Talk:Basque language/Archive 1

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-iltir

The Wikipedia entry on Iberian Languages says that -iltir is a common Iberian name element. Could this possibly be related to Kartlii, and the Georgian hypothesis?? L <-> R, so something like Kartlii -> Ka-ltrii ~ Ka-iltir ????!?!??!? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.143.68.244 (talk) 02:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

No, iberian -iltir has nothing to do with Kartlii. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.200.64 (talk) 21:51, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Historical Connections

The section on higher-level connections is not precise, and the way it is written, it may sound biased as well. First, I'd like to comment on the sentences used, then I'd like to suggest some corrections:

Many scholars have tried to link Basque to Etruscan, African languages, Caucasian languages and so on.

We should either list no proposed languages or all of them.

A connection with the Iberian language gave some hope, but it is unclear whether similarities are due to genetic relations or mere vicinity.

Any claim should be backed up with references. Moreover, the language isn't neutral ("gave some hope", "mere vicinity").

The Caucasian hypothesis is widespread in Georgia as a link between Basques and Georgians, but there is little evidence to support it. (See Caucasian Iberia.) One of the few practical consequences is that the former mayor of Bilbao José María Gorordo made the city and the Georgian capital Tbilisi twin cities, and Euskal Telebista (Basque Television) co-produced a version of Don Quixote with Georgian Television.

This is not precise either. The hypothesis should be called "Kartvelian" (or "Georgian", at least), since "Caucasian languages" is an areal bundle of three distinct genealogical groups considered unrelated (actually, the hypothesis linking the Northeast Caucasian with Northwest Caucasian, or either of the two with Kartvelian/South Caucasian is just as controversial as linking Basque to Georgian or any other language family in many linguists' opinions).

So, although this is an interesting piece of information, it is by no means more valuable than others that are missing.

Some adherents of the theory that Basque and the Caucasian languages are akin go so far as to propose a superfamily, the Dene-Caucasian languages. This superfamily would also include the North American family of Na-Dené languages.

Again, this is not precise. Caucasian languages should be rewritten as North Caucasian (or Northeast and Northwest Caucasian at least) to avoid ambiguity and confusion with the above-mentioned Kartvelian/Georgian hypothesis.

In addition, This superfamily would also include the North American family of Na-Dené languages. is a sentence that immediately manipulates the reader into an impression that the Dene-Caucasian hypothesis is obscure itself. I think we all agree that judging hypotheses should be up to the readers. At least, an article on Basque is not a place to inform of a details about a different matter.

So, why is only Na-Dene mentioned? To be balanced, we should either list all the proposed branches (like Northeast Caucasian, Northwest Caucasian, Burushaski, Yeniseian, Sino-Tibetan and Na-Dene) or none at all, leaving it wholly up to the reader.

It has also been suggested that there is a genetic relationship between the Basque people and the Ainu, the aboriginal inhabitants of Japan. This theory also argues for a linguistic relationship with the Eskimo-Aleut family.

If the first paragraph ends in "and so on", why is the one above continuing??? Consistency is what we should also focus on. Again, any references???

In addition to controversial linguistic theories, Basque has also often been involved in pseudoscientific language comparisons by non-experts.

This is a good piece of information, but it should be noted that not only Vasconic studies suffer from pseudoscientific comparisons. Perhaps, some examples could be here, too.

NOW, MY SUGGESTION (since I'm not a native speaker, I hope someone will correct my English :-)):

The impossibility to link Basque with its Indoeuropean neighbours in Europe made many scholars to search its possible relatives elsewhere. Besides many pseudoscientific comparisons, the appearance of long-range linguistics gave rise to several attempts at connecting Basque with geographically very distant language families. While the link with the ancestor of Basque, the ancient Aquitanian language, was proven beyond reasonable doubt by Michelena and Trask, other hypotheses are considered controversial and the suggested evidence is believed to be as yet undecisive.

