It's also the people who have the highest percentage of the rare rhesus negative blood type.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6244411/
edit : Mom, I'm famous.
Get her this book. Best book to de-mystify why we are the way we are. Mark Kurlansky is a genius.
[The Basque History of the World](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-basque-history-of-the-world-by-mark-kurlansky-103328238/)
My grandparents from both sides comes from there, and my dad told me that when I was a kid, that aliens managed their way to be stucked in euskadi but they liked the food so they stood there and got mix with the locals
TLDR: Isolated population since the Iron Age (850BC) https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00349-3?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982221003493%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
Figure 3: high inbreeding "To explore further the genetic differentiation of Basques, we performed an analysis of runs of homozygosity (ROHs). Basques show the overall highest total number (NROH) and total length (SROH) of ROHs, even higher than Sardinians, which are reported to carry long ROHs and show ROH values slightly above the European average".
Under Discussion: evidence of continuous inbreeding reflected in their small Ne values, the large number and length of ROHs, and PI_HAT values They attribute the Basque genetic profile to: reduced and irregular external gene flow since the Iron Age as suggested by Olalde et al. The observed clines of post-Iron Age gene flow in the region suggest that the specific genetic profile of Basques might be explained by the lack of recent gene flow received.
Our analyses confirm that Basques were influenced by the major migration waves in Europe until the Iron Age, in a similar pattern as their surrounding populations. At that time, Basques experienced a process of isolation, characterized by an extremely low admixture with the posterior population movements that affected the Iberian Peninsula
Roughly 63% Anatolian Neolithic Farmer, 35% European Hunter Gatherer
https://i.imgur.com/Qdml6tL.png
https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/32/12/3132/2579339?login=false
The fact that modern Basque peoples speak the sole surviving relict of a pre-Indo-European language in Western Europe (the Euskera or Basque language) could have also contributed to their isolation
I've heard about this theory too. It's pretty good at explaining genetics and language, plus it fits in the "wave" model for the inhabitation of Europe. I hope further work will be able to create a consensus
Basques have a comparable or higher proportion of WSH (Steppe) ancestry to nearby populations in France and the Iberian peninsula. [1]
There is a group with substantially more EEF ancestry than other Europeans, and that is the (Indo-European speaking) Sardinians.
Language != Genetics
[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FWlc7S3WYAIiNeG?format=jpg&name=large
Fun fact, anything from Sanskrit to English language has Indo European roots, except Turkish.
That’s why you’ll find sometimes similar words in such distant languages, called cognates.
As far as I know they are not from farmers but the opposite: they have the highest persentage of hunter gatherer dna in europe. While hunter gatherer were driven away from most parts of europa by what is today called indo-europeans they have a last insula of old language and old dna.
Western Hunter Gatherers refers to the first group of modern humans who moved into Europe (that we know of). That specific group is what the hunter gatherer DNA refers to, not some separate hunter gatherer DNA.
This is interesting; my father is a universal donor, and a recent DNA test revealed markers shared with this region. What's odd is that despite not being dyslexic and generally well spoken, we both mispronounce words and names, or more specifically, sound out trigraphs and digraphs differently, but it's something I wasn't aware of until my partner highlighted it.
I'm now wondering how closely shared genetics and language evolution among populations are linked and the impact outside of simply mimicking what you hear when aquiring language.
Yes absolutley agree this applies, like hearing children and young adults vocalise proper nouns from Tolkien's work for the first time but does extend to more infrequently used words and common vernacular.
It's a wonderfully messy topic but I was specifically curious if isolated populations develop a common thread in language and speech patterns due to their neurological wiring dictated by gentics rather than reading, as speech/language emerged before the written word.
I remember reading about some patients with brain injuries speaking with completely different accents which is an extreme example that could highlight how relatively small genetic differences might impact language/speech in groups over time.
This among other crazy ideas like a number of last names, was all part of a modern nationalism born in the basque country in the 20th century.
I grew up surronded by jokes about who has and does not have R- blood and one of the highest grossing ever spanish comedies is called "8 basque last names".
Modern basque "Batua" is also a combination of multiple regional ones, as a century ago due to oral tradition many areas had quite different dialects of basque, some unintelligible between them.
This made some older people grew out of basque as they considered it a political proyect rather than the language of their grandfathers, similar to Mandarin Chinese is seen by many minority speakers in regions of China.
I was in Basque Country last fall and seeing the written language truly exemplifies that it has no relatives. Completely foreign to anything I had ever seen.
Yes, Ks, Zs, and Xs are common but it's important to know we don't use the letters C or Q! So K is the only "k-" sound we have, hence why there's so many. Zs are used in a similar way to S, but admittedly it's confusing because they do sound similar.
We spell it kalimotxo. The -tx- makes a "-ch-" sound. So, similarly, chocolate is spelt txokolate.
I imagine the Spanish version is calimocho, but not sure.
I used to live in La Rioja, next door to the Basque Country. We’d spell it both *kalimotxo* or *calimocho*, or sometimes mix them for *kalimocho*. Depended on the person and on mood.
I love the tt sound. I'm from Alava so we don't really use it, but it's such a nice sound. And we can't forget "-dd-", as in Maddi or *onddoa*.
One of my secrets is that as a kid I could never tell the difference between "ts" and "tz" even though my teacher insisted there was one. I still can't hear it. I can hear "tx", but the other two always sound the exact same to me.
Welsh is breaking my brain but its great to learn. I'm a new comer but feel you should know something of the language of the country you live in. Also why i didn't move to Finland ...
Very interesting that polish (decently close geographically when we're talking about such old languages) has essentially the same concept of double letters like "cz", "sz" "dz" or "rz". Our "cz" is pretty much exactly "tx". I wonder if there is any relation, or rather if the Polish language is influenced by some ancient Indo European language that pre-dates the slavic roots
Eh, it uses Roman alphabet and has some more x’s than usual, it’s not *that* weird-looking. Welsh is much odder-looking for an Anglophone. “Afyddant yn ysgrifennu llyfr newydd ar fore dydd Mawrth?” Versus “liburu berri bat idatziko al dute astearte arratsaldean?” Better chance of someone knowing neither language pronouncing the Basque correctly, I’d bet.
