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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 have therefore long been supposed to be a remnant of a pre-Indo-European population of Europe. The main hypotheses about the origin of the Basques are:
Among European languages, this 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—occurring only in some languages of the Caucasus ...
Recent Basque Government policies aim to change this pattern, as they are viewed as potential threats against mainstream usage of the minority tongue. [34] The Basque language is thought to be a genetic language isolate in contrast with other European languages, vast majority of which belong to the broad Indo-European language family.
A diagram showing pre-Indo-European languages. Red dots indicate populations before the Indo-European peoples migrated from the steppes.. The pre-Indo-European languages are any of several ancient languages, not necessarily related to one another, that existed in Prehistoric Europe, Asia Minor, Ancient Iran and Southern Asia before the arrival of speakers of Indo-European languages.
Basque (/ b æ s k, b ɑː s k /; [1] euskara [eus̺ˈkaɾa]) is a pre-Indo-European language spoken in the Basque Country, extending over a strip along eastern areas of the Bay of Biscay in Spain and France, straddling the western Pyrenees.
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 ...
The Vasconic languages (from Latin vasco 'Basque'), also called Euskarian or Basque-Aquitanian, [1] [2] are a putative language family that includes Basque and the extinct Aquitanian language. The extinct Iberian language is sometimes tentatively included, although this remains controversial.
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.