Basque language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Basque Euskara |
||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Spain and France | |
| Region: | Basque Country | |
| Total speakers: | 1,033,900 (first language: 700,000) | |
| Language family: | Language isolate (see below) | |
| Official status | ||
| Official language of: | Euskadi and Navarre (Spain) | |
| Regulated by: | Euskaltzaindia | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | eu | |
| ISO 639-2: | baq (B) | eus (T) |
| ISO/FDIS 639-3: | eus | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Basque (native name: Euskara) is the language spoken by the Basque people who inhabit the Pyrenees in North-Central Spain and the adjoining region of South-Western France. More specifically, the Basques occupy a Spanish autonomous community known as the Basque Country (Euskadi), which has significant cultural and political autonomy. Basques also make up sizable parts of the population in what is known as the Northern Basque Country in France and the autonomous community of Navarre in Spain, which in total have historically been considered the Basque Country. The Standard Basque name for the language is euskara; other dialectal forms are euskera, eskuara and üskara. Although geographically surrounded by Indo-European languages, Basque is believed to be a language isolate: it is not an Indo-European language.
- Santa Agueda, an a capella song
- Lili bat ikhusi dut , a Basque-American folk song
Contents |
[edit] History and classification
It is likely that an early form of the Basque language was already present in Western Europe before the arrival of the Indo-European languages, which means that in a sense the Basque culture can claim one of the longest unbroken traditions on the continent. Most scholars see Basque as a language isolate. Consequently, its prehistory cannot be reconstructed by means of the comparative method, and little is known of its origins.
Latin inscriptions in Aquitania preserve a number of words with cognates in proto-Basque, for instance the personal names Nescato and Cison (neskato and gizon mean "girl" and "man" respectively in modern Basque[1]). This proposed language is called "Aquitanian" and was presumably spoken before the Romans brought Latin to the western Pyrenees. Roman neglect of this hinterland allowed Aquitanian Basque to survive while the Iberian and Tartessian languages died out. Basque did come to acquire some Latin vocabulary, both before and after the Latin of the area developed into Gascon (a branch of Occitan) and Navarrese Romance.
Given that the genetic border between Basque and Gascon country is more diffuse than that of Basque and Castilian country, it is commonly assumed that the Basques' origin was in Aquitaine and that they migrated southward. [citation needed]
In June 2006, archaeologists at the site of Iruña-Veleia discovered an epigraphic set with a series of 270 Basque inscriptions and drawings from the third century. [1] Some of the words and phrases found were "urdin" (blue), "zuri" (white), "gori" (red), "edan" (drink) "ian" (eat), "lo" (sleep), "Iesus, Iose ata ta Mirian ama" (Jesus, the father Joseph and the mother Mary), and "Geure ata zutan" (May the Father be with you). This discovery shows once again that the Basque language is a very stable one.
[edit] Theories on connections with other languages
The impossibility of linking Basque with its Indo-European neighbours in Europe made many scholars search for its possible relatives elsewhere. Besides many pseudoscientific comparisons, the appearance of long-range linguistics gave rise to several attempts at connecting Basque with geographically very distant language families. While the link with the ancestor of Basque, the ancient Aquitanian language, was proven beyond reasonable doubt by Michelena and Trask [2].
Other hypotheses are considered controversial and the suggested evidence is not generally accepted by most linguists. However, this situation may change in the future. Some of these hypothetical connections are:
- Iberian: another ancient language once spoken in the peninsula, shows several similarities with Aquitanian and Basque. However, there is not enough evidence to distinguish areal contacts from genetic relationship. Iberian itself is considered an isolate. [3]
- Georgian: The Georgian hypothesis, linking Basque to South Caucasian or Kartvelian languages, seems now widely discredited.
- Northeast Caucasian languages, such as Chechen, are more likely candidates for a very distant connection [4].
- Dene-Caucasian superfamily. Based on the possible Caucasian link, some linguists have proposed including Basque in the Dene-Caucasian superfamily of languages, but the existence of this proposed superfamily would include languages from North America and Eurasia, and is deemed controversial.
- Vasconic languages: This theory, proposed by German linguist Theo Vennemann, claims that there is enough toponymical evidence to conclude that Basque is the only survivor of a larger family that once extended throughout most of Europe, and has also left its mark in modern Indo-European languages spoken in Europe. [5].
