic identity, and with the establishment of autonomous governments in the
Southern Basque Country The Southern Basque Country (; ) refers to the Basque territories southside of the Pyrenees, within the Iberian Peninsula. Name In Basque language, known as '' Euskera'', natives have referred to the Basque districts as ''Euskal Herria(k)''. ...
, it has recently made a modest comeback. In the Spanish part, Basque-language schools for children and Basque-teaching centres for adults have brought the language to areas such as western Enkarterri and the Ribera del Ebro in southern Navarre, where it is not known to ever have been widely spoken; and in the French Basque Country, those schools and centres have almost stopped the decline of the language.


Official status

Historically, Latin or Romance languages have been the official languages in the region. However, Basque was explicitly recognised in some areas. For instance, the ''
fuero (), (), (), () or () is a Spanish legal term and concept. The word comes from Latin , an open space used as a market, tribunal and meeting place. The same Latin root is the origin of the French terms and , and the Portuguese terms and ...
'' or charter of the Basque-colonised Ojacastro (now in
La Rioja La Rioja () is an autonomous communities in Spain, autonomous community and provinces of Spain, province in Spain, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Its capital is Logroño. Other List of municipalities in La Rioja, cities and towns in the ...
) allowed the inhabitants to use Basque in legal processes in the 13th and 14th centuries. Basque was allowed in telegraph messages in Spain thanks to the royal decree of 1904. The
Spanish Constitution of 1978 The Spanish Constitution () is the supreme law of the Kingdom of Spain. It was enacted after its approval in 1978 in a constitutional referendum; it represents the culmination of the Spanish transition to democracy. The current version was a ...
states in Article 3 that the
Spanish language Spanish () or Castilian () is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a world language, gl ...
is the official language of the nation, but allows autonomous communities to provide a co-official language status for the other
languages of Spain The majority of languages of Spain belong to the Romance languages, Romance language family, of which Spanish language, Spanish is the only one with Official languages of Spain, official status in the whole country. Others, including Catalan l ...
. Consequently, the Statute of Autonomy of the
Basque Autonomous Community Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous com ...
establishes Basque as the co-official language of the autonomous community. The Statute of Navarre establishes Spanish as the official language of Navarre, but grants co-official status to the Basque language in the Basque-speaking areas of northern Navarre. Basque has no official status in the French Basque Country and French citizens are barred from officially using Basque in a French court of law. However, the use of Basque by Spanish nationals in French courts is permitted (with translation), as Basque is officially recognised on the other side of the border. The positions of the various existing governments differ with regard to the promotion of Basque in areas where Basque is commonly spoken. The language has official status in those territories that are within the Basque Autonomous Community, where it is spoken and promoted heavily but only partially in Navarre. The (), seen as contentious by many Basques, but considered fitting Navarra's linguistic and cultural diversity by some of the main political parties of Navarre, divides Navarre into three language areas: Basque-speaking, non-Basque-speaking, and mixed. Support for the language and the linguistic rights of citizens vary, depending on the area. Others consider it unfair, since the rights of Basque speakers differ greatly depending on the place they live.


Demographics

The 2021 sociolinguistic survey of all Basque-speaking territories showed that, of all people aged 16 and above: * In the
Basque Autonomous Community Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous com ...
, 36.2% were fluent Basque speakers, 18.5% passive speakers and 45.3% did not speak Basque. The percentage was highest in
Gipuzkoa Gipuzkoa ( , ; ; ) is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the autonomous community of the Basque Country. Its capital city is Donostia-San Sebastián. Gipuzkoa shares borders with the French department of Pyrénées-Atlantiqu ...
(51.8% speakers) and
Bizkaia Biscay ( ; ; ), is a province of the Basque Autonomous Community, heir of the ancient Lordship of Biscay, lying on the south shore of the eponymous bay. The capital and largest city is Bilbao. Biscay is one of the most renowned and prosperou ...
(30.6%) and lowest in Álava (22.4%). Those results represent an increase from previous years (33.9% in 2016, 30.1% in 2006, 29.5% in 2001, 27.7% in 1996 and 24.1% in 1991). The highest concentration of speakers can now be found in the 16–24 age range (74.5%) vs. 22.0% in the 65+ age range. * In the
French Basque Country The French Basque Country (; ; ), or Northern Basque Country (, or , ), is a region lying on the west of the French department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Since 1 January 2017, it constitutes the Basque Municipal Community (; ) presided ...
, in 2021, 20.0% were fluent Basque speakers. Because the French Basque Country is not under the influence of the Basque Autonomous Country government, people in the region have fewer incentives from government authorities to learn the language. As such, those results represent another decrease from previous years (22.5% in 2006, 24.8% in 2001 and 26.4 in 1996 or 56,146 in 1996 to 51,197 in 2016). However, for those in the 16-24 age range, the proportion of Basque speakers increased to 21.5%, from 12.2% 20 years earlier. * In
Navarre Navarre ( ; ; ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. ...
, 14.1% were fluent Basque speakers, 10.5% passive speakers, and 75.4% did not speak Basque. The percentage was highest in the Basque-speaking zone in the north (62.3% speakers, including 85.9% of youth) and lowest in the non-Basque-speaking zone in the south (1.6%). The overall proportion of 14.1% represented a slight increase from previous years (12.9% in 2016, 11.1% in 2006,10.3% in 2001, 9.6% in 1996 and 9.5% in 1991). Among age groups, the highest percentage of speakers can now be found in the 16–24 age range (28%) vs. 8.3% in the 65+ age range. In 2021, out of a population of 2,634,800 over 16 years of age (1,838,800 in the Autonomous community, 546,000 in Navarre and 250,000 in the Northern Basque Country), 806,000 spoke Basque, which amounted to 30.6% of the population. Compared to the 1991 figures, that represents an overall increase of 266,000, from 539,110 speakers 30 years previously (430,000 in the BAC, 40,110 in FCN, and 69,000 in the Northern provinces). The number has tended to increase, as in all regions the age group most likely to speak Basque was those between 16 and 24 years old. In the BAC, the proportion in that age group that spoke the language (74.5%) was nearly triple the comparable figure from 1991, when barely a quarter of the population spoke Basque. While there is a general increase in the number of Basque speakers during the period, that is mainly because of bilingualism. Basque transmission as a sole mother tongue has decreased from 19% in 1991 to 15.1% in 2016, and Basque and another language being used as mother language increased from 3% to 5.4% in the same time period. General public attitude towards efforts to promote the Basque language have also been more positive, with the share of people against those efforts falling from 20.9% in 1991 to 16% in 2016. In 2021, the study found that in the BAC, when both parents were Basque speakers, 98% of children were communicated to only in Basque, and 2% were communicated to in both Basque and Spanish. When only one parent was a Basque-speaker and had Basque as a first language, 84% used Basque and Spanish and 16% only Spanish. In Navarre, the family language of 94.3% of the youngest respondents with both Basque parents was Basque. In the Northern Basque Country, however, when both parents were Basque-speaking, just two thirds transmitted only Basque to their offspring, and as age decreased, the transmission rate also decreased. Basque is used as a language of commerce both in the Basque Country and in locations around the world where Basques immigrated throughout history.