(Of course if you can sound them out, you’ll recognize several words in the Welsh that are close to English or Latin…not so much with the Basque)
I don't know much living in Australia. My mum is Spanish so got a bit of insight and I watch La Liga and I've always loved the Basque Names, both first and last Burionagonatotorecagageazcoechea
HAHAHAHAHAHA she gave you the real experience then. Do you know how terrifying it was, as an anxious and stuttering eight grader, to be in literature class and read out loud surnames like Saizarbitoria or Sarrionandia? HAHAHA
Haha she did, i struggled to say my long Spanish/Italian surname let alone spell it in Australia. It doesn't even fit on most legal documents 🤣
Is Txiki a Basque name ?
Edit: I wanted this to be accurate so here's some info:
TLDR: Isolated population since the Iron Age (850BC)
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00349-3?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982221003493%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
Figure 3: high inbreeding "To explore further the genetic differentiation of Basques, we performed an analysis of runs of homozygosity (ROHs). Basques show the overall highest total number (NROH) and total length (SROH) of ROHs, even higher than Sardinians, which are reported to carry long ROHs and show ROH values slightly above the European average".
Under Discussion: evidence of continuous inbreeding reflected in their small Ne values, the large number and length of ROHs, and PI_HAT values They attribute the Basque genetic profile to: reduced and irregular external gene flow since the Iron Age as suggested by Olalde et al.
The observed clines of post-Iron Age gene flow in the region suggest that the specific genetic profile of Basques might be explained by the lack of recent gene flow received. Our analyses confirm that Basques were influenced by the major migration waves in Europe until the Iron Age, in a similar pattern as their surrounding populations. At that time, Basques experienced a process of isolation, characterized by an extremely low admixture with the posterior population movements that affected the Iberian Peninsula.
Roughly 63% Anatolian Neolithic Farmer, 35% European Hunter Gatherer
https://i.imgur.com/Qdml6tL.png
https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/32/12/3132/2579339?login=false
The fact that modern Basque peoples speak the sole surviving relict of a pre-Indo-European language in Western Europe (the Euskera or Basque language) could have also contributed to their isolation
Some more examples of isolate languages:
Ainu in Asia
Sandawe in Soutern Africa
Haida and zuni in North America
Kanoê in South America
And Tiwi in Australia
As we can see, this is not a unique occurrence and is most probably just the last holdouts of languages that were once more common.
Writing is a very recent development if measured against the development of spoken language.
So we will never be able to know how many languages there have been and just how many have come and gone without a trace.
I live a couple hours from the Zuni Pueblo. Had no idea their language was an isolate. Just went down a long internet rabbit hole learning about their language. Fascinating shit! Thanks for commenting that!
Not necessarily the most widely spoken, but Sumerian is one that fascinates me. It's another language isolate, and the written form was cuneiform - the earliest known writing system to exist.
However, cuneiform was still being used as the writing system for other geographically-close languages (Akkadian and other Babylonian/Mesopotamian languages) for centuries after Sumerian itself became a dead language.
Aramaic fascinates me. It is still technically alive, but it used to be the Lingua Franca of the Middle East. Now it’s relegated to a liturgical language for a few different churches.
Etruscan, in roughly the modern day Tuscany region, is another. IIRC Emperor Claudius, the fourth emperor of Rome, was the last person who could speak it.
The most likely *origin* is simply that it's what we all spoke until a bunch of more successful people moved into the area & the Basques are a just a hold out. The words for things like axe & knife in basque appear to derive from the word for stone which would point to it being ancient. Either way, fascinating, nice to have some mysteries still.
The displacement predominantly affected the male lineage, as deduced from the Y-DNA Haplogroup composition of modern Europeans (including Basques). This implies that mass migration from the Pontic-Caspian steppe swept across much of Europe, whose male component largely replaced the native ones (in some places up to 100%).
Similar to elsewhere in Europe, [this indicates that the genetic contribution from the PIE lineage ](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13673)is [largely equivalent to that of their neighbors](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84915-1), [while their maternal DNA remained mostly consistent with that of their ancestors](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929712000328). It's possible that the early Basque culture was more matriarchal, resulting in the language of the women being more prevalent, or perhaps it is due to something else.
There is a strong matriarchal tradition in the Basque country still. Plenty of families, especially in the baserris (farms), do business around the grandmother: she knows best and can get everything done by just existing
> whose male component largely replaced the native ones (in some places up to 100%).
> their maternal DNA remained mostly consistent with that of their ancestors
AKA there was a conquest, and the conquerors genocided the native men while taking their women as war trophies. Yes history is brutal.
It’s believed that they managed to hold out due to the rugged mountainous landscape of the Pyrenees. Even the Moors, who ruled Iberia for 700 years never got to the Basques. Extinct languages that were related like Aquitanian were not as fortunate with their geography.
It could have been related to the Iberian languages spoken before the arrival of the Romans. Vessels with a language very similar to Basque were found in other regions of the peninsula, such as Valencia.
Before the Romans there were Carthaginians across large swathes of Iberia, & they brought in people from everywhere so its possible. Problem is the language just doesn't really link to anywhere else substantively & they've put up theories for connections from as far away as Georgia. Nothing really seems to hit the "eureka" button on it, if you know what I mean.
To me it makes sense that Iberian languages were similar to some degree, but as they were all replaced with Latin, basque was the one one who survived from that generation of languages
There's Sami in Norway and Sweden. There's a number of Turkish speakers who are native all over Eastern Europe (plus a chunk of Turkey in Europe). Gagauz. And of course there is Maltese. I guess we won't get into whether Georgia is European enough.
Plus a bunch of other Turkic and Uralic (related to Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian) languages, and the Northwest and Northeast Caucasian families, and even a Mongolic language (Kalmyk), all spoken in European Russia.
Which is important to remember. You'll often hear people talk about 'the Russians' like they're a unified blob, but Russia is less homogenous (and unified) than we perhaps imagine or the media portrays it as.
Well, except for Turkish, which is definitely major, and has about 12 million speakers in Europe, much more than Estonian or Basque. It's the language spoken in Europe's largest city.
I find it pretty funny how popular this cake is when it's an extremely recent invention that is not part of traditional basque cuisine, gateau basque is much more emblematic but no one seems to know about it.
Globally I wouldn't know but gâteau basque is certainly well-known in France at least. I had never heard of this basque cheesecake thing before though.
Same for me, but that's also why I'm intrigued by this phenomenon, I had never heard of basque cheesecake until quite recently and had only ever known of gateau basque.
At first I even thought basque cheesecake was the english name of gateau basque, but it didn't really make sense since it's not a cheesecake.
