Basque language

The endonym of the language varies depending on the dialect, although in standard Basque it is . 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 , which in turn goes back to the Greek term (), an ethnonym used by Strabo 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 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 ==

Despite the Basque language being geographically surrounded by Romance languages, 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 of prehistoric Europe. Others find this theory unlikely. Latin inscriptions in preserve a number of words with cognates 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's conquests in the western Pyrenees. Some authors even argue for late Basquisation, that the language moved westward during Late antiquity after the fall of the Western Roman Empire into the northern part of Hispania into what is now the Basque Country. 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: (Navarre) • 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, shows several similarities with Aquitanian and Basque. However, most scholars say that there is not enough evidence 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. Other scholars have also claimed to identify a similarity between Iberian and Basque. • Vasconic substratum hypothesis: this proposal, made by the German linguist Theo Vennemann, 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 is now widely discredited. The hypothesis was inspired by the existence of the ancient Kingdom of Iberia in the Caucasus 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, 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, 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 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., but 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) and proponents of wide-range genetic relations (Bengtson). More recently, the hypothesis has been revived by Blevins (2018), whose proposal has been lauded (yet not accepted outright) by Bakker (2020), but rejected by Hualde (2020) and Gorrochategui (2020). == 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 it stretched to the river Garonne in the north (including the south-western part of present-day France); at least to the Val d'Aran in the east (now a Gascon-speaking part of Catalonia), including lands on both sides of the Pyrenees; the southern and western boundaries are not clear at all. The Reconquista temporarily counteracted that contracting tendency when the Christian lords called on northern Iberian peoples (Basques, Asturians, and "Franks") to colonise the new conquests. 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, and the western part of Biscay, and including some parts of Béarn. In 1807, Basque was still spoken in the northern half of Álava—including its capital city Vitoria-Gasteiz—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, Basque was still spoken in all the territory except in Bayonne and some villages around, and including some bordering towns in Béarn. In the 20th century, however, the rise of Basque nationalism spurred increased interest in the language as a sign of ethnic identity, and with the establishment of autonomous governments in the Southern Basque Country, 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 charter of the Basque-colonised Ojacastro (now in La Rioja) 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 states in Article 3 that the Spanish language is the official language of the nation, but allows autonomous communities to provide a co-official language status for the other languages of Spain. Consequently, the Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Autonomous Community 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 in an exercise book given as punishment during Franco's regime. The line is "" (). The 2021 sociolinguistic survey of all Basque-speaking territories showed that, of all people aged 16 and above: 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 as transitional dialects. Influence on other languages Although the influence of the neighbouring Romance languages 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 Basque influence in the past. In the cases of Aragonese and Gascon, that would have been through substrate interference following language shift 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. The lack of initial in Gascon could arguably be from Basque influence, but that issue is under-researched. and the Asturian Xíriga. Part of the Romani community in the Basque Country speaks Erromintxela, which is a rare mixed language, with a Kalderash Romani vocabulary and Basque grammar. Basque pidgins A number of Basque-based or Basque-influenced pidgins have existed. In the 16th century, Basque sailors used a Basque–Icelandic pidgin in their contacts with Iceland. The Algonquian–Basque pidgin arose from contact between Basque whalers and the Algonquian peoples in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and Strait of Belle Isle. == 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 , 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. 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 vowel, resulting in err- ( , ), more rarely irr- (for example , ) and arr- (for example ). That type of palatalization is far from general, and is often viewed as substandard. 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'. 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. 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 and Euskaltzaindia (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 is in the absolutive case (which is unmarked), and the same case is used for the direct object of a transitive verb. The subject of the transitive verb is marked differently, with the ergative case (shown by the suffix -k). That also triggers main and auxiliary verbal agreement. The auxiliary verb, 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 is found only in Basque, some languages of the Caucasus (especially the Kartvelian languages), Mordvinic languages, 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: {{interlinear|indent=2|lang=eu 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). {{interlinear|indent=2|lang=eu 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 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 (3) for synthetic (or filamentous) verbs because of the two familiar persons—informal 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. (, ; , , , , , ) 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[z]en), 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: [Basque-speaker], [the Basque speaker, a Basque-speaker], [Basque-speakers, the Basque-speakers], and [we 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, 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 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. 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, 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 including and sometimes and . Basque does not use for native words, but the Basque alphabet (established by Euskaltzaindia) 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. 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 widespread dialects had to learn where to place , which was silent for them. In Sabino Arana's (1865–1903) alphabet, 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 serifs. Number system used by millers Basque millers traditionally employed a separate number system of unknown origin. In this system the symbols are arranged either along a vertical line or horizontally. On the vertical line the single digits and fractions 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 (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 ==