Dialects

The modern Basque dialects show a high degree of dialectal divergence, sometimes making cross-dialect communication difficult. That is especially true in the case of Biscayan and Souletin, which are regarded as the most divergent Basque dialects. Modern Basque dialectology distinguishes five dialects: * Biscayan or "Western" * Gipuzkoan or "Central" * Upper Navarrese * Navarro-Lapurdian * Souletin (Zuberoan) Those dialects are divided in 11 subdialects, and 24 minor varieties among them. According to Koldo Zuazo, the Biscayan dialect or "Western" is the most widespread dialect, with around 300,000 speakers out of a total of around 660,000 speakers. The dialect is divided in two minor subdialects (Western Biscayan and Eastern Biscayan), as well astransitional dialects.


Influence on other languages

Although the influence of the neighbouring
Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...
on the Basque language (especially the lexicon, but also to some degree Basque phonology and grammar) has been much more extensive, it is usually assumed that there has been some influence from Basque into those languages as well. Gascon and Aragonese particularly and Spanish to a lesser degree are thought to have received Basqwe influence in the past. In the cases of Aragonese and Gascon, that would have been through substrate interference following
language shift Language shift, also known as language transfer, language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceived ...
from Aquitanian or Basque to a Romance language that has affected all levels of the language, including place names around the Pyrenees. Although a number of words of alleged Basque origin in Spanish are circulated (e.g. 'anchovies', 'dashing, gallant, spirited', 'puppy', etc.), most of them have more easily-explained Romance etymologies or not particularly-convincing derivations from Basque. Ignoring cultural terms, there is one strong
loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
candidate, , long considered the source of the Pyrenean and
Iberian Romance The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languages Iberian languages is also used as a more inclusive term for all languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, which in antiquity included the non-Indo-European Iberian language. are ...
words for "left (side)" (, , ). The lack of initial in Gascon could arguably be from Basque influence, but that issue is under-researched. There are other most commonly-claimed substrate influences: * the
Old Spanish Old Spanish (, , ; ), also known as Old Castilian or Medieval Spanish, refers to the varieties of Ibero-Romance spoken predominantly in Castile and environs during the Middle Ages. The earliest, longest, and most famous literary composition in O ...
merger of and . * the simple five-vowel system. * change of initial into (e.g. → , with Old Basque lacking but having ). *
voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant The voiceless alveolar fricatives are a type of fricative consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are at le ...
, a sound transitional between laminodental and
palatal The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly sepa ...
; this sound also influenced other
Ibero-Romance languages The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languages Iberian languages is also used as a more inclusive term for all languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, which in antiquity included the non-Indo-European Iberian language. are a ...
and Catalan. The first two features are common, widespread developments in many Romance (and non-Romance) languages. The change of to occurred historically only in a limited area (
Gascony Gascony (; ) was a province of the southwestern Kingdom of France that succeeded the Duchy of Gascony (602–1453). From the 17th century until the French Revolution (1789–1799), it was part of the combined Province of Guyenne and Gascon ...
and
Old Castile Old Castile ( ) is a historic region of Spain, which had different definitions across the centuries. Its extension was formally defined in the 1833 territorial division of Spain as the sum of the following provinces: Santander (now Cantabria ...
), which corresponds almost exactly to the areas that heavy Basque bilingualism is assumed and, as a result, has been widely postulated and equally strongly disputed. Substrate theories are often difficult to prove (especially in the case of phonetically-plausible changes like to ). As a result, many arguments have been made on both sides, but the debate largely comes down to the a priori tendency on the part of particular linguists to accept or reject substrate arguments. Examples of arguments against the substrate theory and possible responses: # Spanish did not fully shift to ; instead, it has preserved before consonants such as and (cf , ). (On the other hand, the occurrence of in those words might be a secondary development from an earlier sound such as or and learned words or words influenced by written Latin form. Gascon has in these words, which might reflect the original situation.) # Evidence of Arabic loanwords in Spanish points to continuing to exist long after a Basque substrate might have had any effect on Spanish. (On the other hand, the occurrence of in those words might be a late development. Many languages have come to accept new phonemes from other languages after a period of significant influence. For example, French lost but later regained it as a result of Germanic influence, and it has recently gained as a result of English influence.) # Basque regularly developed Latin into or . # The same change also occurs in parts of Sardinia, Italy and the Romance languages of the Balkans where no Basque substrate can be reasonably argued for. (On the other hand, the fact that the same change might have occurred elsewhere independently does not disprove substrate influence. Furthermore, parts of
Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...
also have prothetic or before initial , just as in Basque and Gascon, which may actually argue for some type of influence between both areas.) Beyond those arguments, a number of
nomadic Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...
groups of Castile are also said to use or have used Basque words in their jargon, such as the gacería in
Segovia Segovia ( , , ) is a city in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León, Spain. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the Province of Segovia. Segovia is located in the Meseta central, Inner Pl ...
, the mingaña, the Galician
fala dos arxinas The Armed Forces of the Liberation of Angola () or FALA was the armed wing of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), a prominent political faction during the Angolan Civil War. History After their training in China in ...
and the Asturian
Xíriga Xíriga is an occupation-related cant (language), cant on Asturian language, Asturian developed by the ''tejeros'' of Llanes and Ribadesella in Asturias. The ''tejeros'' were migrant workers in brick or clay, usually poor, who contracted themselv ...
.Olaetxe, J. Mallea
"The Basques in the Mexican Regions: 16th–20th Centuries."
''Basque Studies Program Newsletter'' No. 51 (1995).
Part of the Romani community in the Basque Country speaks Erromintxela, which is a rare
mixed language A mixed language, also referred to as a hybrid language or fusion language, is a type of contact language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. ...
, with a Kalderash Romani vocabulary and Basque grammar.