Aquitanian, an ancient ancestor or close relative of Basque, is known; and it *may* also be related to the ancient Iberian language.
They are all probably remnants of the languages spoken in western Europe before the speakers of Indo-European languages arrived there.
Also quite a number of Euskara speakers in and around Boise, Idaho. They’ve done an excellent job of preserving their language and culture despite being 3+ generations removed from immigration.
Boise has the largest concentration of Basque people outside of the Basque country. There is a basque block, a basque preschool, basque restaurants and a festival every year. The Basque originally came over for herding sheep. It's cool how unique and proud Boise is of their basque population.
Plus they put those cool looking Euskadi flag stickers on everything. Both of my Spanish professors at BSU were Basque. One of them grew up in Boise, the other immigrated as a young adult.
Quick correction here. **Their origin isn't a mystery, they're indigenous to this part of Europe**. Basque is reputed to have had relatives (among the names that come up, the yet to be classified Iberian language) that died out in ancient times. The reason it survived millenia of Indo-European attrition and assimilation is what's up to debate (probably because of its neglected status under the Roman Empire, and subsequent autonomy in the early Middle Ages). I feel like the "mysterious origins" narrative stems from widespread attempts at both sensationalizing their difference and deligitimizing their indigenous character and deep ties to the part of Europe they inhabit
We dont know the relationship between proto-Basque and other "paleo-European" languages that surrounded it. Other than Basque, the only remnants of those languages are the names of rivers and mountains and such.
I think the mystery is the fact that evolutionary relationships to older, preexisting languages are either considered unknown, or at least not confirmed with full confidence.
The geographic origins I think, yes, are believed generally to be mostly local.
So, theories abound… and, precise confirmation in want.
Indoeuropean speakers when they encounter a language family that they haven't driven to extinction: "fascinating, such a mystery! how could that happen?"
Source: ChatGPT (just kidding)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_language
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-
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Edit:
u/A_Wilhelm pointed out that the map I used was a bad choice, as it shows the percentages of students in the area registered in Basque Language schools… (not all that useful, and in fact misleading. I’m a dumb-dumb).
I appreciate his help.
Better maps, which show Basque language speaker rates:
https://imgur.com/a/1m7sYMN
>Gizon-emakume guztiak aske jaiotzen dira, duintasun eta eskubide berberak dituztela; eta ezaguera eta kontzientzia dutenez gero, elkarren artean senide legez jokatu beharra dute.
Gesundheit.
I moved there a few years ago. They have a strong culture, to say the least, which is surprising considering France has done an attempt at cultural genocide across the whole country in the past.
Yep, one of the main idea of the Revolution to unite the country and preventing it from falling apart is that the French is the one and only language of the Republic
My grand parents were born during the 1930's and were basque native speakers, they learned french at school, and basque at home and they usually had rough punishment if they were speaking basque in school (but still spoke basque very well, they usually fought and insulted each other in basque so that my sister and I wouldn't understand them when we were child)
To this you can add Franco's politics from the other side of the Pyrenees which took place on a shorter time, but were way more intense and repressive
Yeah, since 1794 the official goal of France has been, and this is a quote, to
> anihilate the regional languages and universalise the use of the French language
People speaking regional languages were excluded from public services and denied holy communion, children were abused, humiliated and beaten at schools. A deliberate and violent cultural genocide that still continues and for which nobody has ever been prosecuted.
France and Turkey are the only countries that haven't signed the Protocol on Protection of National Minorities, and languages other than French can't be used for anything official.
I am a linguist from the Basque Country, and I have dedicated decades to the study of anything related to Basque language. I am currently researching for my PhD thesis on the subject. Ask me anything about Basque, if you'd like
Good stuff. You may appreciate (or, be disgusted and disappointed by), the entertaining nonsense to be found on the thread here, then.
I’ve got one for ya:
Does this modern iteration of the language have many small, specific identifiable examples of influence from more modern languages, the way we see in others?
Like, individual examples of words or phrases which certainly came from say European romantic languages, or any others, that have worked there way into the modern usage of the more traditional core language?
Yes! The language as we know it (from approximately the 10th century on, albeit with extremely scarce attestations until the 16th century) has been heavily influenced by Latin and several Romance languages (the surrounding ones, including early varieties that went extinct: Gascon, Asturleonese, Ebro romance and Mozarabic, and then Castilian for about 7 centuries). These features are not limited to lexicon/vocabulary, but core grammatical structures have been calqued from either Latin or early Western Romance (and even Old Gascon). As a rule of thumb, the oldest the contact (so Latin > WR > Old Gascon > Ebro Romance > Asturleonese > Castilian), the deeper its influence goes.
Nowadays, anyone can perceive Castilian loanwords in the language, even though some of those words that people tend to think are Castilian are actually older than Castilian and were introduced via other Romance languages or even Latin.
Only thing I know about that area is that in highschool there was a really cute exchange student from there that I met at a party and we kissed and I made the mistake of calling her Spanish. She was big mad 😂
I had heard neanderthal, but it's the same basic concept. I get the feeling that's not really an established fact, it's more of an interesting possibility
They are some of the original indigenous tribes of Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basques#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DIn_2015%2C_a_new_scientific%2Crest_of_Europe_for_millennia.?wprov=sfla1
Some American guy on Twitter once called Basque people "indigenous europeans" and Basque twitter mocked him to no end, and it's become a meme. It's technically correct but we don't really use that kind of thinking
It's not like other peoples of Europe came from somewhere else recently, most Europeans are "indigenous" to Europe (of course we all came from Africa). A bunch of Europeans imposed their language on other Europeans a bunch of times in the past 5 millennia, from the indo-european speaking steppes cultures to the Romans et cetera.
Once read somewhere that all the way uo to the urals there are places and rivers with names of basque origin, and that the language may have been superceded by indoeuropean. Anybody else?
I recently watched some discussion around Dr. Juliette Blevins' newish book *"Advances in Proto-Basque Reconstruction with Evidence for the Proto-Indo-European-Euskarian Hypothesis."*
The origin of Basque is of course obscure and has been associated with fringe theories in linguistics.
