The origin of the
Basques and the
Basque language is a controversial topic that has given rise to numerous hypotheses.
Modern Basque, a descendant or close relative of
Aquitanian and
Proto-Basque
Proto-Basque ( eu, aitzineuskara; es, protoeuskera, protovasco; french: proto-basque), or Pre-Basque, is the reconstructed predecessor of the Basque language before the Roman conquests in the Western Pyrenees.
Background
The first linguist wh ...
, is the only
Pre-Indo-European language that is extant in western Europe. The Basques have therefore long been supposed to be a remnant of a pre-Indo-European population of Europe.
The main hypotheses about the origin of the Basques are:
*Native origin, the mainstream theory, according to which the Basque language would have developed over the millennia entirely between the north of the
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...
and the current south of
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
, without the possibility of finding any kind of relationship between the Basque language and other modern languages in other regions.
*Basque-Iberism theorizes the existence of a kinship between the Basque and the
Iberian language, and therefore between their speakers.
*Caucasian origin theorizes that the Basque language and the
languages of the Caucasus
The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
Linguistic comparison allows t ...
may have a direct relation, explaining why they share some
linguistic typologies absent in the
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
.
Native origin theory
![Map of Palaeolithic Art](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Map_of_Palaeolithic_Art.png)
According to
Stephen Oppenheimer
Stephen Oppenheimer (born 1947) is a British paediatrician, geneticist, and writer. He is a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. In addition to his work in medicine and tropi ...
, from c.16,000BC, the warmer climate allowed the expansion of proto-Basque groups, or proto-Europeans, across the
north of Africa and the entire continent of Europe, expanding the
Magdalenian culture across Europe.
In 2008, the
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
linguist
Kalevi Wiik
Kaino Kalevi Wiik (2 August 1932, Turku — 12 September 2015, Turku) was a professor of phonetics at the University of Turku, Finland. He was best known for his controversial hypothesis about the effect of the Uralic contact influence on the cr ...
proposed that the current Basque language is the remainder of a group of "Basque languages" that were spoken in the Paleolithic throughout western Europe and that retreated with the progress of the Indo-European languages. Wiik states that his theory coincides with the homogeneous distribution of the
Haplogroup R1b in
Atlantic Europe.
Ludomir R. Lozny states that "Wiik's controversial ideas are rejected by the majority of the scholarly community, but they have attracted the enormous interest of a wider audience."
Paleogenetic investigations
In May 2012, the
National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world.
Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, an ...
Genographic Project
The Genographic Project, launched on 13 April 2005 by the National Geographic Society and IBM, was a genetic anthropological study (sales discontinued on 31 May 2019) that aimed to map historical human migrations patterns by collecting and ...
released a study that showed through detailed DNA analysis of samples from French and Spanish Basque regions that Basques share unique genetic patterns that distinguish them from the surrounding non-Basque populations. The results of the study clearly support the hypothesis of a partial genetic continuity of contemporary Basques with the preceding Paleolithic/Mesolithic settlers of their homeland.
Paleogenetic investigations by the
Complutense University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid ( es, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; UCM, links=no, ''Universidad de Madrid'', ''Universidad Central de Madrid''; la, Universitas Complutensis Matritensis, links=no) is a public research university loc ...
indicate that the Basque people have a genetic profile coincident with the rest of the European population and that goes back to Prehistoric times. The
haplotype of the
mitochondrial DNA known as U5 entered in Europe during the
Upper Paleolithic
The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coin ...
and developed varieties as the U8a, native of the
Basque Country, which is considered to be Prehistoric,
and as the J group, which is also frequent in the Basque population.
The works of Alzualde A, Izagirre N, Alonso S, Alonso A, de la Rua C. about mitochondrial
DNA of the Human remains found in the Prehistoric graveyard of Alaieta, in
Alava, note that there are no differences between these remains and others found across
Atlantic Europe.
Studies based on the
Y chromosome
The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes (allosomes) in therian mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is normally the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or abse ...
genetically relate the Basques with the
Celtic Welsh, and
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
;
Stephen Oppenheimer
Stephen Oppenheimer (born 1947) is a British paediatrician, geneticist, and writer. He is a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. In addition to his work in medicine and tropi ...
from the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
says that the current inhabitants of the
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...
have their origin in the Basque refuge during the last
Ice age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...
. Oppenheimer reached this conclusion through the study of correspondences in the frequencies of genetic markers between various European regions.