Basque pidgins

A number of Basque-based or Basque-influenced
pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...
s have existed. In the 16th century, Basque sailors used a
Basque–Icelandic pidgin The Basque–Icelandic pidgin (; ) was a Basque language, Basque-based pidgin spoken in Iceland during the 17th century. It consisted of Basque language, Basque, Germanic languages, Germanic, and Romance languages, Romance words. Basque whale ...
in their contacts with Iceland.Deen 1937. The Algonquian–Basque pidgin arose from contact between Basque whalers and the
Algonquian peoples The Algonquians are one of the most populous and widespread North American indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous American groups, consisting of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages. They historically were prominent along the East ...
in the
Gulf of Saint Lawrence The Gulf of St. Lawrence is a gulf that fringes the shores of the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, in Canada, plus the islands Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, possessions of France, in ...
and
Strait of Belle Isle The Strait of Belle Isle ( ; ) is a waterway in eastern Canada, that separates Labrador from the island of Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland, in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Location The strait is located in the southeast of the ...
.


Phonology


Vowels

The Basque language features five vowels: , , , and (the same that are found in Spanish, Asturian and Aragonese). In the Zuberoan dialect, extra phonemes are featured: * the
close front rounded vowel The close front rounded vowel, or high front rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is y. Ac ...
, graphically represented as ; * a set of contrasting nasal vowels. There is no distinctive vowel length in Basque although vowels may be lengthened for emphasis. The mid vowels and are raised before nasal consonants. Basque has an elision rule according to which the vowel is elided before any following vowel. That does not prevent the existence of diphthongs with present. There are six
diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...
s in Basque, all falling and with or as the second element.


Consonants

In syllable-final position, all plosives are
devoiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to ref ...
and are spelled accordingly in Standard Basque. When between vowels, and often when after or , the voiced plosives , , and , are pronounced as the corresponding
fricatives A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
, , and . Basque has a distinction between
laminal A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue, in contact with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, ...
and apical articulation for the alveolar fricatives and affricates. With the laminal alveolar fricative , the friction occurs across the blade of the tongue, the tongue tip pointing toward the lower teeth. That is the usual in most European languages and is written with an orthographic . In contrast, the voiceless apicoalveolar fricative is written ; the tip of the tongue points toward the upper teeth and friction occurs at the tip (apex). For example, (singular, respectful) is distinguished from . The affricate counterparts are written and . So, is distinguished from ; is distinguished from . In the westernmost parts of the Basque country, only the apical and the alveolar affricate are used. Basque also features postalveolar sibilants (, written , and , written ). The letter has a variety of realisations according to the regional dialect: , as pronounced from west to east in south Bizkaia and coastal Lapurdi, central Bizkaia, east Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, south Navarre, inland Lapurdi and Low Navarre, and Zuberoa, respectively. The letter is pronounced in the northern dialects but not in the southern ones. Unified Basque spells it except when it is predictable, after a consonant. Unless they are recent loanwords (e.g. , , ... ), words may not have initial . In older loans, initial ''r-'' took a
prosthetic In medicine, a prosthesis (: prostheses; from ), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through physical trauma, disease, or a condition present at birth (Congenital, congenital disord ...
vowel, resulting in ''err-'' ( , ), more rarely ''irr-'' (for example , ) and ''arr-'' (for example ). Basque does not have in syllable final position, and syllable-final assimilates to the place of articulation of following plosives. As a result, is pronounced like , and is realized as .


Palatalization

Basque has two types of palatalization, automatic palatalization and expressive palatalization. Automatic palatalization occurs in western
Labourd Labourd (; ; ; ) is a former French province and part of the present-day Pyrénées Atlantiques '' département'' of Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. It is one of the traditional Basque provinces, and identified as one of the territorial component pa ...
, much of
Navarre Navarre ( ; ; ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. ...
, all of
Gipuzkoa Gipuzkoa ( , ; ; ) is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the autonomous community of the Basque Country. Its capital city is Donostia-San Sebastián. Gipuzkoa shares borders with the French department of Pyrénées-Atlantiqu ...
, and nearly all of
Biscay Biscay ( ; ; ), is a province of the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Autonomous Community, heir of the ancient Lordship of Biscay, lying on the south shore of the Bay of Biscay, eponymous bay. The capital and largest city is Bilb ...
. As a result of automatic palatalization, and become the
palatal nasal The voiced palatal nasal is a type of consonant used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase letter ''n'' with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bottom ...
and the palatal lateral respectively after the vowel and before another vowel. An exception is the loanword 'lily'. The same palatalization occurs after the
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are ''y ...
of the diphthongs ''ai, ei, oi, ui''. The palatalization occurs in a wider area, including
Soule Soule (; Basque language, Basque: Zuberoa; Zuberoan/ Soule Basque: Xiberoa or Xiberua; ) is a former viscounty and France, French Provinces of France, province and part of the present-day Pyrénées-Atlantiques ''département in France, départ ...
, all of Gipuzkoa and Biscay, and almost all of Navarre. In a few regions, and can be palatalized even in the absence of a following vowel. After palatalization, the semivowel is usually absorbed by the palatal consonant. That can be seen in older spellings, such as instead of modern 'degree'. However, the modern orthography for Standard Basque ignores automatic palatalization. In certain regions of Gipuzkoa and Biscay, intervocalic is often palatalized after and especially . It may become indistinguishable from the affricate , spelled , so 'father' may sound like it were spelled or . That type of palatalization is far from general, and is often viewed as substandard. In Goizueta Basque, there are a few examples of being palatalized after , and optional palatalization of . For example, 'seedbed' becomes , and 'lamb' can be . Basque nouns, adjectives, and adverbs can be expressively palatalized and express 'smallness', rarely literal; they often show affection in nouns and mitigation in adjectives and adverbs. That is often used in the formation of pet names and nicknames. In words containing one or more sibilant, those sibilants are palatalized to form the palatalized form. That is, ''s'' and ''z'' become ''x'', and ''ts'' and ''tz'' become ''tx''. As a result, 'man' becomes 'little fellow', 'crazy, insane' becomes 'silly, foolish', and 'lamb' becomes 'lambkin, young lamb'. In words without sibilants, , , , and can become palatalized, which is indicated in writing with a double consonant except in the case of palatalized , which is written . Thus, 'drop' becomes 'droplet', and 'grey' becomes 'grey and pretty, greyish'. The pronunciation of ''tt'' and ''dd'', and the existence of ''dd'', differ by dialect. In the Gipuzkoan and Biscayan dialects ''tt'' is often pronounced the same as ''tx'', that is, as , and ''dd'' does not exist. Likewise, in Goizueta Basque, ''tt'' is a voiceless palatal stop and the corresponding voiced palatal stop, , is absent except as an allophone of . In Goizueta Basque, is sometimes the result of an affectionate palatalization of . Palatalization of the rhotics is rare and occurs only in the eastern dialects. When palatalized, the rhotics become the palatal lateral . Likewise, palatalization of velars, resulting in ''tt'' or ''tx'', is quite rare. A few common words, such as 'dog', pronounced , use palatal sounds even though in current usage, they have lost the diminutive sense, the corresponding non-palatal forms now acquiring an augmentative or pejorative sense: 'big dog'.