[edit] Geographic distribution
The region in which Basque is spoken is smaller than what is known as the Basque Country, or Euskal Herria in Basque. Basque toponyms show that Basque was spoken further along the Pyrenees than today. An example is the Aran Valley (now a Gascon-speaking part of Catalonia), since aran itself is the Basque word for "valley". However, the growing influence of Latin began to drive Basque out from less mountainous areas of this region.
The Reconquista temporarily counteracted this tendency, when the Christian lords called on northern peoples — Basques, Asturians and Franks — to colonize the new conquests. Later the Basque language came to be used mainly by peasants, while people in the cities preferred Castilian, Gascon, Navarrese Romance, French or Latin for high education.
Basque experienced a rapid decline in Navarre during the 1800's. However, after Basque nationalism took the language as an identity sign, and with the establishment of autonomous governments, it has made a modest comeback. Basque-language schools have taken the language to areas like Encartaciones or the Navarrese Ribera where it may have never been natively spoken in historic times.
[edit] Official status and dialects
[edit] Official status
Historically, Latin or Romance has been the official language in this region. However, Basque was explicitly recognized in some areas, as the local charter of the Basque-colonized Ojacastro valley (now in La Rioja) allowed the inhabitants to use Basque in legal processes in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Today Basque holds co-official language status in the Basque regions of Spain: the full autonomous community of the Basque Country and some parts of Navarre. Basque has no official standing in the Northern Basque Country of France and French citizens are barred from officially using Basque in a French court of law. Paradoxically, the use of Basque by Spanish nationals in French courts is allowed (with translation), as Basque is officially recognised on the other side of the frontier.
The positions of the various existing governments, in areas where Basque usage is common, differ with regard to the promotion of Basque. The language has official status in those territories which are within the Basque Autonomous Community where it is spoken and promoted heavily, but only partially in Navarre, which is divided by the law in three distinct language areas, Basque-speaking, non-Basque-speaking, and mixed (this law is strongly rejected by the Basque-speaking people of Navarre). The law is called the "Ley del Vascuence", as vascuence (from Latin vasconice loqui, "to talk in the Vascon way") is the traditional name for the Basque language in Spanish (euskera and vasco are also used).
[edit] Dialects
There are six main Basque dialects, comprising Bizkaian, Gipuzkoan, and Upper Navarrese (in Spain), and Lower Navarrese, Lapurdian, and Zuberoan (in France). However, the dialect boundaries are not congruent with political boundaries. One of the first scientific studies of Basque dialects, in particular the auxiliary verb forms, was made by Louis-Lucien Bonaparte (a nephew of Napoleon).
In 2005 the daily Berria published a new map of dialects, brought up to date by Koldo Zuazo, Basque Filology Professor at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU). In this new map the distinguished dialects are Western, Central, Navarrese, Navarrese-Labourdin and Souletin.
[edit] Standardized dialects
The most widely used standardized dialect is Batua ("unified" in Basque), which is the language taught in most schools and used on media and official papers. Batua is based largely on the Gipuzkoan regional dialect, where it is the most used, although it allows use of Northern and Navarrese vocabulary. It is also referred to as Standard Basque.
Azkue's gipuzkera osotua was the first attempt to create a Basque standard in 1935. It did not succeed, not even in Gipuzkoa where Batua is mostly preferred, the southwestern part of Gipuzkoa speak and prefer the Biscayan dialect.
Along with Batua, Classical Labourdin, like Pierre Laffite's Navarro-Labourdin is the standard form of Lapurtera taught in some schools of Lapurdi and used on radio, church and by the newspaper Herria.
A group (Jakintza Baitha, "Wisdom House") gathered around the academian Federico Krutwig preferred to base the standard on the Labourdin of Joannes Leyçarraga's Protestant Bible and the first printed books in Basque. However they got no official or popular support.
The most distinct dialects, Biscayan and Souletin, also have a standard form.
[edit] Influence in other languages
The Gascon, Aragonese and Castilian romances have marked Basque influence in them, in spite of being Latin-derived. In their genesis they were, at least partly, Romances spoken by Basque speaking peoples, which has left some marked influences.
In the case of Castilian (Spanish), we find the following clear Basque substrate influences:
- lack of "v" sound (replaced by "b")
- simple five vowel system
- transformation of initial "f" into mute "h": fablar → hablar (this is even more marked in Gascon)
- differentiation between two meanings of "to be" (exist and stay): ser and estar (like Basque: izan and egon)
In the 1500s, Basque sailors mixed many Basque words with a European Atlantic pidgin in their contacts with Iceland. Another Basque pidgin arose from contact between Basque whalers and Aboriginal inhabitants in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Strait of Belle Isle.
