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Basque, spoken in the western Pyrenees across Spain and France, is a language isolate: linguists have not demonstrated that it belongs to any surviving language family. It is also the only surviving non-Indo-European language indigenous to western Europe.

Linguistic classification of Basque

LanguageHistory

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Its speakers call the language Euskara. The nearest thing it has to a relative is Aquitanian, known only from names on Roman-era inscriptions in south-west France and usually seen as an early form of Basque or a close relative. Links to Iberian, to languages of the Caucasus and to others have been proposed, but none has been proven. Basque grammar also works differently from its neighbours': endings on nouns show their role in the sentence, and a single verb form can show who did what to whom. About 800,000 people speak it today, most of them in Spain. It is co-official with Spanish across the Basque Autonomous Community and in the Basque-speaking north of Navarre. Being an isolate does not make Basque older or simpler than other languages; it means that any relatives it once had have vanished.

Türkçe oku
Baskça, İspanya ile Fransa arasındaki Pirene Dağları'nın batısında konuşulur ve bilinen hiçbir dille akrabalığı yoktur. Batı Avrupa'da bugün yaşayan diller arasında Hint-Avrupa ailesinden gelmeyen tek yerli dil odur.

Baskça konuşanlar dillerine Euskara der. Baskçaya akraba sayılabilecek bilinen tek dil, bugünkü Fransa'nın güneybatısında Roma dönemi yazıtlarındaki adlardan tanıdığımız Akitancadır; bu dil genellikle Baskçanın eski bir biçimi ya da yakın akrabası kabul edilir. Baskçayı İberceyle, Kafkas dilleriyle ya da başka dillerle ilişkilendiren görüşler de ortaya atıldı, ama hiçbiri kanıtlanamadı. Dilbilgisi de komşularınınkine benzemez: isimlerin cümledeki görevini ekler belirler, tek bir fiil çekimi de kimin kime ne yaptığını gösterebilir. Bugün yaklaşık 800 bin kişi Baskça konuşuyor; bunların çoğu İspanya'da yaşıyor. Dil, Bask Özerk Topluluğu'nun tamamında ve Navarra'nın Baskça konuşulan kuzeyinde İspanyolcayla birlikte resmî dildir. Akrabasız olmak Baskçayı öteki dillerden daha eski ya da daha basit yapmaz; yalnızca varsa akrabalarının iz bırakmadan yok olduğunu gösterir.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Basque language
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