Sandhi

There are some rules governing the behaviour of consonants in contact with each other and apply both within and between words. When two plosives meet, the first one is dropped, and the second becomes voiceless. If a sibilant follows a plosive, the plosive is dropped, and the sibilant becomes the corresponding affricate. When a plosive follows an affricate, the affricate becomes a sibilant, and a voiced plosive is devoiced. When a voiced plosive follows a sibilant, it is devoiced except in very slow and careful speech. In the central dialects of Basque, a sibilant turns into an affricate if it follows a liquid or a nasal. When a plosive follows a nasal, there is a strong tendency for it to become voiced.


Stress and pitch

Basque features great dialectal variation in accentuation, from a weak
pitch accent A pitch-accent language is a type of language that, when spoken, has certain syllables in words or morphemes that are prominent, as indicated by a distinct contrasting pitch (music), pitch (tone (linguistics), linguistic tone) rather than by vol ...
in the western dialects to a marked stress in central and eastern dialects, with varying patterns of stress placement. Stress is in general not distinctive (and for historical comparisons not very useful); there are, however, a few instances in which stress is phonemic, serving to distinguish between a few pairs of stress-marked words and between some grammatical forms (mainly plurals from other forms), e.g. (, absolutive case) vs. (, absolutive case; an adoption from Spanish ); (, ergative case) vs. (, ergative case) vs. ( or , absolutive case). Given its great deal of variation among dialects, stress is not marked in the standard
orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...
and
Euskaltzaindia Euskaltzaindia (; often translated Royal Academy of the Basque Language) is the official academic language regulatory institution which watches over the Basque language. It conducts research, seeks to protect the language, and establishes stand ...
(the Academy of the Basque Language) provides only general recommendations for a standard placement of stress, basically to place a high-pitched weak stress (weaker than that of Spanish, let alone that of English) on the second syllable of a syntagma, and a low-pitched even-weaker stress on its last syllable, except in plural forms in which stress is moved to the first syllable. That scheme provides Basque with a distinct musicality that differentiates its sound from the prosodical patterns of Spanish (which tends to stress the second-last syllable). Some (, i.e. second-language Basque-speakers) with Spanish as their first language tend to carry the prosodical patterns of Spanish into their pronunciation of Basque, e.g. pronouncing () as (– – ´ –), instead of as (– ´ – `).


Morphophonology

The combining forms of nominals in final vary across the regions of the Basque Country. The can stay unchanged, be lowered to an , or it can be lost. Loss is most common in the east, while lowering is most common in the west. For instance, , , has the combining forms and , as in , , and , , whereas , , has the combining form , as in , . Michelena suggests that the lowering to is generalised from cases of Romance borrowings in Basque that retained Romance stem alternations, such as , with combining form , borrowed from Romance ''canto'', ''canta-''.