Several travelling professional groups of Castile used Basque words in their jargon: examples are the gacería, the mingaña and the Galician fala dos arxinas.
[edit] Grammar
Basque is an ergative-absolutive language. The subject of an intransitive verb is in the absolutive case (which is unmarked), and the same case is used for the direct object of a transitive verb. The subject of the transitive verb (that is, the agent) is marked differently, with the ergative case (shown by the suffix -k). This also triggers main and auxiliary verbal agreement.
The auxiliary verb, or periphrastic, which accompanies most main verbs, agrees not only with the subject, but with the direct object and the indirect object, if present. Among European languages, this polypersonal system (multiple verb agreement) is only found in Basque, some Caucasian languages, and Hungarian. The ergative-absolutive alignment is also unique among European languages, and rather rare worldwide.
Consider the phrase:
- Martinek egunkariak erosten dizkit.
- "Martin buys the newspapers for me."
Martin-ek is the agent (transitive subject), so it is marked with the ergative case ending -k (with an epenthetic -e-). Egunkariak has an -ak ending which marks plural object (plural absolutive, direct object case). The verb is erosten dizkit, in which erosten is a kind of gerund ("buying") and the auxiliary dizkit indicates:
- di- marks a verb with the equivalent of both a direct and an indirect object, in the present tense;
- -zki- marks the equivalent of a plural direct object (in this case the newspapers; if it were singular there would be no infix); and
- -t is the equivalent of the indirect object mark: "to/for me".
- in this instance an unmarked or "null case" equates to the "nork", which in most European languages would be the subject.
The phrase:
- "you buy the newspapers for me" would translate as:
- Zuek egunkariak erosten dizkidazue
The auxiliary verb is composed as di-zki-da-zue
(equivalent terms in European languages)
- di- = direct object
- -zki- = marks plural of direct object
- -da- = indirect object (to/for me) {-t becomes -da- when intercalated.}
- -zue = subject (you pl.)
Modern Basque dialects allow for the conjugation of about fifteen verbs, called synthetic verbs, some only in literary contexts. These can be put in the present and past tenses in the indicative and subjunctive moods, in three tenses in the conditional and potential moods, and in one tense in the imperative. Colloquial Basque, however, only uses indicative present, indicative past, and imperative. Each verb that can be taken intransitively has a nor (absolutive) paradigm and possibly a nor-nori (absolutive-dative) paradigm, as in the sentence Aititeri txapela erori zaio ("The hat fell from grandfather['s head]") [2]. Each verb that can be taken transitively uses those two paradigms for passive-voice contexts in which no agent is mentioned, and also has a nor-nork (absolutive-ergative) paradigm and possibly a nor-nori-nork (absolutive-dative-ergative) paradigm. The last would entail the dizkidazue example above. In each paradigm, each constituent noun can take on any of eight persons, five singular and three plural, with the exception of nor-nori-nork in which the absolutive can only be third person singular or plural. (This draws on a language universal; *"Yesterday the boss presented the committee me" sounds at least odd, if not incorrect.) The most ubiquitous auxiliary, izan, can be used in any of these paradigms, depending on the nature of the verb it is used with.
There are more persons in the singular (5) than in the plural (3) for synthetic verbs because of the two familiar persons—informal masculine and feminine second person singular. The pronoun hi is used for both of them but where the masculine form of the verb uses a -k the feminine uses an -n. This is a property not found in Indo-European languages. The entire paradigm of the verb is further augmented by inflecting for "listener": even if the verb contains no second person constituent, if the situation is one in which the familiar masculine may be used, the form is augmented and modified accordingly; likewise for the familiar feminine. Notice that this nearly multiplies the number of possible forms by three. Yet the restrictions on contexts in which these forms may be used is strong: all participants in the conversation must be friends of the same sex, and not too far apart in age. Some dialects dispense with the familiar forms entirely. Note however that the formal second person singular conjugates in parallel to the other plural forms, perhaps indicating that it used to be the second person plural, started being used as a singular formal, and then the modern second person plural was formulated as an innovation.