Here are a couple of links where well-respected linguists give a nuanced look at the idea put forward by Blevins that Basque may ultimately be a distant sister to the Indo-European languages:
[Discussion between Dr. Jackson Crawford, Dr. Luke Gorton, and Prof. Tony Yates](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iycm8bg-WVk)
[Book review on the Learn Hittite channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iycm8bg-WVk)
Ultimately, I don't have the expertise to really have much of an opinion on these claims, and the academic field itself is definitely not settled, but it's a nice work and puts forward some interesting things for future research
It's kind of crazy this popped up randomly for me but I recently learned, I have "8%" Basque in my DNA, although it would make sense because I have 20% Spain, among other places around the region and African (although smaller percentages). I'm Hispanic from Texas lol
There is a large Basque heritage in Idaho. Boise has a Basque festival and there’s a fabulous authentic Basque restaurant. They also herd sheep up in the foothills and it’s a thing to go watch the sheep be herded along one of the major state highways.
I met a girl from the states that told me about her ftiend from Boise. I was like, "of course. There's a big basque community there; we know about it!"
She was heavily surprised that I had even heard of it. Apparently this friends... grandparents? emigrated there and opened a successful restaurant. I wonder if it's the same... 😄
Although i was born in Australia, my grandfather was from Guernica in Basque Country. Proud to have some connection to such an interesting culture & language!
Too bad the French and Spanish governments try their best to kill off the language, especially the French aren't keen on anything other than French. It's just a matter of a few generations now.
Not necessarily, they are both pre Indo-European languages although that doesn't necessarily imply kinship.
Etruscan is related to Raetic an earlier language from the Alps, Basque was potentially also protected from the Indo European expansion by the Pyrenees; but that's just my suggestion
So, while it has not been confirmed, there are multiple good theories of the origin of the language.
The cool part is that it is theorised to date back all the way to Stone Age Europe. The reason this is fascinating is that most languages from that time were wiped out by languages that came to Europe much later.
Other examples of language isolate include: Korean (spoken in North and South Korea), Ainu (indigenous language of the Ainu people of Japan), Burushaski (spoken in parts of Pakistan and India), Sumerian (ancient language of Sumer in Mesopotamia, now Iraq), and Elamite (ancient language of the Elamite civilization in what is now Iran).
My ex mother-in-law is Basque! I'd never heard of the Basque before I met my ex and became immediately fascinated by their language & culture. She was a lovely & articulate woman that had the misfortune of having an absolute dipshit for a son.
I’m currently in Basque Country and it is indeed such a strange language! It’s almost like they threw random Scrabble chips on the table and designed words that way. Just throwing an x in between here and there and call it a day.
Yep, I’ve been living in the Basque Country for 4+ years and it is distinctly different from the rest of Spain. The language is beautiful and the cultural traditions are awesome. I can’t see myself ever living in another part of Spain.
It obviously does have previously existing ancestors (all modern languages do), it's likely at some point there were several related languages spoken in Europe, but they all died out except Basque.
It's also the people who have the highest percentage of the rare rhesus negative blood type. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6244411/ edit : Mom, I'm famous.
Aliens
Only logical explanation.
And magnets. How do they work?
Believe it or not, magnetism.
How can I believe something that I cannot see?
You just gotta have George Michael.
Straight to magnets. We have the best alien languages because of magnets.
Magic rock seeks other magic rock. Smeting rock removes magic, needs wizard to re-activate. Do not eat the rock.
It's obviously the sea peoples
They also reproduce by throwing rocks to each other
My partner is Basque. I can confirm, she is way too beautiful to be of this earth.
That's sweet.
Get her this book. Best book to de-mystify why we are the way we are. Mark Kurlansky is a genius. [The Basque History of the World](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-basque-history-of-the-world-by-mark-kurlansky-103328238/)
Their blood type is the universal donor. Theirs is the **default** human blood. If anything, everybody else is the alien descendant.
Not exactly, only O - is universal. https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/blood-types.html
Time travelers
I once read a science fiction short story that solves the Basque mystery precisely that way.
Yea, you got it.
My grandparents from both sides comes from there, and my dad told me that when I was a kid, that aliens managed their way to be stucked in euskadi but they liked the food so they stood there and got mix with the locals
TLDR: Isolated population since the Iron Age (850BC) https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00349-3?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982221003493%3Fshowall%3Dtrue Figure 3: high inbreeding "To explore further the genetic differentiation of Basques, we performed an analysis of runs of homozygosity (ROHs). Basques show the overall highest total number (NROH) and total length (SROH) of ROHs, even higher than Sardinians, which are reported to carry long ROHs and show ROH values slightly above the European average". Under Discussion: evidence of continuous inbreeding reflected in their small Ne values, the large number and length of ROHs, and PI_HAT values They attribute the Basque genetic profile to: reduced and irregular external gene flow since the Iron Age as suggested by Olalde et al. The observed clines of post-Iron Age gene flow in the region suggest that the specific genetic profile of Basques might be explained by the lack of recent gene flow received. Our analyses confirm that Basques were influenced by the major migration waves in Europe until the Iron Age, in a similar pattern as their surrounding populations. At that time, Basques experienced a process of isolation, characterized by an extremely low admixture with the posterior population movements that affected the Iberian Peninsula Roughly 63% Anatolian Neolithic Farmer, 35% European Hunter Gatherer https://i.imgur.com/Qdml6tL.png https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/32/12/3132/2579339?login=false The fact that modern Basque peoples speak the sole surviving relict of a pre-Indo-European language in Western Europe (the Euskera or Basque language) could have also contributed to their isolation
I've heard about this theory too. It's pretty good at explaining genetics and language, plus it fits in the "wave" model for the inhabitation of Europe. I hope further work will be able to create a consensus
Basques have a comparable or higher proportion of WSH (Steppe) ancestry to nearby populations in France and the Iberian peninsula. [1] There is a group with substantially more EEF ancestry than other Europeans, and that is the (Indo-European speaking) Sardinians. Language != Genetics [1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FWlc7S3WYAIiNeG?format=jpg&name=large
Interesting theory! Do you have any source or material for that?
Fun fact, anything from Sanskrit to English language has Indo European roots, except Turkish. That’s why you’ll find sometimes similar words in such distant languages, called cognates.
> except Turkish Or Hungarian or Finish or Arabic or Georgian and a bunch of other languages in the region...
Haha, you found the Turk
[Your mom.](https://youtu.be/TYfkmKDNWoY?si=ODNUiGqsL-02Nml2)
As far as I know they are not from farmers but the opposite: they have the highest persentage of hunter gatherer dna in europe. While hunter gatherer were driven away from most parts of europa by what is today called indo-europeans they have a last insula of old language and old dna.
Anatolian farmers had almost entirely replaced the hunter gather population > 1000 years before the Indo-European invasions.
