Aquitanian language

The Aquitanian language was the language of the ancient Aquitani, a people living in Roman times between the Pyrenees, the Garonne river and the Atlantic Ocean. Epigraphic evidence for this language has also been found south of the Pyrenees, in Navarre and Castile.

There is no surviving text written in Aquitanian. The only evidence comes from onomastic data (roughly 200 personal names and about 60 deity names) that have survived indirectly in Latin inscriptions from the Roman imperial period, primarily between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD, with a few possibly dating to the 4th or 5th centuries. The Gascon language has a substrate from Aquitanian, with certain words related to Basque.

Relationship to Basque

The consensus among scholars is that Aquitanian was a Paleo-European language genetically related to Basque, though there is debate over the exact nature of their relationship. Some linguists, like R. L. Trask, argue that it was a near-direct ancestor of Basque, while others, including Lyle Campbell, suggest that it may have been a close relative of Basque rather than its direct ancestor.
* : "probably all Basque scholars now accept that Basque descended more or less directly from Aquitanian"
* : "Although these attestations are sufficiently detailed to confirm that modern Basque and Aquitanian are related, they also show sufficient differences from Basque to suggest the possibility not of a direct ancestor, but as a relative, that possibly Aquitanian and Basque are sister languages representing two branches of the original proto-language."
* : "The Aquitanian(-Vasconic) names show an evident relation to Basque, but what the exact nature of this relation is remains uncertain. The language of the Aquitanian names may be either the direct ancestor of roto-Basqueor a close relative."
* : "Research in the second half of the twentieth century (Michelena 1954; Caro Baroja 1954; Gorrochategui 1984) has demonstrated convincingly that Aquitanian was genetically related to the Basque language, in a much stronger and clearer way than with any other language"

Aquitanian is attested only in the form of proper names, and we lack enough data to determine their exact meanings. For instance, the Aquitanian words ''andere'', ''umme'', and ''sahar'' are interpreted as 'woman, lady', 'child', and 'old', respectively, by comparison with the Basque words ''andere'', ''ume'', and ''zahar''.

According to linguist José Ignacio Hualde, since Aquitanian was spoken over a vast area (some names of Aquitanian origin have been found as far south as Soria in Castile), it likely featured several dialects. He suggests that Basque may have evolved from one of these dialects, though it remains unclear which Aquitanian names belong to Basque's direct ancestor and which come from a related sister dialect. Hualde refers to the reconstructed common ancestor of Proto-Basque and the other Aquitanian dialects as 'Proto-Basque-Aquitanian'.

Geographical extent

Drawing on linguistic evidence, Joaquín Gorrochategui concludes that the Aquitanian language was spoken in ancient times (from at least the 1st century BC until the end of the Roman Empire) across a region stretching from Biscay in the west to the Aran Valley in the east, and from the Aquitanian Plain in the north down to the Ebro river in the south.

The Aquitanian language came into contact with Gaulish around Tolosa (Toulouse) and the Garonne river, and with Celtiberian further west and around the Ebro river. Both of these languages penetrated Aquitanian-speaking territory, leaving evidence in personal names and place names.

Lexicon

Most Aquitanian onomastic elements are clearly identifiable from a Basque perspective, matching closely the forms reconstructed by the linguist Koldo Mitxelena for Proto-Basque:

See also

* Gallia Aquitania
* Basque language
* Vasconic languages
* Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula

References

Bibliography

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Further reading

* Ballester, Xaverio (2001): "La adfinitas de las lenguas aquitana e ibérica", ''Palaeohispanica'' 1, pp. 21–33.
* Gorrochategui, Joaquín (1984): ''Onomástica indígena de Aquitania'', Bilbao.
* Gorrochategui, Joaquín (1993): La onomástica aquitana y su relación con la ibérica, ''Lengua y cultura en Hispania prerromana : actas del V Coloquio sobre lenguas y culturas de la Península Ibérica : (Colonia 25–28 de Noviembre de 1989)'' (Francisco Villar and Jürgen Untermann, eds.), , pp. 609–34
* Gorrochategui Churruca, Joaquín (2020). "Aquitano Y Vascónico". In: ''Palaeohispanica: Revista Sobre Lenguas Y Culturas De La Hispania Antigua'', n.º 20 (noviembre). pp. 721-48. https://doi.org/10.36707/palaeohispanica.v0i20.405.
* Hoz, Javier de (1995): "El poblamiento antiguo de los Pirineos desde el punto de vista lingüístico", ''Muntanyes i Població. El passat dels Pirineus des d'una perspectiva multidisciplinària'', pp. 271–97.
* Michelena, Luis (1954): "De onomástica aquitana", ''Pirineos'' 10, pp. 409–58.
* Michelena, Luis (1977): ''Fonética histórica vasca'', San Sebastián.
* Núñez, Luis (2003)
''El Euskera arcaico. Extensión y parentescos''
, Tafalla.
* Orduña Aznar, Eduardo (2021). "Onomástica Ibérica Y Vasco-Aquitana: Nuevos Planteamientos". In: ''Palaeohispanica: Revista Sobre Lenguas Y Culturas De La Hispania Antigua'' 21 (diciembre). pp. 467-94. https://doi.org/10.36707/palaeohispanica.v21i0.414.
* Rodríguez Ramos, Jesús (2002): "La hipótesis del vascoiberismo desde el punto de vista de la epigrafía íbera", ''Fontes Linguae Vasconum'' 90, pp. 197–219.
* Rodríguez Ramos, Jesús (2002): "Índice crítico de formantes de compuesto de tipo onomástico en la lengua íbera", ''Cypsela'' 14, pp. 251–75.
* Trask, L.R. (1995): "Origin and relatives of the Basque Language: Review of the evidence", ''Towards a History of the Basque Language'', pp. 65–99.
* Trask, L.R. (2008): (edited for web publication by Max Wheeler), University of Sussex
* Velaza, Javier (1995): "Epigrafía y dominios lingüísticos en territorio de los vascones", ''Roma y el nacimiento de la cultura epigráfica en occidente'', pp. 209–18.

{{Authority control
Extinct languages of Europe
Pre-Indo-European languages
Basque language
Aquitaine
Gallo-Roman culture
Paleohispanic languages
Extinct languages of Spain