The origins of the Basque language,
euskara, are shrouded in mystery. No one is sure where it originated, although early versions of it were probably being spoken in Western Europe before the arrival of the Indo-European languages. Linguists have many theories attempting to link Basque to other languages, but none prove their case conclusively. They do agree that Basque is not an Indo-European language, despite being geographically surrounded by languages of that family. Basque is considered a language isolate, meaning that it is the only known member of its own language family.
The Basque Country where Basque is spoken is located on the Cantabrian sea and consists of seven provinces, three in France and four in Spain. On the French side, Zuberoa, Laburdi, and Behe-Nafarroa are the historical Basque provinces which now lie within the Departement des Pyrenees. On the Spanish side, Araba, Bizkaia, and Gipuzkoa form the autonomous region known as Euskadi while Navarra (Nafarroa) is administratively separate but still culturally and historically considered part of the Basque Country. The Basque language is a co-official language in some parts of Spain where it is spoken.
The Basque language is written using a version of the Latin alphabet, similar but not identical to that of English. The Basque letters will therefore look familiar to English speakers, although anyone learning to speak Basque will quickly notice that not all of them are pronounced the same. There are five vowels (
a,
e,
i,
o,
u), and the rest of the letters are consonants. Each letter represents a single sound, although certain combinations of letters (such as
dd,
ll,
rr,
ts,
tt,
tx, and
tz) are used to represent special sounds. The letters
c,
q,
v,
w, and
y are not officially considered part of the Basque alphabet, but they may occasionally appear in words borrowed from foreign languages.
Because the Basque language is a language isolate, many Basque vocabulary words do not share roots with any other known language. These words help give Basque its unique character. Nevertheless, Basque has been influenced by its surrounded languages over the centuries, and has acquired loanwords from them. Many early borrowings came from Latin, while more recent words have come in from Spanish and French. Relatively few Basque words have been borrowed back into those languages.
Students studying Basque must keep in mind that several dialects of Basque still exist, the main ones being Bizkaian, Gipuzkoan, Zuberoan, Laburdin, and the standardized dialect called Batua or Unified Basque. Vocabulary and pronunciation may differ slightly between speakers of the various dialects.
Basque is a highly inflected language with a very rich morphology, and its grammar differs significantly from that of English. For one thing, Basque nouns have case, meaning that they change form to indicate their role in a sentence. Because nouns which are the subjects of transitive verbs take the ergative case and the subjects of intransitive verbs take the absolutive case, Basque is considered an ergative-absolutive language. This classification is relatively rare among the world's languages.
Basque adjectives tend to follow the nouns they modify, and they can change form to agree with those nouns. Basque pronouns are often omitted, because verbs contain information about their subjects and objects. Basque verbs are generally thought of as either compound verbs or synthetic verbs. Compound verbs consist of two parts: a main verb (which carries meaning and aspect) and an auxiliary verb (which carries other information). Synthetic verbs carry meaning, aspect, and the auxiliary verb information in one word. The compound verbs are by far the most commonly used.
Regular practice is essential in order to learn to speak Basque well. That's why
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