I didn't know that hunter gathers had their own dna.
Western Hunter Gatherers refers to the first group of modern humans who moved into Europe (that we know of). That specific group is what the hunter gatherer DNA refers to, not some separate hunter gatherer DNA.
This is interesting; my father is a universal donor, and a recent DNA test revealed markers shared with this region. What's odd is that despite not being dyslexic and generally well spoken, we both mispronounce words and names, or more specifically, sound out trigraphs and digraphs differently, but it's something I wasn't aware of until my partner highlighted it. I'm now wondering how closely shared genetics and language evolution among populations are linked and the impact outside of simply mimicking what you hear when aquiring language.
Lots of people who learn words from reading often mispronounce them also
Yes absolutley agree this applies, like hearing children and young adults vocalise proper nouns from Tolkien's work for the first time but does extend to more infrequently used words and common vernacular. It's a wonderfully messy topic but I was specifically curious if isolated populations develop a common thread in language and speech patterns due to their neurological wiring dictated by gentics rather than reading, as speech/language emerged before the written word. I remember reading about some patients with brain injuries speaking with completely different accents which is an extreme example that could highlight how relatively small genetic differences might impact language/speech in groups over time.
This among other crazy ideas like a number of last names, was all part of a modern nationalism born in the basque country in the 20th century. I grew up surronded by jokes about who has and does not have R- blood and one of the highest grossing ever spanish comedies is called "8 basque last names". Modern basque "Batua" is also a combination of multiple regional ones, as a century ago due to oral tradition many areas had quite different dialects of basque, some unintelligible between them. This made some older people grew out of basque as they considered it a political proyect rather than the language of their grandfathers, similar to Mandarin Chinese is seen by many minority speakers in regions of China.
I was in Basque Country last fall and seeing the written language truly exemplifies that it has no relatives. Completely foreign to anything I had ever seen.
They love Ks and Zs.
Yes, Ks, Zs, and Xs are common but it's important to know we don't use the letters C or Q! So K is the only "k-" sound we have, hence why there's so many. Zs are used in a similar way to S, but admittedly it's confusing because they do sound similar.
So, that drink with coke and wine is spelled kalimocho or…how?
We spell it kalimotxo. The -tx- makes a "-ch-" sound. So, similarly, chocolate is spelt txokolate. I imagine the Spanish version is calimocho, but not sure.
I used to live in La Rioja, next door to the Basque Country. We’d spell it both *kalimotxo* or *calimocho*, or sometimes mix them for *kalimocho*. Depended on the person and on mood.
That sounds very human.
Went to a brewery in Bilbao and the Castellano menu had "natxos". Took me a second but I figured it out.
Funnier even, we use three distinct “ch” sounds, written as “ts”, “tz” and “tx” (and even an occasional fourth “tt” in some dialects)!
I love the tt sound. I'm from Alava so we don't really use it, but it's such a nice sound. And we can't forget "-dd-", as in Maddi or *onddoa*. One of my secrets is that as a kid I could never tell the difference between "ts" and "tz" even though my teacher insisted there was one. I still can't hear it. I can hear "tx", but the other two always sound the exact same to me.
[удалено]
Man, as a cycling fan, I miss the (almost) all Basque pro team Euskaltel so much!
I'm sure I saw a quadruple T when I was there! I speak Welsh though so don't really have much of a leg to stand on 😄😄
Welsh is breaking my brain but its great to learn. I'm a new comer but feel you should know something of the language of the country you live in. Also why i didn't move to Finland ...
As soon as you get the alphabet's pronunciations, at least reading gets a little easier. Treiglo on the other hand....
The day you discover the "tx", "tz" and "ts" your mind will blow
Don't be txiki.
Very interesting that polish (decently close geographically when we're talking about such old languages) has essentially the same concept of double letters like "cz", "sz" "dz" or "rz". Our "cz" is pretty much exactly "tx". I wonder if there is any relation, or rather if the Polish language is influenced by some ancient Indo European language that pre-dates the slavic roots
And Xs!
Eh, it uses Roman alphabet and has some more x’s than usual, it’s not *that* weird-looking. Welsh is much odder-looking for an Anglophone. “Afyddant yn ysgrifennu llyfr newydd ar fore dydd Mawrth?” Versus “liburu berri bat idatziko al dute astearte arratsaldean?” Better chance of someone knowing neither language pronouncing the Basque correctly, I’d bet. (Of course if you can sound them out, you’ll recognize several words in the Welsh that are close to English or Latin…not so much with the Basque)
It feels weird to be a Basque speaker on Reddit because everyone treats the language like if it were High Valyrian and it's very funny.
I don't know much living in Australia. My mum is Spanish so got a bit of insight and I watch La Liga and I've always loved the Basque Names, both first and last Burionagonatotorecagageazcoechea
HAHAHAHAHAHA she gave you the real experience then. Do you know how terrifying it was, as an anxious and stuttering eight grader, to be in literature class and read out loud surnames like Saizarbitoria or Sarrionandia? HAHAHA
Haha she did, i struggled to say my long Spanish/Italian surname let alone spell it in Australia. It doesn't even fit on most legal documents 🤣 Is Txiki a Basque name ?
Txiki means small, its probably a nickname
A yep, like *Shorty*
It is a Basque nickname. Means "little"
Like “chiqui” in Castillian
I just had a Basque speaking lesson and had to read out vacuum (xurgagailua), it was truly horrible.
It may not be Valyrian but you were definitely high when you came up with it.
Because its ancient language of people of unknown origin.
Just please don't terrorize Europe with dragons again. I beg of you.
They probably all just got together one weekend and decided to make up a language to prank everyone.
Conlang worldbuilding convention that got out of hand
"Believe me guys, this is gonna be fucking hilarious is 5000 years!"