[''The origins of the British''; author Stephen Oppenheimer; Editor: Constable and Robinson (11 Sep 2006), and from the same autho]
Myths of British ancestry
/ref> The haplogroup R1b, can be found most frequently in the Basque Country (91%), Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
(89%) and Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
(81%). The age of subclade which Basque carry, Haplogroup R1b-DF27, "is estimated at ~4,200 years ago, at the transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, when the Y chromosome landscape of Western Europe was thoroughly remodeled. In spite of its high frequency in Basques, Y-STR internal diversity of R1b-DF27 is lower there, and results in more recent age estimates", implying it was brought to the region from elsewhere.
In 2015, a new scientific study of Basque DNA was published which seems to indicate that Basques are descendants of Neolithic farmers who mixed with local hunters before becoming genetically isolated from the rest of Europe for millennia. Mattias Jakobsson from Uppsala University in Sweden analysed genetic material from eight Stone Age human skeletons found in El Portalón Cavern in Atapuerca, northern Spain. These individuals lived between 3,500 and 5,500 years ago, after the transition to farming in southwest Europe. The results show that these early Iberian farmers are the closest ancestors to present-day Basques. The official findings were published in ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' of the United States of America. "Our results show that the Basques trace their ancestry to early farming groups from Iberia, which contradicts previous views of them being a remnant population that trace their ancestry to Mesolithic hunter-gatherer groups," says Prof. Jakobsson. However, the results also showed that Basques, along with many other Iberian groups, carry both Neolithic farmer ancestry as well as some local mesolithic hunter-gatherer ancestry; showing that "the incoming farmers admixed with local, Iberian hunter-gather groups, a process that continued for at least 2 millennia."
Rather, some 4500 years ago almost all Y-DNA heritage from Iberian admixture of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers was replaced by the lineage of Indo-European herders from the steppe, and the Basque genetic distinctiveness is a result of centuries of low population size, genetic drift, and endogamy. In 2019, a study was published in ''Science'' in which a more fine-tuned and deep time-transect of Iberian ancient populations including the Basque were analyzed. From their abstract, it says: "and we reveal that present-day Basques are best described as a typical Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...
population without the admixture events that later affected the rest of Iberia." This indicates Basques were isolated from admixture with outside groups since at least 1000BC or 3000 years before the present. In Iberia, these later admixture (interbreeding) events were with central European (Celtic), eastern Mediterranean and northern African populations, and genomic ancestry from them are found in all or most present-day Iberian populations, except for the Basque.
Linguistics
In the field of linguistics, there are two lines of investigation, both based on etymology; one on toponyms, not only in the Basque Country but also in the rest of the Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...
and Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
, and the other on the etymology of Basque words.
The ''aizkora'' controversy
Some vasconists have, in the past, suggested that Basque may have several words, all related to tools, that are derived from the root word for "stone", ''haitz''. These include:
*''(h)aizkora'' "axe"
*''(h)aitzur'' "hoe"
*''(h)aitzur'' "shears"
*''(h)aiztur'' "tongs"
*''aizto'' "knife"
Theories regarding the possibility of such a shared root have been put forward by Louis Lucien Bonaparte
Louis Lucien Bonaparte (4 January 1813 – 3 November 1891) was a French philologist. The third son of Napoleon's second surviving brother, Lucien Bonaparte, he spent much of his life outside France for political reasons. After a brief politica ...
, Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (29 September 1864 – 31 December 1936) was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, professor of Greek and Classics, and later rector at the University of Salamanca.
His major philosophical essa ...
, Julio Caro Baroja
Julio Caro Baroja (13 November 1914 – 18 August 1995) was a Spanish anthropologist, historian, linguist and essayist. He was known for his special interest in Basque culture, Basque history and Basque society. Of Basque ancestry, he was the ...
and others.[ Trask, L. ''The History of Basque'' Routledge: 1997 ] One inference of these hypothetical and controversial etymologies was that some aspects of the Basque language had been stable and uninfluenced by other languages since the Stone Age.
However, these etymologies are now doubted by mainstream vasconists. ''Aizkora'' has been identified as a loan from the Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''asciola''.[ Trask, L.† (edited by Max W. Wheeler) (2008)]
Etymological Dictionary of Basque
, University of Sussex (unfinished). The root of the remaining terms – based on the Roncalese dialect, which is known for its preservation of historical nasals and has the documented forms ''antzur'', ''ainzter'', ''aintzur'' and ''ainzto'' – was ''ainz-'' and thus the reconstructed root was *''ani(t)z'' or *''ane(t)z''. There are no traces of such a nasal sound in the word ''haitz'' "rock" (cf. Roncalese ''aitz'').[
]
Alternative theories
Basque-Iberism
The theory of the Basque-Iberism claims that there is a direct relationship between the Basque language and the Iberian language, meaning either that Basque evolved out of the Iberian language, or that its precursor belonged to the same language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...