Iberian

Iberian, another ancient language once spoken in the peninsula, shows several similarities with Aquitanian and Basque. However, there is not enough evidence to distinguish areal contacts from genetic relationship.

Georgian

The Georgian hypothesis, linking Basque to South Caucasian or Kartvelian languages, is widespread in Georgia. One of the few practical consequences is that the former mayor of Bilbao José María Gorordo made the city and the Georgian capital Tbilisi twin cities, and Euskal Telebista (Basque Television) co-produced a version of Don Quixote with Georgian Television. Despite its popularity, there is little evidence to support it.

Nostratic

Besides Kartvelian, Basque has been unsuccessfuly compared with many other Nostratic language families, among them Altaic, Uralic, Indoeuropean, Dravidian and even Eskimo-Aleut. None of these attempts have succeeded in proving such link.

Dené-Caucasian

Several scholars (Trombetti, Bouda, Bengtson, Blažek) have independently proposed a connection with the other two Caucasian families, Northwest and especially Northeast Caucasian. John D. Bengtson and Václav Blažek have proposed the so-called Macro-Caucasian hypothesis, suggesting a closer link with Burushaski, Northeast Caucasian and Northwest Caucasian, and, in accord with earlier findings of Sapir, Shaffer and S. A. Starostin, consider them all a part of the Dene-Caucasian macrofamily. Although this is one of the most elaborate theories, based on both typological (such as ergativity) and historical-comparative (phonological correspondences, lexical parallels, morphological similarities) evidence, it has not gained wider acceptance among the traditionalists, who consider the evidence as yet undecisive. The question of the affinity of Basque thus remains open.

If this is too much information for a mention, I could offer another version:

Some scholars have independently proposed a connection with the North Caucasian languages and Burushaski, as well a distant relationship with other Dene-Caucasian languages. The hypothesis, though one onf the most elaborate, has not gained wider acceptance among the traditionalists, who consider the evidence as yet undecisive. The question of the affinity of Basque thus remains open.

Ainu

It has also been suggested that there is a genetic relationship between the Basque people and the Ainu, the aboriginal inhabitants of Japan, but no decisive evidence has been given so far.

Ergative

The notes about the ergative case need more checking and probably elaboration. The entry under ergative case needs this as well, as there are different types of ergative systems.

I've changed 'unusual grammatical forms' to 'grammatical forms unusual in Europe', because the ergative is quite common worldwide, and there's nothing particularly unusual about Basque's application of it. Gritchka

It is my understanding that Basque has no accusative. The Object is the nominative. That's the point of having an ergative. -- Error

Basque uses an ergative ⁄ absolutive system instead of a nominative ⁄ accusative one. Elconde

Some other words are thought to go back to the Stone Age because they include the root haitz- (stone).

Does anyone know the details behind the above statement? I'm guessing that haitz- has been found in languages from cultures which have been physically isolated since the stone age (rather than anything particular about the word "stone") but the current rendition doesn't really make that clear. - IMSoP 00:10, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As far as I know it's purely that in those words for tools made of stone in the stone age, there is a element meaning "stone". -- Error 02:12, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hm, I'm still confused. Are you saying

these are words for things that, since the Stone Age ended, have been made of things other than stone;
- but which, during the Stone Age, would have been made from stone
and therefore the fact that these things are labelled with words related to "stone" implies that they have been called those same things ever since they were made of stone,
- and therefore ever since the Stone Age?

If so, we need to work out how to explain that in many fewer words to clarify the article. - IMSoP 21:55, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yeah. It's not very plausible but there are also those that said that Basque was the language of Eden before Babel.

Hi there, what it means is simply that many words for tools such as axe (haizkora), or knife (haizto), have the same root: haitz, stone. They are tools that were made of stone in the stone age, and soon afterwards of iron. It could be a coincidence, but it'd be a very odd one, wouldn't it?

I'd like to know if the Basque Wikipedia is the first and only encyclopedia in the Basque language. Guaka 22:59, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, apparently it isn't. [1] Guaka 23:04, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It definetly isn't. I don't know about online encyclopedia, but definetly not the first encyclopedia.