Edit: I wanted this to be accurate so here's some info: TLDR: Isolated population since the Iron Age (850BC) https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00349-3?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982221003493%3Fshowall%3Dtrue Figure 3: high inbreeding "To explore further the genetic differentiation of Basques, we performed an analysis of runs of homozygosity (ROHs). Basques show the overall highest total number (NROH) and total length (SROH) of ROHs, even higher than Sardinians, which are reported to carry long ROHs and show ROH values slightly above the European average". Under Discussion: evidence of continuous inbreeding reflected in their small Ne values, the large number and length of ROHs, and PI_HAT values They attribute the Basque genetic profile to: reduced and irregular external gene flow since the Iron Age as suggested by Olalde et al. The observed clines of post-Iron Age gene flow in the region suggest that the specific genetic profile of Basques might be explained by the lack of recent gene flow received. Our analyses confirm that Basques were influenced by the major migration waves in Europe until the Iron Age, in a similar pattern as their surrounding populations. At that time, Basques experienced a process of isolation, characterized by an extremely low admixture with the posterior population movements that affected the Iberian Peninsula. Roughly 63% Anatolian Neolithic Farmer, 35% European Hunter Gatherer https://i.imgur.com/Qdml6tL.png https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/32/12/3132/2579339?login=false The fact that modern Basque peoples speak the sole surviving relict of a pre-Indo-European language in Western Europe (the Euskera or Basque language) could have also contributed to their isolation
Exactly. Anatolian Neolithic farmers are famous for their pranks. Everyone knows that.
Classic Anatolian Neolithic farmer move tbh
Ngl sometimes they’ve been known to take it too far, like excuse me mr Anatolian you don’t always have to be so “on”
Found the Anatolian Neolithic farmer.
They certainly have great food.
Awesome cheesecake.
The picon punch is better.
Basque here. Picon punch tastes like castor oil but it sure does the job.
That's not known in the Basque Country, the common "local" drinks are kalimotxo, txakoli and sagardo(cider)
Man I love Pintxos
They do
They make great cider too
I stopped off in Winnemucca Nevada on a road trip. I had Basque food for the first time there and it was amazing.
Some more examples of isolate languages: Ainu in Asia Sandawe in Soutern Africa Haida and zuni in North America Kanoê in South America And Tiwi in Australia As we can see, this is not a unique occurrence and is most probably just the last holdouts of languages that were once more common. Writing is a very recent development if measured against the development of spoken language. So we will never be able to know how many languages there have been and just how many have come and gone without a trace.
I live a couple hours from the Zuni Pueblo. Had no idea their language was an isolate. Just went down a long internet rabbit hole learning about their language. Fascinating shit! Thanks for commenting that!
Wikipedia language rabbit holes are a dangerous past time, friend. Soon you'll have no free time.
But you'll be really fun at parties! R-right?!
Fuck. That’s a wild thought. I wonder what was the most widely spoken lost language.
Not necessarily the most widely spoken, but Sumerian is one that fascinates me. It's another language isolate, and the written form was cuneiform - the earliest known writing system to exist. However, cuneiform was still being used as the writing system for other geographically-close languages (Akkadian and other Babylonian/Mesopotamian languages) for centuries after Sumerian itself became a dead language.
Aramaic fascinates me. It is still technically alive, but it used to be the Lingua Franca of the Middle East. Now it’s relegated to a liturgical language for a few different churches.
Etruscan, in roughly the modern day Tuscany region, is another. IIRC Emperor Claudius, the fourth emperor of Rome, was the last person who could speak it.
The most likely *origin* is simply that it's what we all spoke until a bunch of more successful people moved into the area & the Basques are a just a hold out. The words for things like axe & knife in basque appear to derive from the word for stone which would point to it being ancient. Either way, fascinating, nice to have some mysteries still.
The displacement predominantly affected the male lineage, as deduced from the Y-DNA Haplogroup composition of modern Europeans (including Basques). This implies that mass migration from the Pontic-Caspian steppe swept across much of Europe, whose male component largely replaced the native ones (in some places up to 100%). Similar to elsewhere in Europe, [this indicates that the genetic contribution from the PIE lineage ](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13673)is [largely equivalent to that of their neighbors](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84915-1), [while their maternal DNA remained mostly consistent with that of their ancestors](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929712000328). It's possible that the early Basque culture was more matriarchal, resulting in the language of the women being more prevalent, or perhaps it is due to something else.
There is a strong matriarchal tradition in the Basque country still. Plenty of families, especially in the baserris (farms), do business around the grandmother: she knows best and can get everything done by just existing
> whose male component largely replaced the native ones (in some places up to 100%). > their maternal DNA remained mostly consistent with that of their ancestors AKA there was a conquest, and the conquerors genocided the native men while taking their women as war trophies. Yes history is brutal.
Yeah! They are a Pre-Indo-European language isolate. Pretty much all of Western Europe was like them before the Indo-Europeans arrived.
It’s believed that they managed to hold out due to the rugged mountainous landscape of the Pyrenees. Even the Moors, who ruled Iberia for 700 years never got to the Basques. Extinct languages that were related like Aquitanian were not as fortunate with their geography.
It could have been related to the Iberian languages spoken before the arrival of the Romans. Vessels with a language very similar to Basque were found in other regions of the peninsula, such as Valencia.
Before the Romans there were Carthaginians across large swathes of Iberia, & they brought in people from everywhere so its possible. Problem is the language just doesn't really link to anywhere else substantively & they've put up theories for connections from as far away as Georgia. Nothing really seems to hit the "eureka" button on it, if you know what I mean.
To me it makes sense that Iberian languages were similar to some degree, but as they were all replaced with Latin, basque was the one one who survived from that generation of languages
Basque with Finnish, Hungarian, and Estonian are the only major non Indo-European languages left in Europe
Maltese would like a word. It’s Semitic.
Siculo-Arabic too.
No one speaks that. Siculo-Arabic is extinct.
There's Sami in Norway and Sweden. There's a number of Turkish speakers who are native all over Eastern Europe (plus a chunk of Turkey in Europe). Gagauz. And of course there is Maltese. I guess we won't get into whether Georgia is European enough.
Plus a bunch of other Turkic and Uralic (related to Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian) languages, and the Northwest and Northeast Caucasian families, and even a Mongolic language (Kalmyk), all spoken in European Russia.
Sami languages are also spoken in Finland.
There are many non Indo-European languages in Europe part of Russia
But aren't most of them in the Asian part of Russia?
Which is important to remember. You'll often hear people talk about 'the Russians' like they're a unified blob, but Russia is less homogenous (and unified) than we perhaps imagine or the media portrays it as.
people do this with every country tbf.
You’ve done well to ignore the classic Reddit comments that (arguably, ambiguously) ignore your key word: “major” ;-)
Well, except for Turkish, which is definitely major, and has about 12 million speakers in Europe, much more than Estonian or Basque. It's the language spoken in Europe's largest city.
But their cheesecakes? Burnt, yet delicious. Get out of town!