. The first author to suggest this theory was Strabo in the 1st century BC (at a time when the Iberian language was still spoken); he asserted that the Iberians
The Iberians ( la, Hibērī, from el, Ἴβηρες, ''Iberes'') were an ancient people settled in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula, at least from the 6th century BC. They are described in Greek and Roman sources (amo ...
and the Aquitanians were similar physically and that they spoke similar languages and had similar customs.
The German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (, also , ; ; 22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, which was named afte ...
proposed, in the early 19th Century, a thesis in which he stated that the Basque people were Iberians, following some studies that he had conducted.
Others claim there is not a direct connection, including Koldo Mitxelena
Koldo Mitxelena Elissalt () (also known as ''Luis Michelena''; 1915, Errenteria, Gipuzkoa – 11 October 1987, San Sebastián) was an eminent Basque linguist. He taught in the Department of Philology at the University of the Basque Country, ...
who claims the similarities between Iberian and Basque are attributed solely to the relationship of vicinity, and not to any kinship.
Caucasian origin
Some researchers have propounded the similarities between the Basque language and the Caucasian languages
The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
Linguistic comparison allows t ...
, especially the Georgian language.
The comparison between the matrilineal
Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's lineage – and which can involve the inheritance ...
and patrilineal
Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritan ...
DNA of the native peoples from the Basque Country and Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
has allowed the discovery of significant differences. The hypothesis that related both populations is only based on the typological similarities, which is never a good marker of linguistic kinship. These superficial similarities in the linguistic typologies do not seem to accompany a genetic relation at a population level.[Martinez Bouzas, Cristina (2003) "Relaciones Filogenéticas entre las Poblaciones Autóctona Vasca, Georgiana (Cáucaso) y Bereber (Mauritania) desde la Perspectiva de la Región Hipervariable del ADN Mitocondrial y Polimorfismos del Cromosoma Y". UPV / EHU] The possible relation between Basque and the languages of the Caucasus is denied by authors such as Larry Trask
Robert Lawrence Trask (10 November 1944 – 27 March 2004) was an American–British professor of linguistics at the University of Sussex, and an authority on the Basque language and the field of historical linguistics.
Biography
Born in Ole ...
, who stated that the comparisons were wrongly made, given the fact that the Basque language was compared with several Caucasian languages at the same time.
Old European
These theories are based on the Old European hydronymy, assuming that the first inhabitants of Europe spoke a common tongue[El Euskera arcaico ''Luis Núñez Astrain'' page 183]
/ref> or languages of the same language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...
. This theory is not accepted by most linguists, who believe that, in a territory as large as Europe, more than one language had to be spoken.
In January 2003, the Spanish edition of the popular science magazine ''Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
'' published a study conducted by Theo Vennemann
Theo Vennemann genannt Nierfeld (; born 27 May 1937 in Oberhausen-Sterkrade) is a German historical linguist known for his controversial theories of a "Vasconic" and an "Atlantic" stratum in European languages, published since the 1990s.
He was ...
, where he concluded:
Vennemann:
According to Vennemann, the Proto-Basque language (or a language family from which the Basque language originated) was the linguistic stratum in which the Indo-European languages later settled. He found, among other examples, the Basque words "''ibai''" (river) and "''ibar''" (bottom) to repeat continuously in European rivers, or the word "''haran''" (valley) in toponyms such as Val d'Aran
Aran (; ; ) (previously officially called in Occitan Val d'Aran, Catalan: ''Vall d'Aran'', Spanish: ''Valle de Arán'') is an administrative entity (formerly considered a comarca) in Lleida, Catalonia, Spain, consisting of the Aran Valley, in ...
, Arendal, Arundel, Arnach, Arnsberg
Arnsberg (; wep, Arensperg) is a town in the Hochsauerland county, in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is the location of the Regierungsbezirk Arnsberg administration and one of the three local administration offices of the Hoch ...
, Aresburg, Ahrensburg, Aranbach or Arnstein
Arnstein () is a town in the Main-Spessart district in the ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Lower Franconia (''Unterfranken'') in Bavaria, Germany.
Geography
Location
The town lies on the banks of the river Wern and is roughly 20 km from Schwe ...
.
The Vennemann theory has been criticized by Basque scholars and it is not accepted by most linguists.
Specifically, Trask, after many pointed critiques of the methods employed, affirmed that Vennemann had found an agglutinative language
An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to r ...
