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The origin of the Basques and the Basque language is a controversial topic that has given rise to numerous hypotheses. Modern Basque, a descendant or close relative of Aquitanian and Proto-Basque, is the only pre-Indo-European language that is extant in western Europe.
The Basques (Basque: Euskaldunak) are an indigenous ethno-linguistic group mainly inhabiting the Basque Country (adjacent areas of Spain and France).Their history is therefore interconnected with Spanish and French history and also with the history of many other past and present countries, particularly in Europe and the Americas, where a large number of their descendants keep attached to their ...
Basque remained until the late-20th century a language steeped in oral tradition and little used in writing. In 2022, an inscription dated to the first quarter of the first century BCE, known as the Hand of Irulegi, was found to contain a supposed Basque word, providing the earliest attestation of the language to date. [5]
The current mainstream scientific view on the origin of the Basques and of their language is that early forms of Basque developed before the arrival of Indo-European languages in the area, i.e. before the arrival of Celtic and Romance languages in particular, as the latter today geographically surround the Basque-speaking region.
The Basque language, which was traditionally spoken by most of the region's population outside the BAB urban zone, is today rapidly losing ground to French. The French Basque Country's lack of self-government within the French state is coupled with the absence of official status for the Basque language in the region.
Basque people are the only Western Europeans that speak a non-Indo-European language - the Basque language - without having any known contemporary European ethnic or linguistic relatives. [2] A 2015 DNA study supports the idea that the Basques descend from Neolithic farmers who mixed with local hunters and were subsequently isolated for millennia.
The engraving used an early Basque alphabet, experts said, the oldest and most extensive text ever written in the Basque language. The writing proved difficult to decipher.
The "Late Basquisation" hypothesis set the historical geographical spread of the Basque or the proto-Basque language later in history. It suggests that at the end of the Roman Republic and during the first centuries of the Empire, migration of Basque-speakers from Aquitaine overlapped with an autochthonous population whose most ancient substrate would be Indo-European. [2]