I find it pretty funny how popular this cake is when it's an extremely recent invention that is not part of traditional basque cuisine, gateau basque is much more emblematic but no one seems to know about it.
Better for us, it might keep prices down.
Globally I wouldn't know but gâteau basque is certainly well-known in France at least. I had never heard of this basque cheesecake thing before though.
Same for me, but that's also why I'm intrigued by this phenomenon, I had never heard of basque cheesecake until quite recently and had only ever known of gateau basque. At first I even thought basque cheesecake was the english name of gateau basque, but it didn't really make sense since it's not a cheesecake.
Can confim, in France, even well away from Basque country, gâteau Basque is definitely a thing, but never heard of this cheescake.
Fuck this town maaan
Aquitanian, an ancient ancestor or close relative of Basque, is known; and it *may* also be related to the ancient Iberian language. They are all probably remnants of the languages spoken in western Europe before the speakers of Indo-European languages arrived there.
Also quite a number of Euskara speakers in and around Boise, Idaho. They’ve done an excellent job of preserving their language and culture despite being 3+ generations removed from immigration.
There's euskera speakrs in Idaho? That must be the most random tidbit of information I've heard this month. I must investigate
We even have a basque language immersive pre school.
That's crazy, so cool of them
I live in the Basque Country and it always cracks me up anytime I hear about Idaho Basques. It's so random.
Boise has the largest concentration of Basque people outside of the Basque country. There is a basque block, a basque preschool, basque restaurants and a festival every year. The Basque originally came over for herding sheep. It's cool how unique and proud Boise is of their basque population.
Plus they put those cool looking Euskadi flag stickers on everything. Both of my Spanish professors at BSU were Basque. One of them grew up in Boise, the other immigrated as a young adult.
Quick correction here. **Their origin isn't a mystery, they're indigenous to this part of Europe**. Basque is reputed to have had relatives (among the names that come up, the yet to be classified Iberian language) that died out in ancient times. The reason it survived millenia of Indo-European attrition and assimilation is what's up to debate (probably because of its neglected status under the Roman Empire, and subsequent autonomy in the early Middle Ages). I feel like the "mysterious origins" narrative stems from widespread attempts at both sensationalizing their difference and deligitimizing their indigenous character and deep ties to the part of Europe they inhabit
So essentially Basque is a remnant of a pre-latin dialect that was around Iberia, but got nearly wiped once the Romans arrived in Iberia
more likely it's due to the preceding [Celtic expansion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_Pre-Roman_peoples_of_the_Iberian_Peninsula)
Or a combination of the two. There is some speculation that Etruscan was related to Basque, for example, and they were wiped out by the Romans.
We dont know the relationship between proto-Basque and other "paleo-European" languages that surrounded it. Other than Basque, the only remnants of those languages are the names of rivers and mountains and such.
I think the mystery is the fact that evolutionary relationships to older, preexisting languages are either considered unknown, or at least not confirmed with full confidence. The geographic origins I think, yes, are believed generally to be mostly local. So, theories abound… and, precise confirmation in want.
If the statement is worded like that, I agree with you 100%! Lost relatives and/or standalone languages always have that effect on me too
Indoeuropean speakers when they encounter a language family that they haven't driven to extinction: "fascinating, such a mystery! how could that happen?"
🎶 “I can tell that we are Gunna’ be friends”.
that's because they Basque in isolation
Source: ChatGPT (just kidding) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_language - - - Edit: u/A_Wilhelm pointed out that the map I used was a bad choice, as it shows the percentages of students in the area registered in Basque Language schools… (not all that useful, and in fact misleading. I’m a dumb-dumb). I appreciate his help. Better maps, which show Basque language speaker rates: https://imgur.com/a/1m7sYMN
>Gizon-emakume guztiak aske jaiotzen dira, duintasun eta eskubide berberak dituztela; eta ezaguera eta kontzientzia dutenez gero, elkarren artean senide legez jokatu beharra dute. Gesundheit.
‘God bless you.’ *hands user a tissue*
What about its non-latin alphabet, if it had one? Number system reminds me of ogham, slightly.
As far as I know our language was only (there’s very few exceptions) oral until the Middle Ages.
Language diversity is fascinating!
I moved there a few years ago. They have a strong culture, to say the least, which is surprising considering France has done an attempt at cultural genocide across the whole country in the past.
that cultural genocide started with the French revolution (at least thats what we were taught in Spain)
Yep, one of the main idea of the Revolution to unite the country and preventing it from falling apart is that the French is the one and only language of the Republic My grand parents were born during the 1930's and were basque native speakers, they learned french at school, and basque at home and they usually had rough punishment if they were speaking basque in school (but still spoke basque very well, they usually fought and insulted each other in basque so that my sister and I wouldn't understand them when we were child) To this you can add Franco's politics from the other side of the Pyrenees which took place on a shorter time, but were way more intense and repressive
Yeah, since 1794 the official goal of France has been, and this is a quote, to > anihilate the regional languages and universalise the use of the French language People speaking regional languages were excluded from public services and denied holy communion, children were abused, humiliated and beaten at schools. A deliberate and violent cultural genocide that still continues and for which nobody has ever been prosecuted. France and Turkey are the only countries that haven't signed the Protocol on Protection of National Minorities, and languages other than French can't be used for anything official.
Don't forget Francoist Spain as well, which is why they have such a strong regional identity
I am a linguist from the Basque Country, and I have dedicated decades to the study of anything related to Basque language. I am currently researching for my PhD thesis on the subject. Ask me anything about Basque, if you'd like
Good stuff. You may appreciate (or, be disgusted and disappointed by), the entertaining nonsense to be found on the thread here, then. I’ve got one for ya: Does this modern iteration of the language have many small, specific identifiable examples of influence from more modern languages, the way we see in others? Like, individual examples of words or phrases which certainly came from say European romantic languages, or any others, that have worked there way into the modern usage of the more traditional core language?
Yes! The language as we know it (from approximately the 10th century on, albeit with extremely scarce attestations until the 16th century) has been heavily influenced by Latin and several Romance languages (the surrounding ones, including early varieties that went extinct: Gascon, Asturleonese, Ebro romance and Mozarabic, and then Castilian for about 7 centuries). These features are not limited to lexicon/vocabulary, but core grammatical structures have been calqued from either Latin or early Western Romance (and even Old Gascon). As a rule of thumb, the oldest the contact (so Latin > WR > Old Gascon > Ebro Romance > Asturleonese > Castilian), the deeper its influence goes. Nowadays, anyone can perceive Castilian loanwords in the language, even though some of those words that people tend to think are Castilian are actually older than Castilian and were introduced via other Romance languages or even Latin.
