Proto-Basque language
Encyclopedia
Proto-Basque is a reconstructed predecessor of the Basque language
, prior to the Roman conquests in the Western Pyrenees
.
. The period covered by his work on Proto-Basque focussed mainly on the period between the 5th century BC to the 1st century AD, the period just before and after initial contact with the Romans
.
The main method he employed was that of internal reconstruction
as Basque had - and still has - no known genetic relatives, rendering comparative methods
unworkable. By comparing variants of the same word in the modern dialects
, as well as the changes Latin
loanwords had undergone, ancestral forms, along with the rules for historical sound changes, were deduced.
Koldo Mitxelena's groundbreaking work, which culminated with the publication of his book Fonética histórica vasca was mostly carried out before the Aquitanian
inscriptions were found, which fully backed up Mitxelena's proposed Proto-Basque forms.
Since then, a number of other prominent linguists such as Larry Trask
, Alfonso Irigoien, Henri Gavel and most recently Joseba Lakarra, Joaquín Gorrochategui and Ricardo Gómez have made further contributions to the field. Some of these, for example Lakarra, have focussed their attention on even older layers of the language (Pre-Proto-Basque) preceding the Celtic invasion of Iberia
.
One of the puzzles of Basque is the large number of words that begin with vowels, where the initial and second vowels are the same. Joseba Lakarra proposes that in pre-proto-Basque there was extensive reduplication
, and that later certain initial consonants were deleted, leaving the VCV pattern in proto-Basque:
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
, prior to the Roman conquests in the Western Pyrenees
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
.
Background
The first linguist to scientifically approach the question of the historical changes that the Basque language had undergone over the centuries was Koldo MitxelenaKoldo Mitxelena
Koldo Mitxelena Elissalt was an eminent Basque linguist...
. The period covered by his work on Proto-Basque focussed mainly on the period between the 5th century BC to the 1st century AD, the period just before and after initial contact with the Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
.
The main method he employed was that of internal reconstruction
Internal reconstruction
Internal reconstruction is a method of recovering information about a language's past from the characteristics of the language at a later date...
as Basque had - and still has - no known genetic relatives, rendering comparative methods
Comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor, as opposed to the method of internal reconstruction, which analyzes the internal...
unworkable. By comparing variants of the same word in the modern dialects
Basque dialects
Basque dialects are linguistic varieties which differ in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar from each other and from Standard Basque. Between 6 and 9 Basque dialects have been historically distinguished:*Biscayan*Gipuzkoan...
, as well as the changes Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
loanwords had undergone, ancestral forms, along with the rules for historical sound changes, were deduced.
Koldo Mitxelena's groundbreaking work, which culminated with the publication of his book Fonética histórica vasca was mostly carried out before the Aquitanian
Aquitanian language
The Aquitanian language was spoken in ancient Aquitaine before the Roman conquest and, probably much later, until the Early Middle Ages....
inscriptions were found, which fully backed up Mitxelena's proposed Proto-Basque forms.
Since then, a number of other prominent linguists such as Larry Trask
Larry Trask
Robert Lawrence "Larry" Trask was Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sussex and an authority on the Basque language and historical linguistics....
, Alfonso Irigoien, Henri Gavel and most recently Joseba Lakarra, Joaquín Gorrochategui and Ricardo Gómez have made further contributions to the field. Some of these, for example Lakarra, have focussed their attention on even older layers of the language (Pre-Proto-Basque) preceding the Celtic invasion of Iberia
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
.
