Basque (Basque: euskara,pronounced[eus̺kaɾa]) is the ancestralleid o theBasque fowk, who inhabit theBasque kintra, a region spannin an aurie in northeastrenSpain an soothwastrenFraunce. It is spaken bi 25.7% o Basques in aw territories (665,800 oot o 2,589,600).[3] O thir, 614,000 live in the Spaingie pairt o the Basque kintra an the remainin 51,800 live in the French pairt.[3]
In academic discussions o the distribution o Basque in Spain an Fraunce, it is customary tae refer taethree auncient provinces in Fraunce an fower Spaingie provinces. Native speakers are concentratit in a contiguous aurie includin pairts o the SpaingieAutonomous Communities o theBasque Autonomous Commonty (Spaingie:País Vasco; Euskara:Euskadi) anNavarre an in the wastren hauf o the FrenchDépartement oPyrénées-Atlantiques. The Autonomous Commonty o País Vasco/Euskadi is an admeenistrative entity athin the binational ethnographic Basque Kintra incorporatin the traditional Spaingie provinces oBiscay,Gipuzkoa, anÁlava, which retain thair existence as politico-admeenistrative diveesions.
Thir provinces an mony auries o Navarre are hivily populatit bi ethnic Basques, but the Euskara leid haed, at least till the 1990s, aw but disappeared frae maist o Álava, wastren pairts o Biscay an central an soothren auries oNavarre. In soothwastren Fraunce, the auncient Basque-populatit provinces wurLabourd,Lawer Navarre, anSoule. Thay an ither regions wur consolidatit intae a singledépartement back in 1790 unner the name Basses-Pyrénées, which name persisted till 1969.
A standardized form o the Basque leid, cawedEuskara Batua, wis developed bi theBasque Language Academy in the late 1960s. Euskara Batua is mainly uised in the Spaingie Basque Kintra. In Fraunce the Basque leid schuil Seaska an the association for a bilingual schoolin Ikasbi meet a wide range o Basque leid educational needs up tae the Saxt Form, while aften strugglin tae surmount financial an admeenistrative constraints.
Apairt frae this staundardized version, thare are sax main Basque dialects, correspondin tae the abuin mentioned historic provinces populatit bi Basques:Bizkaian,Gipuzkoan, anUpper Navarrese in Spain anLower Navarrese,Lapurdian, anZuberoan (in Fraunce). Housomeivver, the dialect boondars are no congruent wi poleetical boondars.
In Basque, the name o the leid is offeeciallyEuskara (alangside variousdialect forms). Thare are currently three etymological theories o the nameEuskara that are taken seriously bi linguists an vasconists which are discussed in detail on theBasque fowk page.
In French the leid is normally cawedbasque or, in recent times,euskara. Thare is a greater variety o Spaingie names for the leid. The day, it is maist commonly referred tae asel vasco,la lengua vasca orel euskera. Baith terms,vasco anbasque, are inheritit frae LatinethnonymVascones which in turn goes back tae the Greek termουασκωνους (ouaskōnous), an ethnonym uised biStrabo in hisGeographica (23 AD, Beuk III).[4]
The termVascuence, derivit frae Latinvasconĭce,[5] haes acquired negative connotations ower the centuries an is no well liked amangst Basque speakers generally. Its uise is documentit at least as far back as the 14t century when a law passed inHuesca in 1349 statit thatItem nuyl corridor nonsia usado que faga mercadería ninguna que compre nin venda entre ningunas personas, faulando en algaravia nin en abraych nin en basquenç: et qui lo fara pague por coto XXX sol - essentially penalizin the uise o Arabic, Hebrew or Vascuence (Basque) wi a fine o 30sols.
Tho geographically surroondit biIndo-EuropeanRomance leids, Basque is classifee'd as aleid isolate. It is the last remainin pre-Indo-European leid in Wastren Europe.[4] Consequently, its prehistory mey no be reconstructible bi means o thecomparative method except bi applyin it tae differences atween dialects athin the leid. Little is kent o its oreegins but it is likely that an early form o the Basque leid wis present in Wastren Europe afore the arrival o the Indo-European leids tae the aurie.
Latin inscriptions inAquitania preserve a nummer o wirds wicognates in reconstructitproto-Basque, for instance the personal namesNescato anCison (neskato angizon mean "yung girl" an "man" respectively in modren Basque). This leid is generally referred tae asAquitanian an is assumed tae hae been spoken in the aurie afore theRoman conquests in the wastrenPyrenees. Roman neglect o this aurie alloued Aquitanian tae survive while theIberie anTartessian leids became extinct. Throu the lang contact wi Romance leids, Basque adoptit a sizable nummer o Romance wirds. Initially the soorce wis Latin, laterGascon (a branch oOccitan) in the northeast,Navarro-Aragonese in the sootheast anSpaingie in the soothwast.
Basque Studies Program Newsletter · Issue 18, 1978. Miguel Echegaray shares several suggestions o possible etymological connections atween Basque an Inglis words.