, but with no relation to the Basque language, and that probably it is simply the Indo-European language, as many other linguistic scholars agree.[El Euskera arcaico ''Luis Núñez Astrain'' pege 185]
/ref>
Joseba Andoni Lakarra, a researcher of the Proto-Basque language, criticizes the thesis of Vennemann, saying, like Trask, that he identifies modern Basque roots that are not related to the archaic Basque. In the same way, Lakarra says that, despite Basque now being an agglutinative language, there are reasons to believe that previously it was not so.
Roman records
The early story of the Basque people was recorded by Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
classical writers, historians and geographers, such as Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...
, Strabo, Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importance ...
and Pomponius Mela
Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest Roman geographer. He was born in Tingentera (now Algeciras) and died AD 45.
His short work (''De situ orbis libri III.'') remained in use nearly to the year 1500. It occupies less ...
. The present-day Basque Country was, by the time of the Roman arrival in the Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...
, inhabited by Aquitanian and Celtic tribes. The Aquitanians are also known as the "Proto-Basque people", and included several tribes, such as the Vascones
The Vascones were a pre-Roman tribe who, on the arrival of the Romans in the 1st century, inhabited a territory that spanned between the upper course of the Ebro river and the southern basin of the western Pyrenees, a region that coincides wi ...
, who were located at both sides of the western Pyrenees
The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to ...
. In present-day Biscay
Biscay (; eu, Bizkaia ; es, Vizcaya ) is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the Basque Country, heir of the ancient Lordship of Biscay, lying on the south shore of the eponymous bay. The capital and largest city is Bilbao.
B ...
, Gipuzkoa
Gipuzkoa (, , ; es, Guipúzcoa ; french: Guipuscoa) is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the autonomous community of the Basque Country. Its capital city is Donostia-San Sebastián. Gipuzkoa shares borders with the French depa ...
, and Álava
Álava ( in Spanish) or Araba (), officially Araba/Álava, is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the Basque Country, heir of the ancient Lordship of Álava, former medieval Catholic bishopric and now Latin titular see.
Its c ...
were located the Caristii
The Caristii were a pre-Roman tribe settled in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, in what today are known as the historical territories of Biscay and Álava, in the Basque Country, northern Spain.
Origins
Their historical territory today corres ...
, Varduli
The Varduli were a pre-Ancient Rome, Roman tribe settled in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, in what today is the eastern region of the autonomous community of the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Country and western Navarre, in n ...
, and Autrigones
The Autrigones were a pre-Roman tribe that settled in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, in what today is the western Basque Country (western regions of Biscay and Álava) and northern Burgos and the East of Cantabria, Spain. Their territory li ...
, whose origin is still not clear. It is not known if these tribes were of Aquitanian origin, related to the Vascones, or if they were of Celtic origin. The latter seems more likely, based on the use of Celtic and Proto-Celtic toponyms by these tribes. These tribes would have then gone through a Basquisation, caused by progress of the Aquitanian tribes on their territory.
Strabo in the 1st century AD reported that the ''Ouaskonous'' (Vascones
The Vascones were a pre-Roman tribe who, on the arrival of the Romans in the 1st century, inhabited a territory that spanned between the upper course of the Ebro river and the southern basin of the western Pyrenees, a region that coincides wi ...
) inhabited the area around the town of Pompelo, and the coastal town of ''Oeaso'' (Οἰασών) in Hispania. He also mentioned other tribes between them and the Cantabri
The Cantabri ( grc-gre, Καντάβροι, ''Kantabroi'') or Ancient Cantabrians, were a pre-Roman people and large tribal federation that lived in the northern coastal region of ancient Iberia in the second half of the first millennium BC. Thes ...
: the Varduli
The Varduli were a pre-Ancient Rome, Roman tribe settled in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, in what today is the eastern region of the autonomous community of the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Country and western Navarre, in n ...
, Caristii
The Caristii were a pre-Roman tribe settled in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, in what today are known as the historical territories of Biscay and Álava, in the Basque Country, northern Spain.
Origins
Their historical territory today corres ...
, and Autrigones
The Autrigones were a pre-Roman tribe that settled in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, in what today is the western Basque Country (western regions of Biscay and Álava) and northern Burgos and the East of Cantabria, Spain. Their territory li ...
. About a century later, Ptolemy also listed the coastal ''Oeasso'' (Οἰασσώ) beside the Pyrénées to the Vascones, together with 15 inland towns, including Pompelon. Pompelo/Pompelon is easily identified as modern-day Pamplona
Pamplona (; eu, Iruña or ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. It is also the third-largest city in the greater Basque cultural region.