Vocabulary
Studying the behaviour of Latin and early Romance loanwords in Basque, Koldo Mitxelena discovered that proto-Basque *n became lost between vowels, and similarly that proto-Basque had no *m. Both are relatively unusual changes cross-linguistically.| Proto-Basque | Modern Basque Basque language Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories... |
English English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria... |
|---|---|---|
| *ardano | ardo | wine Wine Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast... |
| *arrani | arrain | fish Fish Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups... |
| *bene | mehe | thin, slim |
| *bini | mihi | tongue Tongue The tongue is a muscular hydrostat on the floors of the mouths of most vertebrates which manipulates food for mastication. It is the primary organ of taste , as much of the upper surface of the tongue is covered in papillae and taste buds. It is sensitive and kept moist by saliva, and is richly... |
| *egu-gaitz | ekaitz | storm Storm A storm is any disturbed state of an astronomical body's atmosphere, especially affecting its surface, and strongly implying severe weather... |
| *eLana | elai | barn swallow Barn Swallow The Barn Swallow is the most widespread species of swallow in the world. It is a distinctive passerine bird with blue upperparts, a long, deeply forked tail and curved, pointed wings. It is found in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas... |
| *eNala | enara | barn swallow Barn Swallow The Barn Swallow is the most widespread species of swallow in the world. It is a distinctive passerine bird with blue upperparts, a long, deeply forked tail and curved, pointed wings. It is found in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas... |
| *gaztana | gazta | cheese Cheese Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms.... |
| *ini | ihi | rush Juncus Juncus is a genus in the plant family Juncaceae. It consists of some 200 to 300 or more species of grassy plants commonly called rushes... |
| *organa | orga | cart Cart A cart is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people... |
| *sen-be | seme | son Son A son is a male offspring; a boy or man in relation to his parents. The female analogue is a daughter.-Social issues regarding sons:In pre-industrial societies and some current countries with agriculture-based economies, a higher value was, and still is, assigned to sons rather than daughters,... |
| *seni | sehi | servant |
| *suni | suhi | son-in-law Son-in-Law Son-in-Law was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and an influential sire, especially for sport horses.The National Horseracing Museum says that Son-in-Law is "probably the best and most distinguished stayer this country has ever known." Described as "one of the principal influences for stamina in... |
| *un-be | ume | young, baby |
| *zani | zain | guard |
| *zini | zii, zi | acorn Acorn The acorn, or oak nut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives . It usually contains a single seed , enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne in a cup-shaped cupule. Acorns vary from 1–6 cm long and 0.8–4 cm broad... |
One of the puzzles of Basque is the large number of words that begin with vowels, where the initial and second vowels are the same. Joseba Lakarra proposes that in pre-proto-Basque there was extensive reduplication
Reduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
, and that later certain initial consonants were deleted, leaving the VCV pattern in proto-Basque:
| Pre-Proto-Basque | Proto-Basque | Modern Basque Basque language Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories... |
English English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria... |
|---|---|---|---|
| *dar → *da-dar | *adaR | adar | horn (anatomy) Horn (anatomy) A horn is a pointed projection of the skin on the head of various animals, consisting of a covering of horn surrounding a core of living bone. True horns are found mainly among the ruminant artiodactyls, in the families Antilocapridae and Bovidae... |
| *dats → *da-dats | *adats | adats | long hair Hair Hair is a filamentous biomaterial, that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Found exclusively in mammals, hair is one of the defining characteristics of the mammalian class.... |
| *der → *de-der | *edeR | eder | beautiful |
| *dol → *do-dol | *odoL | odol | blood Blood Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells.... |
| *gor → *go-gor | *gogoR | gogor | hard |
| *nal → *na-nal | *anaL | ahal | can |
| *nan → *na-nan | *anan-tz | ahantz- | to forget |
| *nin → *ni-nin | *inin-tz | ihintz | dew Dew [Image:Dew on a flower.jpg|right|220px|thumb|Some dew on an iris in Sequoia National Park]]Dew is water in the form of droplets that appears on thin, exposed objects in the morning or evening... |
| *nol → *no-nol | *onoL | ohol | board Board -Flat surface:* Lumber, or other rigid material, milled or sawn flat** See :Category:Engineered wood** Cutting board** Sounding board, of a musical instrument* Cardboard* Paperboard*Corrugated fiberboard*Fiberboard*Particle board, also known as chipboard... |
| *nur → *nu-nur | *unuR | hur | hazelnut Hazelnut A hazelnut is the nut of the hazel and is also known as a cob nut or filbert nut according to species. A cob is roughly spherical to oval, about 15–25 mm long and 10–15 mm in diameter, with an outer fibrous husk surrounding a smooth shell. A filbert is more elongated, being about twice... |
| *zal → *za-zal | *azal | azal | bark Bark Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner... |
| *zen → *ze-zen | *zezen | zezen | bull Bull Bull usually refers to an uncastrated adult male bovine.Bull may also refer to:-Entertainment:* Bull , an original show on the TNT Network* "Bull" , an episode of television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation... |
External links
- Basque etymological dictionary, R. L TraskLarry TraskRobert Lawrence "Larry" Trask was Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sussex and an authority on the Basque language and historical linguistics....
, ed. by Max W. Wheeler Joseba Lakarra (2006), "Protovasco, munda y otros: Reconstrucción interna y tipología holística diacrónica", in "Oihenart. Cuadernos de Lengua y Literatura". Ricardo Gómez, "De re etymologica: vasc. -(r)antz ‘hacia’", UPV-EHU / “Julio Urkixo” Euskal Filologia Mintegia