All the other verbs in Basque are called periphrastic, behaving much like a participle would in English. These have only three forms total, called aspects: perfect (various suffixes), imperfect (suffix -t[z]en) and future (suffix. -ko/-go). Verbs of Latinate origin in Basque, as well as many other verbs, have a suffix -tu in the perfect, borrowed from the Latin -tus suffix. The synthetic verbs also have periphrastic forms, for use in perfect tenses and in simple tenses in which they are deponent.
A Basque noun is inflected in 17 different ways for case, multiplied by 4 ways for its definiteness and number. These first 68 forms are further modified based on other parts of the sentence, which in turn are inflected for the noun again. It's been estimated that at two levels of recursion, a Basque noun may have 458,683 inflected forms (Agirre et al, 1992).
Basque word order is generally topic-focus, meaning that in neutral sentences (such as sentences to inform someone of a fact or event) the topic is stated first, then the focus. In such sentences, the verb phrase comes at the end. A more tightly binding rule, however, is that the focus directly precedes the verb phrase. Notice that this applies, too, for question words in questions. "What is this?" can be translated as Zer da hau? or Hau zer da?, but in both cases the question word zer immediately precedes the verb. This rule is so important in Basque that, even in grammatical descriptions of Basque in other languages, the Basque word for "focus," galdegai, is used.
Within a verb phrase, the periphrastic comes first, and then the auxiliary.
In negative sentences, the order changes: the negative particle ez must always directly precede the auxiliary, the topic most often comes beforehand, and the rest of the sentence afterward. This includes the periphrastic, if there is one: Aitak frantsesa ikasten du, "Father is learning French," in the negative becomes Aitak ez du frantsesa ikasten, in which ikasten ("learning") is separated from its auxiliary and placed at the end.
[edit] Phonology
Basque has a distinction between laminal and apical articulation for the alveolar fricatives and affricates. In the laminal consonants the friction occurs across the blade of the tongue, while in apical ones, it occurs at the tip (apex).
The laminal alveolar fricative (IPA: [s̻]) is made with the tongue tip pointing toward the lower teeth; its affricate counterpart is [ts̻]. These are written with an orthographic z (z, tz). The apical fricative (/s̺/) is written s and is pronounced like the normal s in Castillian Spanish; that is, the tongue tip points toward the upper teeth. The corresponding affricate (/ts̺/) is ts. In the westernmost parts of the Basque country, only the apical s and the alveolar affricate tz are used.
Basque also features postalveolar sibilants (/ʃ/, written x, and /tʃ/, written tx), sounding like English sh and ch.
There are two palatal stops, voiced and unvoiced, as well as a palatal nasal and a palatal lateral (the palatal stops are not present in all dialects). These and the postalveolar sounds are typical of diminutives, which are used frequently in child language and motherese (mainly to show affection rather than size). For example, tanta "drop" vs. ttantta /ɟanɟa/ "droplet". A few common words, such as txakur /tʃakur/ "dog", use palatal sounds even though in current usage they have lost the diminutive sense; the corresponding non-palatal forms now acquiring an augmentative or pejorative sense: zakur "big dog". Many dialects of Basque exhibit a derived palatalization effect in which coronal onset consonants are changed into the palatal counterpart after the high front vowel /i/. For example, the /n/ in egin "to act" becomes palatal when the suffix -a is added: /egina/ = [egiɲa] "the action".
The sound represented by j has a variety of realizations according to the regional dialect: [j, ʝ, ɟ, ʒ, ʃ, x] (the last one is typical of the Spanish Basque Country).
The vowel system is the same as Spanish for most speakers. It consists of five pure vowels, /i e a o u/. Speakers of the Souletin dialect also have a sixth, front rounded vowel (represented in writing by ü but pronounced /ø/, much like a German ö), as well as a set of contrasting nasalized vowels.