Trask has a nice summary of this stone myth. Summing up he says that LL Bonaparte was the first vasconist to suggest the "stone" root in haizkora, haitzur, haiztur, and aizto. Followed by many others. Aizkora is a loan from Latin asciola "axe", The other words show up in the conservative dialect Roncalese as ainztu, anzter anzto. Which leads him, Mitxelena and others to the analysis that the root must have been *ani(t)z or *ane(t)z, which takes it far away from the attested and reconstructed root of haitz "stone". He goes on the say that it's not totally inconceivable that some word for stone may be at the root of them but it's unlikely looking at the evidence. Akerbeltz (talk) 23:28, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Euskara vs Euskera

Thinking about this lovely language I'm so fond of, would anyone who knows a bit more about it add why whe mention that the Basque name for the language is Euskara, but do not happen to mention the everpresent Euskera as well? Muhamedmesic 19:33, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

OK, see that it's been added. Dialectal names, you say. What about the Euskaltzaindia? Anyway, lagun, eskerrik asko! Muhamedmesic 22:20, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Euskera is often used in Spanish, Euskara and Euskera are both used in Basque, there is no point in deleting Euskera, this happened too in the French Wikipedia, these spelling wars are stupid and intolerant, the good neutral attitude would be to put them both explaining in which dialect they are used. Kamitxu

Writing system question

I see from the article that Euskara is written with the Latin alphabet. When I was in the Basque country, there were a lot of signs written in the Greek alphabet. I assumed they were Basque; what gives? Thanks --Chinasaur 05:37, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In Greek? Are you sure it wasn't Bashkiria? I can't imagine a place in BC with Greek signs! There is a font family used in some Basque texts (and in French bilingual signs), characterized by thick serifs, but it doesn't seem Greek to me. -- Error 01:28, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If you're asking me if I'm sure I was in France and not Russia, then yeah I'm pretty sure :). You could be on to something with the typefaces; it was a long time ago but I particularly remember thinking I was seeing some Φs. Maybe the "t" in some of the faces you linked to could be what I was seeing. I really thought there was some other Greek-looking stuff, but it was too long ago to remember clearly. This was around Saint Jean de Luz. Thanks for looking into it. --Chinasaur 04:03, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Rock and axe

Some other words have been proposed to go back to the Stone Age because they include the root haitz- ("stone") for objects which have since been made from other materials. For example, haiztoa ("knife"), haizkora ("axe"; others link this to Latin asceola, "little axe").

It's a bit unclear the reason of this comment:

1: it is pretty clear that it was borrowed from Latin, just as the English word "axe"

I am not sure the english word is derived from Latin. It seems plausible it is a common IE cognate...

2: even if it was of Basque origin, what would it prove? that Basques ancestors used rock tools ? All our ancestors used them. That is a thousands of years old? In any natural language most words are that old.

No, languages change faster than that. A language that still maintains relation to the stone age would be indeed remarkable. Advocates of Basque like to quote it. -- Error 04:00, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's not very clear what you mean by "maintains relation to the stone age". Basque is like most languages, it has a very long history but has undergone many changes throughout that history. It surely does preserve some words that are thousands of years old, but then, so does English and so do most languages. There is no particular limit to how far back a language can be reconstructed -- it depends on each individual case. But there are cases where it's pretty well agreed among historical linguists that the proto-language (hypothetical ancestor of a current family of languages) goes back at least 10,000 years or so. -- Unamuno 23:52, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

3: it's not even a unique derivation: for example "Seax" (short sword of the Saxons; hence their name) was probably derived from the Latin word "Saxum" (rock) Bogdan | Talk 10:00, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Officiality

Spanish Constitution: Espainiako beste hizkuntzak ere ofizialak izango dira haiei dagozkien Erkidego Autonomoetan berauen Estatutoei dagozkien eran.

Basque is not coofficial in the rest of Spain. -- Error 20:25, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Origin of "Basque"/"Vasco"?