Grammar

Basque is an ergative–absolutive language. The subject of an
intransitive verb In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb, aside from an auxiliary verb, whose context does not entail a transitive object. That lack of an object distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Add ...
is in the
absolutive case In grammar, the absolutive case ( abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominativ ...
(which is unmarked), and the same case is used for the
direct object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
of a
transitive verb A transitive verb is a verb that entails one or more transitive objects, for example, 'enjoys' in ''Amadeus enjoys music''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not entail transitive objects, for example, 'arose' in ''Beatrice arose ...
. The subject of the transitive verb is marked differently, with the
ergative case In grammar, the ergative case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that identifies a nominal phrase as the agent of a transitive verb in ergative–absolutive languages. Characteristics In such languages, the ergative case is typically m ...
(shown by the suffix ''-k''). That also triggers main and auxiliary verbal agreement. The
auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb ( abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or ...
, which accompanies most main verbs, agrees not only with the subject but also with any direct or indirect object present. Among European languages, the
polypersonal agreement In linguistics, polypersonal agreement or polypersonalism is the agreement of a verb with more than one of its arguments (usually up to four). Polypersonalism is a morphological feature of a language, and languages that display it are called po ...
is found only in Basque, some
languages of the Caucasus The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Linguistic comparison allows t ...
(especially the
Kartvelian languages The Kartvelian languages ( ; ka, ქართველური ენები, tr; also known as South Caucasian or Kartvelic languages Boeder (2002), p. 3) are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primarily in Geor ...
),
Mordvinic languages The Mordvinic languages, also known as the Mordvin, Mordovian or Mordvinian languages (, ''mordovskiye yazyki''), are a subgroup of the Uralic languages, comprising the closely related Erzya language and Moksha language, both spoken in Mordovia ...
, Hungarian, and Maltese (all non-Indo-European). The ergative–absolutive alignment is also rare among European languages and occurs only in some languages of the Caucasus but is frequent worldwide. Consider the phrase: is the agent (transitive subject), so it is marked with the ergative case ending ''-k'' (with an epenthetic ''-e-''). has an ''-ak'' ending, which marks plural object (plural absolutive, direct object case). The verb is , in which is a kind of gerund ("buying") and the auxiliary means "he/she (does) them for me". The can be divided like this: * ''di-'' is used in the present tense when the verb has a subject (ergative), a direct object (absolutive), and an indirect object, and the object is him/her/it/them. * ''-zki-'' means the absolutive (in this case the newspapers) is plural; if it were singular there would be no infix; and * ''-t'' or ''-da-'' means "to me/for me" (indirect object). * in this instance there is no suffix after ''-t''. A zero suffix in this position indicates that the ergative (the subject) is third person singular (he/she/it). The auxiliary verb is composed as ''di-zki-da-zue' and means 'you pl. (do) them for me'. * ''di-'' indicates that the main verb is transitive and in the present tense * ''-zki-'' indicates that the direct object is plural * ''-da-'' indicates that the indirect object is me (to me/for me; ''-t'' becomes ''-da-'' unless final) * ''-zue'' indicates that the subject is you (plural) The pronoun 'you (plural)' has the same form both in the nominative or absolutive case (the subject of an intransitive sentence or direct object of a transitive sentence) and in the ergative case (the subject of a transitive sentence). In spoken Basque, the auxiliary verb is never dropped even if it is redundant: in 'you (pl.) are buying the newspapers for me'. However, the pronouns are almost always dropped: in 'you (pl.) are buying the newspapers for me'. The pronouns are used only to show emphasis: 'it is you (pl.) who buys the newspapers for me', or 'it is me for whom you buy the newspapers'. Modern Basque dialects allow for the conjugation of about fifteen verbs, called synthetic verbs, some occurring only in literary contexts. They can exist in the present and the past tenses in the indicative and the subjunctive moods, in three tenses in the conditional and the potential moods, and in one tense in the imperative. Each verb that can be taken intransitively has a (absolutive) paradigm and possibly a (absolutive–dative) paradigm, as in the sentence (). Each verb that can be taken transitively uses those two paradigms for antipassive-voice contexts in which no agent is mentioned (Basque lacks a passive voice, and displays instead an
antipassive voice The antipassive voice ( abbreviated or ) is a type of grammatical voice that either does not include the object or includes the object in an oblique case. This construction is similar to the passive voice, in that it decreases the verb's valenc ...
paradigm), and also has a (absolutive–ergative) paradigm and possibly a (absolutive–dative–ergative) paradigm. The last is exemplified by above. In each paradigm, each constituent noun can take on any of eight persons, five singular and three plural, with the exception of in which the absolutive can be only third-person singular or plural. The most ubiquitous auxiliary, , can be used in any of those paradigms, depending on the nature of the main verb. There are more persons in the singular (5) than in the
plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...
(3) for synthetic (or filamentous) verbs because of the two familiar persons—
informal Formal, formality, informal or informality imply the complying with, or not complying with, some set of requirements ( forms, in Ancient Greek). They may refer to: Dress code and events * Formal wear, attire for formal events * Semi-formal att ...
masculine and feminine second-person singular. The pronoun ''hi'' is used for both of them, but though the masculine form of the verb uses a ''-k'', the feminine uses an ''-n''. That is a property rarely found in Indo-European languages. The entire paradigm of the verb is further augmented by inflecting for "listener" (the allocutive) even if the verb contains no second person constituent. If the situation calls for the familiar masculine, the form is augmented and modified accordingly and likewise for the familiar feminine. (, ; , , , , , )Aspecto, tiempo y modo
in Spanish

in Basque.
That multiplies the number of possible forms by nearly three. Still, the restriction on contexts in which those forms may be used is strong since all participants in the conversation must be friends of the same sex and not too far apart in age. Some dialects dispense with the familiar forms entirely, but the formal second-person singular conjugates in parallel to the other plural forms, which perhaps indicates that it was originally the second-person plural and later came to be used as a formal singular, and the modern second-person plural was formulated only later as an innovation. All other verbs in Basque are called periphrastic and behave much as participles would in English. They have only three forms in total, called aspects: perfect (various suffixes), habitual (suffix ''-t n''), and future/potential (suffix. ''-ko/-go''). Verbs of Latinate origin in Basque, as well as many other verbs, have a suffix ''-tu'' in the perfect, adapted from the Latin perfect passive ''-tus'' suffix. The synthetic verbs also have periphrastic forms, for use in perfects and in simple tenses in which they are deponent. Within a verb phrase, the periphrastic verb comes first, followed by the auxiliary. A Basque noun phrase is inflected in 17 different ways for case, multiplied by four ways for its definiteness and number (indefinite, definite singular, definite plural, and definite close plural: asque-speaker he Basque speaker, a Basque-speaker asque-speakers, the Basque-speakers and e Basque speakers, those Basque-speakers. The first 68 forms are further modified based on other parts of the sentence, which in turn are inflected for the noun again. It has been estimated that with two levels of
recursion Recursion occurs when the definition of a concept or process depends on a simpler or previous version of itself. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in m ...
, a Basque noun may have 458,683 inflected forms. The common noun is declined as follows: The proper name (Michael) is declined as follows: Within a noun phrase, modifying adjectives follow the noun. As an example of a Basque noun phrase, is morphologically analysed as follows by Agirre et al. Basic
word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how languages employ different orders. Correlatio ...
in syntactic construction is subject–object–verb. The order of the phrases within a sentence can be changed for thematic purposes, whereas the order of the words within a phrase is usually rigid. As a matter of fact, Basque phrase order is topic–focus, meaning that in neutral sentences (such as sentences to inform someone of a fact or event) the topic is stated first, then the
focus Focus (: foci or focuses) may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in East Australia Film *Focus (2001 film), ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based on the Arthur Miller novel *Focus (2015 ...
. In such sentences, the verb phrase comes at the end. In brief, the focus directly precedes the verb phrase. This rule is also applied in questions, for instance, ''What is this?'' can be translated as or , but in both cases the question tag immediately precedes the verb . This rule is so important in Basque that, even in grammatical descriptions of Basque in other languages, the Basque word is used. In negative sentences, the order changes. Since the negative particle must always directly precede the auxiliary, the topic most often comes beforehand, and the rest of the sentence follows. This includes the periphrastic, if there is one: , , in the negative becomes , in which () is separated from its auxiliary and placed at the end.


Vocabulary

Through contact with neighbouring peoples, Basque has adopted many words from
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, Spanish, French and Gascon, among other languages. There are a considerable number of Latin loans (sometimes obscured by being subject to Basque phonology and grammar for centuries), for example: (, from ), (, from , ), (, from ), (, from ).


