BASQUE LANGUAGE

language isolate, the only remnant of the languages spoken in southwestern Europe before the region was Romanized. The Basque language is currently used in a narrow area of approximately 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 square miles) in Spain and France. The number of Basque-speaking persons outside that territory, in Europe and in the Americas, however, is far from insignificant. In Spain the Basque-speaking region comprises the province of Guipzcoa, parts of Vizcaya and Navarra, and a corner of lava, and in France the western region of the dpartement of Pyrnes-Atlantiques. Although few statistics are available, the number of speakers, who are largely bilingual, might be judiciously estimated at 1,000,000. Most of them live in the highly industrialized Spanish part of the Basque country. The Basques have derived their name, Euskaldunak, from Euskara, the native word for their language. According to the classification of the 19th-century philologist Prince Louis-Lucien Bonaparte, there are eight modern dialects of Basque. Dialectal division is not strong enough to mask the common origin or to preclude mutual understanding. Basque attained official status for a short period (193637) during the Spanish Civil War, under Basque autonomous government. In 1978, Basque and Castilian Spanish became the official languages of the autonomous Basque Country, which includes Guipzcoa, Vizcaya, and lava provinces of Spain. Extent of the Basque language area Basque Euskara a language spoken by a largely bilingual people called Basques, or Euskaldunak, living either in northern Navarre (Navarra) comunidad autnoma (autonomous community) of the Basque Country (which includes the provincias of Guipzcoa, Biscay , and lava) in Spain or in the western region of the French dpartement of Pyrnes-Atlantiques. The French Basques have further subdivided the Basque area in France into the provinces of Soule, Basse-Navarre, and Labourd (Basque Zuberoa, Nafarroa Beherea, and Lapurdi), but these designations are not recognized by the French government. In all, the majority of Basque speakers are concentrated in a narrow area of approximately 10,000 square km (3,900 square miles). Basque has constantly struggled for survival against the more popular and widespread Spanish and French languages. In the pre-Christian era, the Basque country extended across the Pyrenees Mountains as far east as the Aran Valley in northeastern Spain, along the French border. During the Roman administration, however, the eastern Basque settlements were cut off from more populated Basque colonies to the west and were assimilated into Roman culture, abandoning the Basque language. In the Middle Ages, the influence of Basque, an unwritten language, steadily declined when it could not compete against the influx of literary Latin and its successors, Navarrese Romance and Provenal. The advent of the first printed Basque book in 1545, however, initiated a literary tradition that continues to the present day. Basque is the only remnant of the languages spoken in southwestern Europe before that region was Romanized. The origin of the Basque language remains a mystery. The German philologist Hugo Schuchardt (18421927) hypothesized that Basque had a genetic connection with the now-extinct Iberian and that both languages evolved from the Afro-Asiatic (formerly Hamito-Semitic) language group. The existence of a connection seems unlikely, however, since Basque and the Afro-Asiatic languages do not really share common linguistic characteristics. Although Basque and Iberian are similar, the knowledge of Basque could not help decipher ancient Iberian inscriptions discovered in eastern Spain and on the Mediterranean coast of France. This incongruity led to the theory that the similarities between the two languages arose from a close geographic proximity rather than a genetic linguistic tie. Basque is also linked with Caucasian, the ancient language spoken in the Caucasus region. Again, there are parallels between the two languages; but, without conclusive evidence of a tie, Basque remains a language without linguistic relatives. The system of Basque speech sounds is interesting in opposing an apico-alveolar sibilant (i.e., a Castilian-type s) to a predorsal one (i.e., an English-type s), spelled z in Basque. Both have corresponding affricates, spelled ts and tz. Palatals, like English sh and ch, also exist in Basque; they are spelled x and tx. Furthermore, Basque has two vibrant phonemes: a flapped r and a trilled rr. Like the similar sounds in Spanish, they contrast only when occurring between vowels, but unlike in Spanish, neither of them can begin a word (as in, for example, Erroma Rome'). Basque is an almost purely suffixing language. Suffixes are used to indicate the function of nominals within a sentence: Ijitoa Jonengatik dator elizara The Gypsy is coming to church because of John,' where the suffix -engatik corresponds to the English phrase because of,' and the suffix -ra after the noun eliza church' matches the English preposition to.' Because phrasal order is rather free, suffixes also serve to keep subject and object distinct. In the sentence Jonek ijitoa dakar John is bringing the Gypsy,' the subject (Jon) rather than the direct object (ijitoa) is marked by the suffix -ek. Basque has a special case form, the ergative, which marks the subject of a transitive verb. The direct object is left unmarked, and thus occurs in the same form as the subject of an intransitive verb: ijitoa dator the Gypsy is coming.' Finite verb forms can be quite complicated in that a single form may contain up to four person markers. The word bazekarzkionat I am bringing them to him' can form a sentence by itself and indicates, among other things, the presence of a first person singular subject (-t), third person plural direct object (ze . . . -zki-), third person singular indirect object (-o-), as well as a female addressee of the utterance (-na-). The order of constituents within a clause is determined by pragmatic factors, with a topic position at the beginning of the sentence and a focus site immediately before the verb. The basic order appears to be subjectindirect objectdirect objectverb, but this order is far from rigid, and, in fact, all 24 possible permutations can be found. Relative clauses and genitive phrases precede the noun: Jonen eliza John's church,' whereas adjectives and demonstratives follow: ijito eder hori that beautiful Gypsy.' Basque grammar remains markedly different from that of the surrounding Romance languages, despite the massive influence of the latter in the realm of vocabulary. Additional reading Rene Lafon, La lengua vasca, Enciclopedia lingstica hispnica, vol. 1 (1960), perhaps the best short introduction to Basque, both descriptive and historical; Hugo Schuchardt, Primitiae linguae Vasconum, 2nd ed. (1968), detailed commentary of an Old Basque text; P. Lafitte, Grammaire basque, 2nd ed. (1962), a standard normative grammar; J. Coromines, Estudis de toponmia catalana, 2 vol. (196570), presents new data on the survival of Basque dialects in the Middle Ages; J.M. Lacarra, Vasconia medieval (1957), authoritative review by an historian of the linguistic situation in and around the Basque country; Luis Michelena, Fontica histrica vasca (1961), essay on the reconstruction of the phonological system of Proto-Basque; Luis Michelena (ed.), Textos arcaicos vascos (1964), an annotated collection of documents from antiquity to 1700; Rene Lafon, Le Systme du verbe basque au XVIe sicle, 2 vol. (1943), the best account of form and function of the Basque verb; A. Tovar, La lengua vasca, 2nd ed. (1954; abridged Eng. trans., The Basque Language, 1957), and The Ancient Languages of Spain and Portugal (1961), a discussion of the problem of the position of Basque among these now-extinct languages. Luis Michelena