What is the origin of the term that has been adopted by most European languages? A-giau 09:54, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

1817, from Sp. vasco (adj.), from vascon (n.), from L. Vascones, said to originally mean "foresters." Vasconia was the Roman name for the up-country of the western Pyrenees. Earlier Basquish (1612). (www.etymonline.com)

Latin Vascones is certainly the source for the word, but I know there is fairly significant uncertainly as to the origin of the Latin word (as there is for very many Greek and Latin names for various tribes). I know Trask's book has a list of the hypotheses. -- Unamuno 14:03, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Some people say it comes from basoko (in basque, "from the forest").

Dialect names

I've just made a couple minor modifications to the Dialects section -- it could be considerably expanded and perhaps I'll do that soon. But for now I just wanted to note that I've chosen what seem to be to be reasonably common and recognizable forms for the dialect names. However, there are unfortunately a large number of variants -- there are slightly different Spanish, French, and Basque variants for most of the dialect names (e.g. Zuberoan vs. Souletin, Labortano vs. Labourdin vs. Lapurdian). In the case of the province of Bizkaia there is even an established English variant (Biscay), although rarely used. At any rate, I figured it was worth getting opinions on how to name the dialects, which other variant name to mention in parenthesis, etc. -- Unamuno 14:08, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Standard Basque is mostly based on 17th century classical Navarese-Labourdin. Vocabulary is more Gipuzkoan though.

 -- Basque guy surfing, 26 March 2005

The term 'Basque Country'

I think that the term is misused in the article and it's confusing. It's said that Basque official in full 'Basque Country' and some parts of Navarre. I consider this inaccurate. What it's called here 'Basque Country' is the 'Basque Autonomous Community' (Comunidad Autonoma del Pais Vasco, Euskal Autonomia Erkidegoa), a community inside the Spanish Country, but has nothing to do which what is historically considered 'Basque Country' or Euskal Herria.

Vowels

The vowel system is the same as Spanish for most speakers, namely /a, e, i, o, u/. It is thought that Spanish took this system from Basque.

Greek has the five vowels /i e a o u/ as well. Did Basque influence it, too? The 5-vowel system is the most common in languages worldwide. Is there any evidence giving reason to suspect that Basque gave Spanish its vowels, or is this just a myth? --Vlad

But Greek had length differences, didn't it?

(Ancient Greek yes, modern Greek no. --John Cowan 22:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC))

Isn't Castilian Spanish (not the s-aspirating variants) the only Romance language with 5 vowels? Maybe Gascon language or Spanish-influenced Galician language, or some Italian dialects have also just five.

A reference would be good, though.

Answer: Standard Galician has seven vowels (it distinguishes between "closed" e and "open" e, and between "closed" o and "open" o. Nevertheless, some Galician-speakers use more vowels in their speech (in the Ancares mountains, the nasal vowels haven't dissappeared yet), and many Galician-speakers (especially new-speakers, snobs, TV and radio hosts) don't make any difference between "closed" vowels and "open" vowels. Sardinian is a romanica language with merely 5 vowels. Hence, Dante wrote that Sardinians speak like monkeys imitating humans. --Yerrux

The five-vowel system is fairly uncommon for a Romance language. Neighbouring languages such as Galician and Catalan have more. FilipeS 19:17, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Castilian has five vowels because the open e and o of the earlier pan-Western-Romance 7-vowel system "broke" to ie and ue respectively, leaving the open vowels to move up to e and o. There is nothing particularly Basque in this. --John Cowan 22:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but why did that happen with Castilian, and not with the other languages around it? I'm not saying anything is proven, but a Basque influence is certainly a plausible explanation a priori. FilipeS 21:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It looks to me to much of a coincidence, really. Most other romances have more than five vowels (phonemes) while (AFAIK, it seems that with the exception of Sardinian) only Basque and the romances that have been influenced by Basque (i.e. Gascon, Castilian, Aragonese and even the Western Catalan dialect) have precisely 5 vowels, at least in Europe. --Sugaar 23:21, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The ancient castilian had 7 vowels (see poetry and other literature of XII-XIV). Castilian have 5 vowels by contact with arab lenguage, not basque. There was not basque culture in X-XIV, and basque population in early II millenium was very small and very, very backward. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.35.20.106 (talk) 01:45, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Andalusian Spanish (further from Basque) has more vowels, but Souletin Basque has ü. --Error 01:31, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Mmm... Iberian is thought to have had only five vowels, too. Perhaps all we can say is that, whatever the languages spoken by the inhabitants of Hispania when the Romans exported their language, they influenced the vowel system of modern Spanish. What remains to be proven is the direction of influence: Basque -> Spanish, Spanish -> Basque, ? -> Basque and Spanish. Ignacio González 14:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Euskaltzaindia