Writing system

Basque is written using the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...
including and sometimes and . Basque does not use for native words, but the Basque alphabet (established by
Euskaltzaindia Euskaltzaindia (; often translated Royal Academy of the Basque Language) is the official academic language regulatory institution which watches over the Basque language. It conducts research, seeks to protect the language, and establishes stand ...
) does include them for loanwords: :⟨Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Ññ, Oo, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, Ww, Xx, Yy, Zz⟩ The phonetically meaningful digraphs are treated as pairs of letters. All letters and digraphs represent unique
phonemes A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...
. The main exception is if it precedes and , which, in most dialects, palatalises their sounds into and , even if they are not written. Hence, can also be written without changing the sound, and the proper name requires the mute to break the palatalisation of the . is mute in most regions but is pronounced in many places in the north-east, the main reason for its existence in the Basque alphabet. Its acceptance was a matter of contention during the standardisation process because the speakers of the most extended dialects had to learn where to place , which silent for them. In
Sabino Arana Sabino Policarpo Arana Goiri (in Spanish language, Spanish), Sabin Polikarpo Arana Goiri (in Basque language, Basque), or Arana ta Goiri'taŕ Sabin (self-styled) (26 January 1865 – 25 November 1903), was a spaniards, Spanish writer and the ...
's (1865–1903) alphabet,''Lecciones de ortografía del euskera bizkaino'', Arana eta Goiri'tar Sabin, Bilbao, Bizkaya'ren Edestija ta Izkerea Pizkundia, 1896 (Sebastián de Amorrortu). digraphs and were replaced with and , respectively. A typically Basque style of lettering is sometimes used for inscriptions. It derives from the work of stone and wood carvers and is characterised by thick
serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ( ...
s.


Number system used by millers

Basque millers traditionally employed a separate number system of unknown origin.Aguirre Sorondo ''Tratado de Molinología – Los Molinos de Guipúzcoa'' Eusko Ikaskuntza 1988 In this system the symbols are arranged either along a vertical line or horizontally. On the vertical line the single digits and
fractions A fraction (from , "broken") represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight-fifths, thre ...
are usually off to one side, usually at the top. When used horizontally, the smallest units are usually on the right and the largest on the left. As with the Basque system of counting in general, it is
vigesimal A vigesimal ( ) or base-20 (base-score) numeral system is based on 20 (number), twenty (in the same way in which the decimal, decimal numeral system is based on 10 (number), ten). ''wikt:vigesimal#English, Vigesimal'' is derived from the Latin a ...
(base 20). Although it is in theory capable of indicating numbers above 100, most recorded examples do not go above 100. Fractions are relatively common, especially . The exact systems used vary from area to area but generally follow the same principle with 5 usually being a diagonal line or a curve off the vertical line (a V shape is used when writing a 5 horizontally). Units of ten are usually a horizontal line through the vertical. The twenties are based on a circle with intersecting lines. This system is no longer in general use but is occasionally employed for decorative purposes.


Examples


Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights



Language video gallery

File:WIKITONGUES- Jon speaking Basque.webm, A Basque speaker File:WIKITONGUES- Txeli speaking Basque.webm, A Basque speaker, recorded in the Basque Country, Spain File:WIKITONGUES- Iñaki speaking Basque.webm, A Basque speaker, recorded during Wikimania 2019


See also

* Basque dialects *
Vasconic languages The Vasconic languages (from Latin 'Basque'), also called Euskarian or Basque-Aquitanian, are a putative language family that includes Basque and the extinct Aquitanian language. The extinct Iberian language is sometimes tentatively included, a ...
* List of Basques * Basque Country * Late Basquisation *
Languages of France French is the sole official language in France according to the second article of the French Constitution. French, a Gallo-Romance language, is spoken by nearly the entire population of France. In addition to French, several regional langua ...
*
Languages of Spain The majority of languages of Spain belong to the Romance languages, Romance language family, of which Spanish language, Spanish is the only one with Official languages of Spain, official status in the whole country. Others, including Catalan l ...
*
Aquitanian language The Aquitanian language was the language of the ancient Aquitani, a people living in Roman times between the Pyrenees, the Garonne river and the Atlantic Ocean. Epigraphic evidence for this language has also been found south of the Pyrenees, in ...
* List of ideophones in Basque * Wiktionary: Swadesh list of Basque words * Basque literature


References


Further reading


General and descriptive grammars

* Allières, Jacques (1979): ''Manuel pratique de basque'', "Connaissance des langues" v. 13, A. & J. Picard (Paris), . * de Azkue Aberasturi, Resurrección María (1969): ''Morfología vasca.'' La Gran enciclopedia vasca, Bilbao 1969. * Campion, Arturo (1884):
Gramática de los cuatro dialectos literarios de la lengua euskara
', Tolosa. * Euskara Institutua
Euskara Institutuaren ataria (UPV - EHU)
, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Sareko Euskal Gramatika, SE
Aurkezpena [Sareko Euskal Gramatika]
* Hualde, José Ignacio & Ortiz de Urbina, Jon (eds.): ''A Grammar of Basque''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003. . * * Lafitte, Pierre (1962): ''Grammaire basque – navarro-labourdin littéraire.'' Elkarlanean, Donostia/Bayonne, . (Dialectal.) * Lafon, R. (1972): "Basque" In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.) ''Current Trends in Linguistics. Vol. 9. Linguistics in Western Europe'', Mouton, The Hague, Mouton, pp. 1744–1792
Part 2 The study of languages
* * Tovar, Antonio, (1957): ''The Basque Language'', U. of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. * * Urquizu Sarasúa, Patricio (2007): ''Gramática de la lengua vasca''. UNED, Madrid, . * van Eys, Willem J. (1879):
Grammaire comparée des dialectes basques
', Paris.


Linguistic studies

* Agirre, Eneko, et al. (1992)
XUXEN: A spelling checker/corrector for Basque based on two-level morphology
* Gavel, Henri (1921):
Eléments de phonetique basque
' (= ''Revista Internacional de los Estudios Vascos = Revue Internationale des Etudes Basques'' 12, París. (Study of the dialects.) * Hualde, José Ignacio (1991): ''Basque phonology'', Taylor & Francis, . * * Lakarra Andrinua, Joseba A.; Hualde, José Ignacio (eds.) (2006): ''Studies in Basque and historical linguistics in memory of R. L. Trask – R. L. Trasken oroitzapenetan ikerketak euskalaritzaz eta hizkuntzalaritza historikoaz'', (= ''Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca Julio de Urquijo: International journal of Basque linguistics and philology'' Vol. 40, No. 1–2), San Sebastián. * Lakarra, J. & Ortiz de Urbina, J.(eds.) (1992): ''Syntactic Theory and Basque Syntax'', Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundia, Donostia-San Sebastian, . * Orduña Aznar, Eduardo. 2005
Sobre algunos posibles numerales en textos ibéricos.
''Palaeohispanica'' 5:491–506. This fifth volume of the journal ''Palaeohispanica'' consists of Acta Palaeohispanica IX, the proceedings of the ninth conference on Paleohispanic studies. * de Rijk, R. (1972):
Studies in Basque Syntax: Relative clauses
' PhD Dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. * Uhlenbeck, C.C. (1909–1910): "Contribution à une phonétique comparative des dialectes basques", ''Revista Internacional de los Estudios Vascos = Revue Internationale des Etudes Basques''
Wayback Machine
pp. 465–503
Wayback Machine
pp. 65–120. * Zuazo, Koldo (2008): ''Euskalkiak: euskararen dialektoak.'' Elkar. .