Lying at near above ...
, Navarre. The border port of Irún, where a Roman harbour and other remains have been uncovered, is the accepted identification of the coastal town mentioned by Strabo and Ptolemy. Three inscriptions in an early form of Basque found in eastern Navarre can be associated with the Vascones.
However, the Vascones appear to have been just one tribe within a wider language community. Across the border in what is now France, the Aquitanian tribes of Gascony spoke a language different from the Celts and were more like the Iberi. Although no complete inscription in their language survives, a number of personal names were recorded in Latin inscriptions, which attest to Aquitanian being the precursor of modern Basque[R. L. Trask, ''The History of Basque'' (1997), chapter 6.] (this extinct Aquitanian language should not be confused with Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...
, a Romance language spoken in Aquitaine since the beginning of the Middle Ages).
Historiography
Tubalism
Between the 14th and 15th century, a series of historical legends were created with the objective of defending the singularity of the Basque people and their Fuero
(), (), () or () is a Spanish legal term and concept. The word comes from Latin , an open space used as a market, tribunal and meeting place. The same Latin root is the origin of the French terms and , and the Portuguese terms and ; all ...
system, which regulated the relations between the Basque territories and the Crown. Among these legends are the ''Basque-Iberism'', the ''Basque-Cantabrism'', and ''The Battle of Arrigorriaga''. These legends were used in a context of political vindication. In the 19th century, the Basque nationalists
Basque nationalism ( eu, eusko abertzaletasuna ; es, nacionalismo vasco; french: nationalisme basque) is a form of nationalism that asserts that Basques, an ethnic group Indigenous peoples, indigenous to the western Pyrenees, are a nation an ...
would use these legends as the basis for their vindications.
Tubalism and Basque-Iberism
Developed by Esteban de Garibay and Andrés Poza, this legend states that the Basque people are direct descendants of Tubal
Tubal ( he, תֻבָל, ''Ṯuḇāl'', ), in Genesis 10 (the "Table of Nations"), was the name of a son of Japheth, son of Noah. He is known to be the father of the Caucasian Iberians (ancestors of the Georgians) according to primary sources. ...
, grandson of Noah, fifth son of Japheth. According to the legend, Japheth and his tribe, the Iberians, departed to the Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...
, settling between the Pyrenees
The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to ...
and the river Ebro
, name_etymology =
, image = Zaragoza shel.JPG
, image_size =
, image_caption = The Ebro River in Zaragoza
, map = SpainEbroBasin.png
, map_size =
, map_caption = The Ebro ...
, right after the confusion of languages in the Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel ( he, , ''Mīgdal Bāḇel'') narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages.
According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and mi ...
.
Then, the Basque language would be one of the 72 languages that were created as a punishment of God after the Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel ( he, , ''Mīgdal Bāḇel'') narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages.
According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and mi ...
.
Basque-Cantabrism
It is based on a historical and geographical distortion of the Cantabrian Wars
The Cantabrian Wars (29–19 BC) (''Bellum Cantabricum''), sometimes also referred to as the Cantabrian and Asturian Wars (''Bellum Cantabricum et Asturicum''), were the final stage of the two-century long Roman conquest of Hispania, in what tod ...
, based on a manuscript gloss that Cristóbal de Mieres, secretary of Lope García de Salazar (1399–1476) introduced on a 1491 copy of ''Las bienandanzas e fortunas''. This legend makes the Vascones
The Vascones were a pre-Roman tribe who, on the arrival of the Romans in the 1st century, inhabited a territory that spanned between the upper course of the Ebro river and the southern basin of the western Pyrenees, a region that coincides wi ...
the protagonists of these wars.
See also
*Aizkolaritza Aizkolaritza is the Basque name for a type of wood-chopping competition. They are a popular form of ''herri kirol'' (rural sport) in the Basque Country. Competitions are commonly held at most festivals, especially town festivals and usually involv ...
* Basque people
* Basque language
* Basque Country (greater region)
* Haplogroup R-DF27
In human genetics, Haplogroup R-DF27 (R1b1a2a1a2a) is a Y-chromosome haplogroup which is a subdivision of haplogroup R-M269 (more specifically, its subclade R-) defined by the presence of the marker DF27 (also known as S250). Along with R-U152 an ...
*Genetic history of the Iberian Peninsula
The ancestry of modern Iberians (comprising the Spanish and Portuguese) is consistent with the geographical situation of the Iberian Peninsula in the south-west corner of Europe. As is the case for most of the rest of Southern Europe, the prin ...
References
{{human genetics
Basque
Basque history
Prehistoric Europe
Basques