Basque language



Basque, or Euskara, is an language isolate in northern Spain and southwestern France.

History
Basque is the last remaining pre-Indo-European language in western Europe. By the Roman period, much of western Europe was Indo-European-speaking, but toponyms, personal names, and inscriptions attest to the presence of languages with Basque-like morphology and lexical roots around the Pyrenees. Since the Early Middle Ages, Basque has receded geographically, and for the past 400 years it has been largely confined to the Basque Country.

In the 20th century, however, Basque nationalism spurred increased interest in the language as a sign of ethnic identity, and with the establishment of autonomous governments in the Southern Basque Country, it has recently made a modest comeback.

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 is marked differently, with the ergative case (shown by the suffix -k). This also triggers main and auxiliary verbal agreement.

Alphabet
Main article: Basque alphabet

The Basque alphabet is written using the Latin script

Dialects

 * Biscayan
 * Gipuzkoan
 * Upper Navarrese
 * Navarro-Lapurdian
 * Souletin