Lexicons

* Aulestia, Gorka (1989): ''Basque–English dictionary'' University of Nevada Press, Reno, . * Aulestia, Gorka & White, Linda (1990): ''English–Basque dictionary'', University of Nevada Press, Reno, . * Azkue Aberasturi, Resurrección María de (1905): ''Diccionario vasco–español–francés'', Geuthner, Bilbao/Paris (reprinted many times). * Michelena, Luis: ''Diccionario General Vasco/Orotariko Euskal Hiztegia.'' 16 vols. Real academia de la lengua vasca, Bilbao 1987ff. . * Morris, Mikel (1998): "Morris Student Euskara–Ingelesa Basque–English Dictionary", Klaudio Harluxet Fundazioa, Donostia * Sarasola, Ibon (2010–), "Egungo Euskararen Hiztegia EEH
Egungo Euskararen Hiztegia (EEH) - UPV/EHU
Bilbo: Euskara Institutu
Euskara Institutuaren ataria (UPV - EHU)
The University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU * Sarasola, Ibon (2010): "Zehazki
Zehazki - UPV/EHU
Bilbo: Euskara Institutu
Euskara Institutuaren ataria (UPV - EHU)
The University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU * Sota, M. de la, et al., 1976: ''Diccionario Retana de autoridades de la lengua vasca: con cientos de miles de nuevas voces y acepciones, Antiguas y modernas'', Bilbao: La Gran Enciclopedia Vasca. . * Van Eys, W. J. 1873.
Dictionnaire basque–français
'. Paris/London: Maisonneuve/Williams & Norgate.


Basque corpora

* Sarasola, Ibon; Pello Salaburu, Josu Landa (2011): "ETC: Egungo Testuen Corpusa
Egungo Testuen Corpusa (ETC) - UPV/EHU
Bilbo: Euskara Institutu
Euskara Institutuaren ataria (UPV - EHU)
The University of the Basque Country UPV/EH
University of the Basque Country
* Sarasola, Ibon; Pello Salaburu, Josu Landa (2009): "Ereduzko Prosa Gaur, EPG
Ereduzko Prosa Gaur (EPG) - UPV/EHU
Bilbo: Euskara Institutu
Euskara Institutuaren ataria (UPV - EHU)
The University of the Basque Country UPV/EH
University of the Basque Country
* Sarasola, Ibon; Pello Salaburu, Josu Landa (2009–): "Ereduzko Prosa Dinamikoa, EPD
Ereduzko Prosa Dinamikoa (EPD) - UPV/EHU
Bilbo: Euskara Institutu
Euskara Institutuaren ataria (UPV - EHU)
The University of the Basque Country UPV/EH
University of the Basque Country
* Sarasola, Ibon; Pello Salaburu, Josu Landa (2013): "Euskal Klasikoen Corpusa, EKC
Euskal Klasikoen Corpusa (EKC) - UPV/EHU
Bilbo: Euskara Institutu
Euskara Institutuaren ataria (UPV - EHU)
The University of the Basque Country UPV/EH
University of the Basque Country
* Sarasola, Ibon; Pello Salaburu, Josu Landa (2014): "Goenkale Corpusa
Goenkale Corpusa - UPV/EHU
Bilbo: Euskara Institutu
Euskara Institutuaren ataria (UPV - EHU)
The University of the Basque Country UPV/EH
University of the Basque Country
* Sarasola, Ibon; Pello Salaburu, Josu Landa (2010): "Pentsamenduaren Klasikoak Corpusa
Pentsamenduaren Klasikoak Corpusa - UPV/EHU
Bilbo: Euskara Institutu
Euskara Institutuaren ataria (UPV - EHU)
The University of the Basque Country UPV/EH
University of the Basque Country


Other

* Agirre Sorondo, Antxon. 1988. ''Tratado de Molinología: Los molinos en Guipúzcoa''. San Sebastián: Eusko Ikaskunza-Sociedad de Estudios Vascos. Fundación Miguel de Barandiarán. * * Bakker, Peter, et al. 1991. ''Basque pidgins in Iceland and Canada. Anejos del Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca "Julio de Urquijo"'', XXIII. * Deen, Nicolaas Gerard Hendrik. 1937. ''Glossaria duo vasco-islandica''. Amsterdam. Reprinted 1991 in ''Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca Julio de Urquijo'', 25(2):321–426. *


History of the language and etymologies

* * Azurmendi, Joxe: "Die Bedeutung der Sprache in Renaissance und Reformation und die Entstehung der baskischen Literatur im religiösen und politischen Konfliktgebiet zwischen Spanien und Frankreich" In: Wolfgang W. Moelleken (Herausgeber), Peter J. Weber (Herausgeber): ''Neue Forschungsarbeiten zur Kontaktlinguistik'', Bonn: Dümmler, 1997. * Hualde, José Ignacio; Lakarra, Joseba A. & R.L. Trask (eds) (1996): ''Towards a History of the Basque Language'', "Current Issues in Linguistic Theory" 131, John Benjamin Publishing Company, Amsterdam, . * Michelena, Luis, 1990. ''Fonética histórica vasca''. Bilbao. * Lafon, René (1944): ''Le système du verbe basque au XVIe siècle'', Delmas, Bordeaux. * Löpelmann, Martin (1968): ''Etymologisches Wörterbuch der baskischen Sprache.'' Dialekte von Labourd, Nieder-Navarra und La Soule. 2 Bde. de Gruyter, Berlin (non-standard etymologies; idiosyncratic). * Orpustan, J. B. (1999): ''La langue basque au Moyen-Age.'' Baïgorri, . * Pagola, Rosa Miren. 1984. ''Euskalkiz Euskalki''. Vitoria-Gasteiz: Eusko Jaurlaritzaren Argitalpe. * Rohlfs, Gerhard. 1980. Le Gascon: études de philologie pyrénéenne. ''Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie'' 85. * Trask, R.L.: ''History of Basque''. New York/London: Routledge, 1996. . * Trask, R.L. † (edited by Max W. Wheeler) (2008)
Etymological Dictionary of Basque
University of Sussex (unfinished). Also "Some Important Basque Words (And a Bit of Culture)

