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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 3/16/2009
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Does anyone know the basic history and/or cultural origins of the Basque language? It's always intrigued me, but I have to admit I know nothing about it (apart from the particular regions where it's spoken.) I've never met anyone who speaks it, either, and can rarely come across adequate translation (Google's translation tool, for instance, still doesn't tackle Basque.)
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 3/6/2009
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From TFD:Quote:Language spoken by an estimated 1,000,000 Basque people living in the Basque Country of north-central Spain and southwestern France. About 200,000 Basques live in other parts of the world. The only remnant of the languages spoken in western Europe before incursions by Indo-European-speaking peoples, Basque has no known linguistic relatives; linguists call it a language isolate. Its grammar is markedly distinct from that of all other western European languages. A lot more info is here: Basque language (encyclopedia), Basque language (Hutchinson encyclopedia), Basque language (Wikipedia)
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Rank: Advanced Member
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As I recall from my linguistics class, Basque is thought to be related to the Celtic language family.
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Joined: 3/15/2009
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Location: Poland
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You see, there are many Hypotheses about Basque, but for the time being, it's safe to say that's an isolated language :)
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Rank: Advanced Member
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When I see Basque on a webpage I immediately think it's Spanish or some other predominantly Latin-based language, but it's not. And now reading that it's a "language isolate" has me even more intrigued.
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Rank: Advanced Member
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I read some time ago that it is not an Indo European language and may be language from pre-Indo European Settlers that may have extended into Great Britain.
My theory is it's source is Middle East.
"Supposin' I was to go to work and learn how to... to read writin'. Well, how'd I know that the feller that... that wrote the writin' was a writin' the writin' right? See it could be that he wrote the writin' all wrong. Here I'd be just a readin' wrong writin', don't ya see? You probably been doin' it your whole life, just a readin' wrong writin' and not even knowin‘ it." Festus
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"A member of a people of unknown origin inhabiting the western Pyrenees and the Bay of Biscay in France and Spain" http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Basque
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 5/23/2009
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Location: Spain
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Basque is definitely pre-Indoeuropean, and so unrelated to Celtic languages. It certainly belonged to a family of languages that were more extended before the arrival of the Indoeuropeans, and which probably included other Iberian languages. As to its relationship to other living languages, that is controversial. Some see relationships to Caucasic or to Berber languages, but the relationship, if it exists, is not close. It may look similar to Latin-based languages, because it has picked many words from Latin, and afterwards from Spanish and French, but the grammar is very very different (and very difficult for non-Basques). There has also been some influence in the opposite direction: some features and many words of Spanish come from the Basque substrate. Toño http://www.delbarrio.eu
Toño
http://www.delbarrio.eu
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I thought it was related to Etruscan and protoiberian languages, not to Celtic.
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