Basque, or Euskara, is a language spoken by about a million people in northern Spain and southwestern France. Although attempts have been made to link it to ancient Iberian, the Hamito-Semitic group, and Caucasian, its origins remain uncertain.

The sound pattern resembles that of Spanish, with its five pure vowels and such peculiarities as a trilled r and palatal n and l. In spite of this, and the presence of numerous Latinate loanwords, Basque has maintained its distinctiveness throughout two millennia of external contacts. For example, it still places a unique emphasis on suffixes to denote case and number and to form new words.

Basque is the only language remaining of those spoken in southwestern Europe before the Roman conquest. Since the 10th century, it has gradually been supplanted by Castilian Spanish, and under the Franco regime its use in Spain was outlawed altogether. The ethnic insularity of the Basques, however, has fostered revivals. Attempts are now being made to standardize the orthography.

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brianna dot ybarrola at asbury dot edu 20-Apr-2008 10:17 #7344 I love researching Basque history, it's so interesting! I love having a Basque last name, Ybarrola. It always sparks up many conversations and then I get to share some tid-bits about the Basques. Everyone always finds that the Basque history is interesting and they always want to know more! I love it. I makes me so proud to be Basque!
yankeeirishrose at hotmail dot com 23-Oct-2007 20:51 #6271 I have been researching my genealogy for a decade now, and have found something rather interesting. I have on my family tree, the name of Boscawen, which is most recently from Cornwall. Searching further back, I found de Boscawen. My son's French teacher is certain that Boscawen denotes that the family originated in the Basque Country. I have found only snippets of the history of the people and the language, and am craving far more information. Anything that is known of Basque names and perhaps their migrations to other parts of Europe would be greatly appreciated.
alexmaja1 at yahoo dot com 24-Jul-2007 17:36 #5711 My grandmother's maiden name was Buscaron. It's supposed to be a Basque surname, only, when we looked for it on a list of Basque surnames, we couldn't find it. However, we did find the surname Baskaran. Is it possible, that the name was altered from Baskaran to Buscaron? (My ancestors came from an unknown part of Europe, which is probably France/Spain, and they immigrated to Uruguay, a Spanish speaking country.) Also, in Spanish, the word "Buscaron" comes from Busca, which means to search. We believe that the surname Buscaron was probably meant to be translated as "searcher", which makes me think that either the Spanish just changed to name to a more familiar word, or that the surname was one of those that it is given to a person do to their occupation, personality, etc. Thanks, if anyone has an answer, feel free to email.
douglasdascarrunz at yahoo dot com 10-Jul-2007 13:55 #5622 I would like to find any information where and when was my last name came from...I have been told that it comes from Vasconia...Ascarrunz
emmellenn at aol dot com 09-Nov-2006 1:15 #3946 I am just doing some preliminary research on Basque language because my surname is Navarro. I am teaching a course Language and Culture, and as a reserach project, I am actually doing something that I have assigned to my students. It is called geneological chart--it's not a family tree per se but rather a means to learning about language and culture through the lens of one's own identity. Since I do not have much of a family nor any real history, I thought it would be a nice idea to research something connected to my heritage. So far, I am learning so much about this language, I am amazed at how little I knew!
lclloughlin at satx dot rr dot com 30-May-2006 15:16 #3105 Since my great grandfather immigrated from very southern France to South Louisiana with what we call Acadian and many of his shipmates were also from the same area and they had no trouble innediately communicating and Cajun French is unique especially around Ville Platte Louisiana. I would say a linguist could probably have a grand time tracking the similarities. The family name was Franques and it presently covers Ville Platte, Church Point, Lake Charles, Lafayette, Jennings, area. They are all descendants of these original Basque.
blas at buber dot net 20-Apr-2006 10:32 #2896 Basque is what is known as a language isolate. It doesn't have any known connections to any living language. Any languages it may have had connections to have essentially died. For a lot more information about the language, look here: http://www.buber.net/Basque/Euskara/Larry/WebSite/
ne4ious 20-Apr-2006 10:10 #2895 Wow, I did not know a drop about Basque until this morning that I read www.news.google. You learn something everyday, I was just reading this article here and come to find out what Basque really is. I was baffled with the language and did a little research and now I know it is a very old language and it is spoken in northern Spanish and Southern France. It sounds a little more than Spanish than it does French.
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Last updated: Sun, 11 May 2008 - 7:57:07

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