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To: Wilhelm Tell
"Lithuanian is supposed to be the most old-fashioned of all the Indo-European languages, at least those which are still spoken, and I think Latvian and Lithuanian are fairly close (they are both labeled as Baltic languages)."

I read a book recently, "The Basque History of the World" wherein it was the author's contention that the language spoken by the Basques (pronounced A-oo-skar'-a) is a language unlike any other in that it's lineage can't be traced. The language is making a comeback now that Franco is dead and no longer killing anyone caught speaking it. A sentence often consists of a single noun with numerous suffixes. Anyway, the inferance was that the Basque people and their language are VERY old. Their relatively inhospitable and easily defended homeland have kept them from being ousted by everyone from the Romans and Moors to the Nazis, French and Spanish. They always allowed unhindered passage through their mountain passes to any armies that desired as long as they caused no harm to the Basque people.

Do any of you linguists out there have any specific knowledge of the Basque language?

93 posted on 12/02/2003 3:24:35 PM PST by gorush
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To: gorush
Do any of you linguists out there have any specific knowledge of the Basque language?

See my Reply #77. There have been attempts to link Basque with many other languages, especially the non-Indo-European ones in the Caucasus like Georgian and Chechen that also seem to be language isolates. The general consensus is still, as far as I'm aware, that no affiliation of Basque to any other language can be shown.

If you're asking about language learning resources, there's a fairly good (although somewhat superficial) introductory text "Colloquial Basque," by Alan King and someone with a Basque name, put out by Routledge which can be purchased in paperback alone or along with tapes.

The language itself is as you'd expect very different structurally from the Indo-European languages, although you might be helped by the fact that in its vocabulary it has borrowed copiously from Spanish.

95 posted on 12/02/2003 5:01:25 PM PST by Map Kernow ("In terra pax in hominibus bonae voluntatis")
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