Could someone take a look at the new article Euskaltzaindia and see if it needs to be fixed up, altered, or just redirected here. THanks. -- John Fader 20:04, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

clean up

i did a little cleaning up of this today but it still needs more work and expansion, i'm not sure would i could add to it, so someone please try to expand the article.

Grammar Question

I have trouble understanding this sentence. "in this instance a null case 0 equates to the " nork ", which in most European languages would be the subject. " What does a "null case 0" mean? It seems that it has something to do with "nothing", but I don't understand exactly what that should be, maybe someone with a knowledge of Basque grammar could rewrite this, so it would be clearer and easier to understand...

-k is the ergative mark. 0 means that there is no declension mark.

Digraphs

Alphabets derived from the Latin says that Basque has digraphs. This article says it doesn't. — PhilHibbs | talk 09:56, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Maybe it means that they are treated as two letters when sorting. --Error 00:37, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Digraph (orthography) indicates that 'tx' is a digraph in Basque; this is contradictory to the information on this page. --Ghewgill 19:45, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Basque have the following digraphs: dd, rr, ts, tt, tx and tz. They are treated as separate letters in the dictionaries though. Additionaly i before n or l palatalizes their sound (in=iñ/inh/ign, il=ill/ilh/igl). --Sugaar 03:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Latin cases

I have reverted the Latin cases to accusative. As far as I know, the form of Latin words when they become Spanish (and probably other Romance languages) come from the erosion of the accusative, not from nominative. I guess that it is the same for Basque. Hence flos (N), florem (Ac) becomes flor, fleur, fiore, lore, flower. --Error 00:58, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

This is an interesting idea to me. I speak Italian and used to teach Latin. I have long assumed [perhaps wrongly]that Italian used the ablative case. Most examples that come to mind would work by eroding the accusative too: of course 2nd & 4th declension u's not surprisingly would show up as o's in Italian [e.g. spiritu[m]=spirito]. But if there is a neuter 3rd declension noun whose accusative is the same as the nominative, then it's interesting indeed. What comes to mind is nomen with Italian nome; but then what about genus which in Italian is genere?

-- User:Frmikesgs

Maybe Vulgar Latin makes it clear.--Error 01:13, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Language politics

You may want to contribute to Language politics in Francoist Spain. --Error 01:53, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Classification

In this site it is classified as Dene-Caucasian/Basque: [2]

In this site it is classified as Sino-Caucasian/Mediterranean/Basque: [3]

Different classifications, but both agree to put it into one superfamily with Sinitic, Na-Dene, Yenissean and Caucasian languages.

Basque language is not a language-isolate.--Nixer 03:20, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Many theories have been advanced, but none has yet been accepted by the scholarly community. The consensus view has long been that it is an isolate. - SimonP 04:36, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Have you any links and what do you call "community"? I give you two ones from academic sites.--Nixer 05:21, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

The two links above are from the same institution, the Santa Fe Institute, which is hardly a mainstream or highly-respected institution. Although I'm not a great fan of Ethnologue, it shows Basque unrelated to other language groups. Also, rather than list all the possible academic sites that state that linguists generally consider Basque an isolate, why not pick some from the list supplied by Google: Language Centre, Cambridge University and Linguistics Department, Lund University for example. You could reference such a fringe theory further down the article as such, but it is highly non-neutral point of view to include such a theory as widely accepted truth for the entire article. --Gareth Hughes 13:31, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

The Sante Fe Institute is well-respected...for its speculative research in complex adaptive systems. This is not the Institute's area of expertise. Basque is considered a language isolate by the majority of linguists. The entry should reflect that consensus view, and the minority opinions should be noted in passing.