[edit] Stress and pitch
Basque features great dialectal variation in stress, from a weak pitch-accent in the central dialects to a marked stress in some outer dialects, with varying patterns of stress placement. Stress is in general not distinctive; there are, however, a few instances where stress is phonemic, serving to distinguish between a few pairs of stress-marked words and between some grammatical forms (mainly plurals from other forms). E.g., basóà ("the forest", absolutive case) vs. básoà ("the glass", absolutive case; a borrowing from Spanish vaso); basóàk ("the forest", ergative case) vs. básoàk ("the glass", ergative case) vs. básoak ("the forests" or "the glasses", absolutive case). Given its great deal of variation among dialects, stress is not marked in the standard orthography and Euskaltzaindia (the Academy of the Basque Language) only provides general recommendations for a standard placement of stress, basically to place a high-pitched weak stress (weaker than that of Spanish, let alone that of English) on the second syllable of a syntagma, and a low-pitched even-weaker stress on its last syllable, except in plural forms where stress is moved to the first syllable. This scheme provides Basque with a distinct musicality which sets its sound apart from the prosodical patterns of Spanish (which tends to stress the second-to-last syllable). Euskaldun berriak ("new Basque-speakers", i.e. second-language Basque-speakers) with Spanish as their first language tend to carry the prosodical patterns of Spanish into their pronunciation of Basque, giving rise to a much despised decaffeinated pronunciation; e.g., pronouncing nire ama ("my mom") as nire áma (- - ´ -), instead of as niré amà (- ´ - `).
[edit] Vocabulary
By contact with neighbouring peoples, Basque has borrowed many words from Latin, Spanish, French, Gascon, among others. Some claim that many of its words come from Latin, but phonetic evolution has made many of them appear nowadays as if they were native words, e.g. lore ("flower", from florem), errota ("mill", from rotam, "[mill] wheel"), gela ("room", from cellam).
[edit] Writing system
Basque is written using the Latin alphabet. The universal special letter is ñ; sometimes ç and ü are also used. Basque does not use c, q, v, w, y except for loan words; they are not considered part of the alphabet.
- Aa Bb Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Ññ Oo Pp Rr Ss Tt Uu Xx Zz
The phonetically meaningful digraphs dd, ll, rr, ts, tt, tx, tz are treated as double letters.
All letters and digraphs represent unique phonemes. The main exception is when l or n are preceded by i, that palatalizes their sound into ll and ñ, even if these are not written. Hence, ikurriña can also be written ikurrina without changing the sound, while the personal name Ainhoa requires the mute h to break the palatalization of the n.
H is mute in most regions, but in the North is pronounced in many places, the main reason for its existence in the Basque alphabet.
In Sabino Arana's (1865..1903) orthography, ll and rr were replaced with ĺ and ŕ, respectively.
[edit] Phrases
[edit] Basic phrases
- Bai = Yes
- Ez = No
- Kaixo! = Hello
- Agur!, Adio! = Goodbye!
- Ikusi arte = See you!
- Eskerrik asko! = Thank you!
- Egun on = Good morning (literally: Good day)
- Egun on, bai = Standard reply to Egun on
- Arratsalde on = Good evening
- Gabon = Good night
- Mesedez = Please
- Barkatu = Excuse (me)
- Aizu! = Listen! (To get someone's attention, not very polite, to be used with friends)
- Kafe hutsa nahi nuke = Can I have a coffee?
- Kafe ebakia nahi nuke = Can I have a macchiato?
- Kafesnea nahi nuke = Can I have a café latte?
- Garagardoa nahi nuke = Can I have a beer?
- Komunak = Toilets
- Komuna, non dago? = Where are the toilets?
- Non dago tren-geltokia? = Where is the train station?
- Non dago autobus-geltokia? = Where is the bus station?
- Ba al da hotelik hemen inguruan? = Is there any hotel around here?
- Zorionak = Happy holidays (During Christmas and new year's), congratulations
- Zer Moduz= How are you?
[edit] Advanced phrases
- Eup!= The colloquial way of greeting someone on the street, also apa or aupa.
- Kaixo aspaldiko! = Like Kaixo, but adds "Long time, no see"-meaning.
- Ez horregatik = You're welcome
- Ez dut ulertzen = I don't understand
- Ez dakit euskaraz hitz egiten= I don't speak Basque
- Ba al dakizu ingeleraz hitz egiten?= Do you speak English?
- Neska polit(t)a / Neska ederra= (You´re a) beautiful girl
- Zein da zure izena? = What is your name?
- Pozten nau zu ezagutzeak = Nice to meet you
- Ongi etorri! = Welcome!
- Egun on denoi = Good morning everyone!
- Berdin / Hala zuri ere = The same to you (E.g. after Kaixo or Egun on)
- Jakina!/Noski! = Sure! OK!
- Nongoa zara? = Where are you from?
- Non dago...? = Where is...?
- Badakizu euskaraz? = Do you speak Basque?
- Bai ote? = Really? Maybe?
- Bizi gara!! = We are alive!!
- Bagarela!! = So we are!! (Answer to the above)
- Topa! = Cheers!
- Hementxe! = Over / right here!