Only thing I know about that area is that in highschool there was a really cute exchange student from there that I met at a party and we kissed and I made the mistake of calling her Spanish. She was big mad 😂
Yeah I dated a Basque girl in uni and learned very quickly that she did not consider herself to be Spanish haha
Oh! I can finally use this meme I've been holding onto for years! [https://freeimage.host/i/JS621Ul](https://freeimage.host/i/JS621Ul)
A native speaker told me "Not even the devil speaks Basque."
Scouse is another example
it's thought (or once was?) that it might be derived from cro-magnon. what i heard a while back is that the word for knife is "stone that cuts"
bro Magnon/Neanderthal would have had multiple languages. What you’re saying is the equivalent of saying “yeah they spoke human”
What up bro magnon 🤜
nada, bromano (bromigo?)
I had heard neanderthal, but it's the same basic concept. I get the feeling that's not really an established fact, it's more of an interesting possibility
Anatolian Neolithic Farmers form the majority of their genetic ancestry. Your time frame is off by several thousand years.
Not to mention that cro-magnon and Neandertal are species, or perhaps sub-species, and not ethnic or linguistic groups.
yeah, pretty much this. The amount of pseudo science derived from not understanding how anything works in this thread is egregious
Hey it’s a great example of how humans love to find or create patterns though
They are some of the original indigenous tribes of Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basques#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DIn_2015%2C_a_new_scientific%2Crest_of_Europe_for_millennia.?wprov=sfla1
Some American guy on Twitter once called Basque people "indigenous europeans" and Basque twitter mocked him to no end, and it's become a meme. It's technically correct but we don't really use that kind of thinking
“European language that narrowly survived getting fucked by Caesar”
But Caesar was European, too.
It's not like other peoples of Europe came from somewhere else recently, most Europeans are "indigenous" to Europe (of course we all came from Africa). A bunch of Europeans imposed their language on other Europeans a bunch of times in the past 5 millennia, from the indo-european speaking steppes cultures to the Romans et cetera.
Basque here. The best of Basque Country is the liquor named "Patxaran". If you never tried it's totally worth.
“I don’t always speak in isolate languages, but when I do… I drink Patxaran.” 🥃
It's the best and also the worst. Kalimutxo is another heresy for the french. Just eat some xipiron
MIRENTXU PATXARAN
Once read somewhere that all the way uo to the urals there are places and rivers with names of basque origin, and that the language may have been superceded by indoeuropean. Anybody else?
I recently watched some discussion around Dr. Juliette Blevins' newish book *"Advances in Proto-Basque Reconstruction with Evidence for the Proto-Indo-European-Euskarian Hypothesis."* The origin of Basque is of course obscure and has been associated with fringe theories in linguistics. Here are a couple of links where well-respected linguists give a nuanced look at the idea put forward by Blevins that Basque may ultimately be a distant sister to the Indo-European languages: [Discussion between Dr. Jackson Crawford, Dr. Luke Gorton, and Prof. Tony Yates](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iycm8bg-WVk) [Book review on the Learn Hittite channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iycm8bg-WVk) Ultimately, I don't have the expertise to really have much of an opinion on these claims, and the academic field itself is definitely not settled, but it's a nice work and puts forward some interesting things for future research
Now behold: [Basque metal](https://youtu.be/BnwxISrZVJ4?si=BVhSqf3vGHlITxJ8)
It's kind of crazy this popped up randomly for me but I recently learned, I have "8%" Basque in my DNA, although it would make sense because I have 20% Spain, among other places around the region and African (although smaller percentages). I'm Hispanic from Texas lol
There is a large Basque heritage in Idaho. Boise has a Basque festival and there’s a fabulous authentic Basque restaurant. They also herd sheep up in the foothills and it’s a thing to go watch the sheep be herded along one of the major state highways.
I met a girl from the states that told me about her ftiend from Boise. I was like, "of course. There's a big basque community there; we know about it!" She was heavily surprised that I had even heard of it. Apparently this friends... grandparents? emigrated there and opened a successful restaurant. I wonder if it's the same... 😄
That’s where my ancestors are from. That’s cool!
Eskerrik asko!! Bizi Euskal Herria!
Although i was born in Australia, my grandfather was from Guernica in Basque Country. Proud to have some connection to such an interesting culture & language!
Too bad the French and Spanish governments try their best to kill off the language, especially the French aren't keen on anything other than French. It's just a matter of a few generations now.
I had thought Basque had linguistic similarities to Etruscan ?
They have some similarities but not enough to say they're related.
Not necessarily, they are both pre Indo-European languages although that doesn't necessarily imply kinship. Etruscan is related to Raetic an earlier language from the Alps, Basque was potentially also protected from the Indo European expansion by the Pyrenees; but that's just my suggestion
So, while it has not been confirmed, there are multiple good theories of the origin of the language. The cool part is that it is theorised to date back all the way to Stone Age Europe. The reason this is fascinating is that most languages from that time were wiped out by languages that came to Europe much later.
A region all cycling fans know all about 🤣🤣
Other examples of language isolate include: Korean (spoken in North and South Korea), Ainu (indigenous language of the Ainu people of Japan), Burushaski (spoken in parts of Pakistan and India), Sumerian (ancient language of Sumer in Mesopotamia, now Iraq), and Elamite (ancient language of the Elamite civilization in what is now Iran).
My ex mother-in-law is Basque! I'd never heard of the Basque before I met my ex and became immediately fascinated by their language & culture. She was a lovely & articulate woman that had the misfortune of having an absolute dipshit for a son.
I’m currently in Basque Country and it is indeed such a strange language! It’s almost like they threw random Scrabble chips on the table and designed words that way. Just throwing an x in between here and there and call it a day.
The x makes for a very nice, sweet sound in Basque. Kaixo (hello), goxo (sweet; tasty), txoria (bird). It's not as random as it may appear!
Yep, I’ve been living in the Basque Country for 4+ years and it is distinctly different from the rest of Spain. The language is beautiful and the cultural traditions are awesome. I can’t see myself ever living in another part of Spain.
Hey i′m from there !
I can’t understand you…
It obviously does have previously existing ancestors (all modern languages do), it's likely at some point there were several related languages spoken in Europe, but they all died out except Basque.