I think we need to reach a conclusion on the classification, because Basque language is often mentioned as an example of a language isolate. Currently this page lists it as belonging to the Dene-Caucasian language family. Ought this to be changed? —Quirk 13:35, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I gave you link not to Santa Fe institute: [[4]. Please give ANY link that disproves this theory.--Nixer 07:12, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy.--Nixer 07:18, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, yes and yes! The Dene-Caucasian superfamily is a myth. M - Y - T - H !!!!!! The similarities in structure are the consequences of mere coincidence. The Basque, Caucasian and Dene peoples have been seperated from each other for myriads of years. All the same, why don't we unite the Turkic languages and Quechua in one superphylum? Have you ever noticed how similar their grammars are? Caesarion 19:43, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Hm, this might be a little too overheated a reaction, but anyway, now you know where I come from :-)... Caesarion 20:21, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I am sorry I have confused the second link. It should be [5]. Look at this classification. Relative languages to Basque are for example Etruscan, Rhaetic, Ligurian, Pictian, though they all extinct. Also I did not mean Dene-Caucasian is a family, but a superfamily like Euroasiatic.--Nixer 22:08, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I gave you tvo links to sited that state the origisn oif the language. Give me at least one link that disproves this theory.--Nixer 06:17, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Any link? Here's a few: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_isolate ("Known in its own language as Euskera; no known living relatives"); http://www.bartleby.com/61/14/L0041475.html ("A language that has no known linguistic affiliation with any other language, such as Basque or Tarascan"); http://simr02.si.ehu.es/DOCS/book.SS-G/v2/Euskara.html ("One of the most likely hypotheses argues that the Basque language developed "in situ", in the land of the primitive Basques"); http://www.icyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/b/ba/basque_language.html ("their origins are still unknown as are the origins of their language itself. Many people have tried to link Basque to Etruscan, African languages, Caucasian languages and so on, but most scholars see Basque as a language isolate"); http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109819 ("language isolate, the only remnant of the languages spoken in southwestern Europe before the region was Romanized"); http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/larryt/basque.faqs.html ("the most strenuous efforts at finding other relatives for Basque have been complete failures: obviously the relatives that Basque once had have died out without trace. People have tried to connect Basque with Berber, Egyptian, and other African languages, with Iberian, Pictish, Etruscan, Minoan, Sumerian, the Finno-Ugric languages, the Caucasian languages, the Semitic languages, with Burushaski (another language with no known relatives, spoken in the Himalayas) -- in fact, with almost all the languages of Africa and Asia, living and dead, and even with languages of the Pacific and of North America. Nothing. Nada. Zero. Basque absolutely cannot be shown to be related to any other language at all. Some people will try to tell you differently, but, not to mince words, they don't know what they're talking about"); http://www.biologydaily.com/biology/Basque_language ("Although it is geographically surrounded by Indo-European languages, it is believed to be a language isolate"--is this just from Wikipedia?); http://www.answers.com/main/ntq-tname-basque%252Dlanguage-fts_start- ("Basque is definitely not an Indo-European tongue. Some scholars believe it is descended from Aquitanian, which was spoken on the Iberian peninsula and in S Gaul in ancient times. Other linguists think Basque is akin to the Caucasian languages and suggest that its speakers came from Asia Minor to Spain and Gaul c.2000 B.C. However, no relationship between Basque and any other language has been established with certainty"); http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Basque_language ("most scholars see Basque as a language isolate"); http://www.ling.lu.se/persons/Arthur/euskera.html ("Basque is the only non-Indo-European language in Western Europe, and the only linguistic isolate in Europe as a whole. The Basque language has no known relatives"); http://web.uconn.edu/linguistics/classroom/SP05103AC/Class18.pdf#search='basque%20language%20isolate' ("Basque is a language isolate"); http://www.kutjara.com/wiki/index.php?title=Basque ("Basque is an agglutinating language isolate"); http://pedia.nodeworks.com/L/LA/LAN/Language_isolate ("Others, like Basque, have been isolates for as long as their existence has been documented."); http://www.myfonts.com/Language?id=92 ("Language Family: Basque (Isolate)"); http://www.euskara.us/euskara%20pages/dialects_of_basque.htm ("no relationship between Basque and any other language has been established with certainty"); http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~jcamacho/363/amorrortu.pdf#search='basque%20language%20isolate' ("The Basque language, a pre-Indo-European isolate"); http://ca.encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefEdList.aspx?refid=210110222 ("Isolate Languages Basque Language"). Is this enough? A few of these may be redundant, but I think the presence of references from encyclopedias and academic institutions makes the point. Basque is widely held to be a language isolate with no known connections to other languages. (Edit: Forgot to sign this the first time.) JJL 17:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