- Geldi!= Stop
- Lasai= Take it easy
- Ez dut nahi= I don't want it
- Kaka zaharra!= Crap! (Literally old crap)
[edit] Numbers
| 1 | bat |
| 2 | bi |
| 3 | hiru |
| 4 | lau |
| 5 | bost |
| 6 | sei |
| 7 | zazpi |
| 8 | zortzi |
| 9 | bederatzi |
| 10 | hamar |
| 11 | hamaika |
| 12 | hamabi |
| 13 | hamahiru |
| 14 | hamalau |
| 15 | hamabost |
| 16 | hamasei |
| 17 | hamazazpi |
| 18 | hemezortzi |
| 19 | hemeretzi |
| 20 | hogei |
| 21 | hogeita bat |
| 22 | hogeita bi |
| 23 | hogeita hiru |
| 30 | hogeita hamar (20+10) |
| 31 | hogeita hamaika (20+11) |
| 40 | berrogei (2×20) |
| 50 | berrogeita hamar (2×20+10) |
| 60 | hirurogei (3×20) |
| 70 | hirurogeita hamar (3×20+10) |
| 80 | larogei |
| 90 | larogeita hamar |
| 100 | ehun |
| 200 | berrehun |
| 300 | hirurehun |
| 1000 | mila |
| 2000 | bi mila |
| 1,000,000 | milioi bat |
| number _____ | _____ zenbaki (train, bus, etc.) |
| half | erdi |
| less | gutxiago |
| more | gehiago |
[edit] See also
- Basque people
- Basque Country
- Languages of France
- Languages of Spain
- Wikitionary: Swadesh list of Basque words
[edit] Dictionaries
[edit] External links
- Ethnologue report for Basque
- Center for Basque Studies at University of Nevada, Reno
- Basque language at Buber.net
- Concise course of Basque
- A proposal for Basque SAMPA
- Basque Studies Program Newsletter · Issue 18, 1978. Miguel Echegaray shares several suggestions of possible etymological connections between Basque and English words.
- The Devil Wanted to Learn Basque from France Monthly
- Linguistic maps of Basque Country
- Euskara Kultur Elkargoa-Basque Cultural Foundation
[edit] Grammar
- University of the Basque Country: A Brief Grammar of Euskara, the Basque Language
- Basque psycholinguistics
- Basque Verb Tables
- Ethnographic Map of Pre-Roman Iberia (200 BC)
[edit] Dictionaries
[edit] Classification
- History of the Basque Language by Manfred Owstrowski)
- A Final (?) Response to the Basque Debate in Mother Tongue 1 by John D. Bengston (scanned pages)
[edit] References
- ^ Hiztegia 3000
- ^ Aquitanian Language (Jesús Rodríguez Ramos)
- ^ Are Iberian and Basque related? The problem with "magical translators" (Jesús Rodríguez Ramos
- ^ A Final (?) Response to the Basque Debate in Mother Tongue 1 (John D. Bengston)
- ^ Theo Vennemann homepage
[edit] Bibliography
- BENGTSON, John D., 2004. "Some features of Dene-Caucasian phonology (with special reference to Basque)." In Cahiers de l'Institut de linguistique de Louvain (CILL).
- BENGTSON, John D., 2006. "Materials for a Comparative Grammar of the Dene-Caucasian (Sino-Caucasian) Languages."
- BENGTSON, John D., 1997. Review of "The History of Basque. London: Routledge, 1997. Pp.xxii,458" by R.L. Trask.
- BENGTSON, John D., 1997. "Ein Vergleich von Burushaski und Nordkaukasisch". In "GEORGICA (Zeitschrift für Kultur, Sprache und Geschichte Georgiens und Kaukasiens)."
- BENGTSON, John D., 1996. "A Final (?) Response to the Basque Debate in Mother Tongue 1."
- HUALDE, José Ignacio & ORTIZ DE URBINA, Jon (eds.): A Grammar of Basque. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003. ISBN 3-11-017683-1.
- MORVAN, Michel, 1996. The linguistic origins of basque (in french). Bordeaux: Presses universitaires. ISBN 2-86781-182-1.
- ORPUSTAN, Jean-Baptiste, 1999. The basque language in the Middle Ages (in french). Baigorri. ISBN 2-909262-22-7
- TRASK, R. Larry: History of Basque. New York/London: Routledge, 1996. ISBN 0-415-13116-2.
