History of the Basque language facts for kids
Basque (called euskara by its speakers) is a very old and unique language. It's spoken in the Basque Country, a region that stretches across parts of Spain and France near the Pyrenees mountains and the Bay of Biscay.
What makes Basque special is that it's a language isolate. This means it doesn't seem to be related to any other known language family in the world today. The only language it might be related to is an ancient, now extinct language called Aquitanian, which many believe was an early form of Basque.
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Basque Language: An Ancient History
Most language experts believe that Basque is the last remaining language from a group of very old languages. These "pre-Indo-European" languages were once spoken widely across Western Europe.
By the time of the Roman period, most people in Western Europe were speaking Indo-European languages. However, place names, personal names, and old writings from around the Pyrenees mountains show that languages similar to Basque were still present.
Since the Early Middle Ages, the area where Basque is spoken has become smaller. For the last 400 years, it has mostly been limited to the Basque Country. Basque has both given words to, and borrowed words from, the languages spoken nearby. It has also shared language structures with them.
First Writings and Records
For a long time, Basque was mainly a spoken language, not often used in writing. In 2022, something very exciting was found: an ancient inscription from the first century BCE called the Hand of Irulegi. It seems to contain a Basque word, making it the oldest known example of the language written down! Some Roman-era Latin writings also include Basque names.
People generally think that the first time Basque words appeared in a book was in the tenth or eleventh century. Six Basque words were found in a manuscript known as the Glosas Emilianenses. Later, around 1140, a traveler named Aymeric Picaud included a few Basque words and phrases in his travel story about his journey to Santiago de Compostela.
The very first book written entirely in Basque was called Linguae Vasconum Primitiae. It was published in 1545. However, Basque was never used for official government documents. Over time, it was slowly used less and less for talking in government, schools, and offices, and eventually even in churches.
Basque in Modern Times
Since the 1500s, Basque sailors and explorers took their language overseas, especially to the Americas. But there, it often mixed with and became less common than the main colonial languages like Spanish, French, or English.
During the 1900s, scholars, writers, and activists worked hard to create a common, official version of the language. This goal finally came true in 1968 with the creation of Standard Basque (called euskara batua). This helped to unite the different ways Basque was spoken and written.
See also
- Origin of the Basques
- In Spanish: Historia del euskera para niños