What we are speaking about? Yes, Britannica is right. Relatives of Basque are dead. And so what? Languages revative to Basque were spoken in Europe before the Aryan invasion. NOW it is one language in its family - and is isolate in THIS sence. For example, Pictic had extinct in VII-X centuries. I give you links to linguistic sites with complete classification of world's languages, not to pop-garbage.--Nixer 09:45, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I was responding to this edit: "01:13, 8 January 2006 Nixer (rv, please provide ANY link to your "mainstream view")". These are some links that back up the view that the consensus of linguists is that Basque is a language isolate, with no known relations to other languages. Is that not what you were asking for? As to pop garbage, these include links from courses at UConn and Rutgers, as well as encyclopedias. JJL 17:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The "pop garbage" includes the work of the late Larry Trask, who was both a respected historical linguist and one of the world's leading authorities on Basque. As for "linguistic sites", the Santa Fe Institute is not one, and in any case the presence of two sites claiming living relatives for Basque doesn't change the fact that the great majority of linguists don't agree. 67.101.96.244 17:54, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Majority has nothing to do with truth. What was the majority's opinion on the Earth and the Sun and their position in the Solar system 500 years ago? Was it really the correct one? What counts is the evidence. Larry Trask, a respected Vasconist, can't have avoided certain mistakes. The argument that the geographical distance between Na-Dene and Basque is too large is very weak. Just look at the other language families and macro-families. The Basque izolationism has much more to do with politics than linguistics.

I also wonder why there's a mention of Georgian-Basque connections. Georgian is a Kartvelian language and belongs to the Nostratic macro-family. "Caucasian hypothesis" is about Vasco-North Caucasian comparisons.

Now, the evidence: I won't give you all the comparisons here (visit the Dene-Caucasian article where it's all going to be presented soon), but (1) regular (recurrent) sound correspondences have been found (including some non-trivial ones), (2) morphological correspondences have been found, (3) hundreds of cognates (based on (1)) have been found, including those that belong to the stablest ones, as far as semantics is concerned, which IS a strong argument against look-alikes and chance resemblances

Larry Trask's search for internal explanations and Latin/Germanic/Celtic etc. loans was by all means legitimate, but if Irish and Hindi are related (what's the geographical distance between them?), why not search for Basque's relatives in the same distance? Typologically (although typology may have little to do with genealogy), some clues pointed to the Caucasus, so the choice wasn't arbitrary. Larry Trask often used what we know as "folk etymology", just because he didn't compare the forms to their possible cognates outside Basque. Nobody says the D-C hypothesis is perfect. It's far too young and innocent. But there's no point in rejecting it just because a few (out of hundreds!) of the etymologies may have other explanations (and not neccessarily better!).--Pet'usek 18:07, 18 March 2006 (UTC)