Editing Basque language (section)

== History and classification ==
{{main|History of the Basque language}}
Although the Basque language is geographically surrounded by [[Romance languages]], it is a language isolate that is unrelated to them or to any other living language. Most scholars believe Basque to be the last remaining descendant of one of the [[pre-Indo-European languages]] of [[prehistoric Europe]].<ref name="Trask"/> Consequently, it may be impossible to reconstruct the prehistory of the Basque language by the traditional [[comparative method (linguistics)|comparative method]] except by applying it to differences between Basque dialects. Little is known of its origins, but it is likely that an early form of the Basque language was present in and around the area of modern Basque Country before the arrival of the Indo-European languages in western Europe during the 3rd millennium&nbsp;BC.

Authors such as [[Miguel de Unamuno]] and [[Louis Lucien Bonaparte]] have noted that the words for "knife" ({{lang|eu|aizto}}), "axe" ({{lang|eu|aizkora}}), and "hoe" ({{lang|eu|aitzur}}) appear to derive from the word for "stone" ({{lang|eu|haitz}}), and have therefore concluded that the language dates to [[prehistoric Europe]] when those tools were made of stone.<ref>''Journal of the Manchester Geographical Society'', volumes 52–56 (1942), page 90</ref><ref>Kelly Lipscomb, ''Spain'' (2005), page 457</ref> Others find  [[Origin of the Basques#The aizkora controversy|this theory unlikely]].

Latin inscriptions in {{lang|la|[[Gallia Aquitania]]}} preserve a number of words with [[cognate]]s in the reconstructed [[proto-Basque language]], for instance, the personal names {{lang|eu|Nescato}} and {{lang|eu|Cison}} ({{lang|eu|neskato}} and {{lang|eu|gizon}} mean 'young girl' and 'man', respectively in modern Basque). This language is generally referred to as [[Aquitanian language|Aquitanian]] and is assumed to have been spoken in the area before the [[Roman Republic]]'s conquests in the western [[Pyrenees]]. Some authors even argue for [[late Basquisation]], that the language moved westward during [[Late Antiquity]] after the [[fall of the Western Roman Empire]] into the northern part of [[Hispania]] into what is now the [[Basque Country (greater region)|Basque Country]].<ref name="Trask"/>

Roman neglect of this area allowed Aquitanian to survive while the [[Iberian language|Iberian]] and [[Tartessian language]]s became extinct. Through the long contact with Romance languages, Basque adopted a sizeable number of Romance words. Initially the source was Latin, later [[Gascon language|Gascon]] (a branch of [[Occitan language|Occitan]]) in the north-east, [[Navarro-Aragonese]] in the south-east and [[Spanish language|Spanish]] in the south-west.

Since 1968, Basque has been immersed in a revitalisation process, facing formidable obstacles. However, significant progress has been made in numerous areas. Six main factors have been identified to explain its relative success: 
# implementation and acceptance of [[Unified Basque]] (Batua), 
# integration of Basque in the education system
# creation of media in Basque (radio, newspapers, and television)
# the established new legal framework
# collaboration between public institutions and people's organisations, and 
# campaigns for Basque language literacy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Agirrezabal |first1=Lore |title=The basque experience : some keys to language and identity recovery |date=2010 |publisher=Garabide Elkartea |location=Eskoriatza, Gipuzkoa |isbn=978-84-613-6835-8 |url=https://www.ehu.eus/documents/3120344/3356416/The+Basque+Experience.pdf/85ea53f1-45ff-49c0-b92f-365c7f850cb5?t=1420475539000 |access-date=15 July 2021}}</ref>

While those six factors influenced the revitalisation process, the extensive development and use of [[language technologies]] is also considered a significant additional factor.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Alegria |first1=Iñaki |last2=Sarasola |first2=Kepa |title=Language technology for language communities: An overview based on our experience. In: FEL XXI : communities in control : learning tools and strategies for multilingual endangered language communities : proceedings of the 21st FEL Conference, 19-21 October 2017 |date=2017 |location=Hungerford, England |isbn=978-0-9560210-9-0 |url=http://ixa.si.ehu.eus/node/11357 |publisher=Foundation for Endangered Languages }}</ref>

=== Hypotheses concerning Basque's connections to other languages ===
Many linguists have tried to link Basque with other languages, but no hypothesis has gained mainstream acceptance. Apart from [[pseudoscientific language comparison|pseudoscientific comparisons]], the appearance of long-range linguistics gave rise to several attempts to connect Basque with geographically very distant language families such as [[Georgian language|Georgian]]. Historical work on Basque is challenging since written material and documentation has only been available for some few hundred years. Almost all hypotheses concerning the origin of Basque are controversial, and the suggested evidence is not generally accepted by mainstream linguists. Some of these hypothetical connections are:

[[File:UMMESAHARF.jpg|thumb|Inscription with Basque-like lexical forms identified as "UME ZAHAR", [[Lerga]] ([[Navarre]])]]
* [[Ligurian language (ancient)|Ligurian]] substrate: this hypothesis, proposed in the 19th century by d'Arbois de Jubainville, J. Pokorny, P. Kretschmer and several other linguists, encompasses the Basco-Iberian hypothesis.
* [[Iberian language|Iberian]]: another ancient language once spoken in the [[Iberian Peninsula]], shows several similarities with [[Aquitanian language|Aquitanian]] and Basque. However, most scholars say that there is not enough evidence exists to distinguish geographical connections from linguistic ones. Iberian itself remains [[unclassified language|unclassified]]. Eduardo Orduña Aznar claims to have established correspondences between Basque and Iberian numerals<ref>Orduña 2005.</ref> and noun case markers.
* [[Vasconic substratum hypothesis]]: this proposal, made by the German linguist [[Theo Vennemann]], claims that enough [[toponymy|toponymical]] evidence exists to conclude that Basque is the only survivor of a larger family that once extended throughout most of western Europe, and has also left its mark in modern Indo-European languages spoken in Europe.
* [[Georgian language|Georgian]]: linking Basque to the [[Kartvelian languages]] is now widely discredited. The hypothesis was inspired by the existence of the ancient [[Kingdom of Iberia (antiquity)|Kingdom of Iberia]] in the [[Caucasus]] and some similarities in societal practices and agriculture between the two populations. Historical comparisons are difficult due to the dearth of historical material for Basque and several of the Kartvelian languages. Typological similarities have been proposed for some of the phonological characteristics and most importantly for some of the details of the ergative constructions, but these alone cannot prove historical relatedness between languages since such characteristics are found in other languages across the world, even if not in Indo-European.<ref>José Ignacio Hualde, Joseba Lakarra, Robert Lawrence Trask (1995), ''Towards a history of the Basque language''. John Benjamins Publishing Company, {{ISBN|90-272-3634-8}}, p. 81.</ref><ref>Natela Sturua (1991), ''On the Basque-Caucasian Hypothesis'' Studia Linguistica 45:1-2. Scandinavian University Press</ref> According to [[J. P. Mallory]], the hypothesis was also inspired by a Basque place-name ending in ''-dze'' which is common in Kartvelian.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mallory |first=J. P. |author-link=J. P. Mallory |title=In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lENVpwAACAAJ |year=1991 |publisher=Thames and Hudson }}</ref> The hypothesis suggested that Basque and Georgian were remnants of a pre-Indo-European group.
* [[Northeast Caucasian languages]], such as [[Chechen language|Chechen]], are seen by some linguists as more likely candidates for a very distant connection.<ref>[http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mt26s.html A Final (?) Response to the Basque Debate in Mother Tongue 1] (John D. Bengston).</ref>
* [[Dené–Caucasian languages|Dené–Caucasian]]: based on the possible Caucasian link, some linguists, for example [[John Bengtson]] and [[Merritt Ruhlen]], have proposed including Basque in the Dené–Caucasian superfamily of languages, but this proposed superfamily includes languages from North America and Eurasia, and its existence is highly controversial.<ref name="Trask"/>
* [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]]: a genetic link between Basque and the Indo-European languages has been proposed by Forni (2013),<ref>{{cite journal |last=Forni |first=Gianfranco |title=Evidence for Basque as an Indo-European Language |journal=Journal of Indo-European Studies |year=2013 |volume=41 |issue=1 & 2 |pages=39–180 |url=https://www.academia.edu/3801960 |access-date=4 November 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Forni |first=Gianfranco |title=Evidence for Basque as an Indo-European Language: A Reply to the Critics |journal=Journal of Indo-European Studies |date=January 2013 |pages=268–310 |url=https://www.academia.edu/3801960 |access-date=4 November 2019 }}</ref> though his contributions to the hypothesis have been rejected by most reviewers,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kassian |first=Alexander |title=On Forni's Basque–Indo-European Hypothesis |journal=Journal of Indo-European Studies |year=2013 |volume=41 |issue=1 & 2 |pages=181–201 |url=https://www.academia.edu/3811354 |access-date=4 November 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gorrochategui |first1=Joaquín |last2=Lakarra |first2=Joseba A. |title=Why Basque cannot be, unfortunately, an Indo-European language?|journal=Journal of Indo-European Studies |year=2013 |volume=41 |issue=1 & 2 |pages=203–237 |url=https://www.academia.edu/4689618 |access-date=4 November 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Prósper |first=Blanca María |title=Is Basque an Indo-European language? Possibilities and limits of the comparative method when applied to isolates |journal=Journal of Indo-European Studies |year=2013 |volume=41 |issue=1 & 2 |pages=238–245 |url=https://www.academia.edu/2020451 |access-date=4 November 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Bengtson |first=John D. |title=Comments on "Evidence for Basque as an Indo-European Language" by Gianfranco Forni |journal=Journal of Indo-European Studies |year=2013 |volume=41 |issue=1 & 2 |pages=246–254 |url=http://euskararenjatorria.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/02Bengtson-JIES.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://euskararenjatorria.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/02Bengtson-JIES.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |access-date=4 November 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Koch |first=John T. |title=Is Basque an Indo-European Language? |journal=Journal of Indo-European Studies |year=2013 |volume=41 |issue=1 & 2 |pages=255–267 |url=https://www.academia.edu/4029770 |access-date=4 November 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Lakarra |first=Joseba A. |year=2017 |chapter=Prehistoria de la lengua vasca |editor1-last=Gorrochategui Iván Igartua |editor1-first=Joaquín |editor2-last=Igartua |editor2-first=Iván |editor3-last=Lakarra |editor3-first=Joseba A. |title=Historia de la lengua vasca |language=es |trans-title=History of the Basque language |location=Vitoria-Gasteiz |publisher=Gobierno Vasco |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/38017762 |access-date=4 November 2019}}</ref> both including scholars adhering to the mainstream view of Basque as a language isolate (Gorrochategui, Lakarra), as well as proponents of wide-range genetic relations (Bengtson).