*


Relationship to other languages


Proto-Indo-European

*


General reviews of the theories

* Jacobsen, William H. Jr. (1999):
Basque Language Origin Theories
In ''Basque Cultural Studies'', edited by William A. Douglass, Carmelo Urza, Linda White, and Joseba Zulaika, 27–43. Basque Studies Program Occasional Papers Series, No. 5. Reno: Basque Studies Program, University of Nevada, Reno. * Lakarra Andrinua, Joseba (1998):
Hizkuntzalaritza konparatua eta aitzineuskararen erroa
(in Basque), ''Uztaro'' 25, pp. 47–110, (includes review of older theories). * Lakarra Andrinua, Joseba (1999):
Ná-De-Ná
(in Basque), ''Uztaro'' 31, pp. 15–84. * Trask, R.L. (1995): "Origin and Relatives of the Basque Language : Review of the Evidence" in Towards a History of the Basque Language, ed. J. Hualde, J. Lakarra, R.L. Trask, John Benjamins, Amsterdam / Philadelphia. * Trask, R.L.: ''History of Basque''. New York/London: Routledge, 1996. ; pp. 358–414.


Afroasiatic hypothesis

* Schuchardt, Hugo (1913):
Baskisch-Hamitische wortvergleichungen
''Revista Internacional de Estudios Vascos'' = "Revue Internationale des Etudes Basques" 7:289–340. * Mukarovsky, Hans Guenter (1964/66): "Les rapports du basque et du berbère", ''Comptes rendus du GLECS (Groupe Linguistique d'Etudes Chamito-Sémitiques)'' 10:177–184. * * Trombetti, Alfredo (1925): ''Le origini della lingua basca'', Bologna, (new edit ).


Dené–Caucasian hypothesis

* Bengtson, John D. (1999): ''The Comparison of Basque and North Caucasian.'' in: ''
Mother Tongue A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongue'' refers ...
.'' ''Journal of the Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory''. Gloucester, Mass. * * Bengtson, John D. (2004):
Some features of Dene–Caucasian phonology (with special reference to Basque)
" Cahiers de l'Institut de Linguistique de Louvain (CILL) 30.4, pp. 33–54. * Bengtson, John D.. (2006): "Materials for a Comparative Grammar of the Dene–Caucasian (Sino-Caucasian) Languages." (there is also
preliminary draft
* Bengtson, John D. (1997): Review of "The History of Basque". London: Routledge, 1997. Pp.xxii,458" by R.L. Trask. * Bengtson, John D., (1996): "A Final (?) Response to the Basque Debate in Mother Tongue 1." *


Caucasian hypothesis

* Bouda, Karl (1950):
L'Euskaro-Caucasique
''Boletín de la Real Sociedad Vasca de Amigos del País. Homenaje a D. Julio de Urquijo e Ybarra'' vol. III, San Sebastián, pp. 207–232. * Klimov, Georgij A. (1994):
Einführung in die kaukasische Sprachwissenschaft
', Buske, Hamburg, ; pp. 208–215. * * * Trombetti, Alfredo (1925): ''Le origini della lingua basca'', Bologna, (new edit ). * Míchelena, Luis (1968): "L'euskaro-caucasien" in Martinet, A. (ed.) ''Le langage'', Paris, pp. 1414–1437 (criticism). * Uhlenbeck, Christian Cornelius (1924):
De la possibilité d' une parenté entre le basque et les langues caucasiques
, ''Revista Internacional de los Estudios Vascos'' = ''Revue Internationale des Etudes Basques'' 15, pp. 565–588. * Zelikov, Mixail (2005):
L'hypothèse basco-caucasienne dans les travaux de N. Marr
''Cahiers de l'ILSL'', N° 20, pp. 363–381. * Зыцарь Ю. В. O родстве баскского языка с кавказскими /
Вопросы языкознания. 1955. No. 5.


Iberian hypothesis

* Bähr, Gerhard (1948): "Baskisch und Iberisch" ''Eusko Jakintza'' II, pp. 3–20, 167–194, 381–455. * Gorrochategui, Joaquín (1993): La onomástica aquitana y su relación con la ibérica, ''Lengua y cultura en Hispania prerromana : actas del V Coloquio sobre lenguas y culturas de la Península Ibérica: (Colonia 25–28 de Noviembre de 1989)'' (Francisco Villar and Jürgen Untermann, eds.), , pp. 609–634. * Rodríguez Ramos, Jesús (2002)
La hipótesis del vascoiberismo desde el punto de vista de la epigrafía íbera
''Fontes linguae vasconum: Studia et documenta'', 90, pp. 197–218, . * Schuchardt, Hugo Ernst Mario (1907): ''Die Iberische Deklination'', Wien. * Villamor, Fernando (2020) ''A basic dictionary and grammar of the Iberian language''


Uralic-Altaic hypothesis

* Bonaparte, Louis Lucien (1862):
Langue basque et langues finnoises
', London.


Vasconic-Old European hypothesis

* Vennemann, Theo (2003): ''Europa Vasconica – Europa Semitica'', Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 138, De Gruyter, Berlin, . * Vennemann, Theo (2007): "Basken wie wir: Linguistisches und Genetisches zum europäischen Stammbaum", ''BiologenHeute'' 5/6, 6–11.


Other theories

* Thornton, R.W. (2002): ''Basque Parallels to Greenberg's Eurasiatic.'' in: ''
Mother Tongue A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongue'' refers ...
.'' Gloucester, Mass., 2002.


External links

* – Euskaltzaindia (The Royal Academy of the Basque Language)
An overview of language technology tools for Basque
Automatic translators for Basque, dictionaries, resources to learn Basque... (~ 2016)
Euskara Institutua
The University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU
Ahotsak.eus - Basque Oral Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Basque Language Agglutinative languages Articles containing video clips Language isolates of Europe Subject–object–verb languages Synthetic languages Languages of Spain Languages of France Languages attested from the 1st century BC