Basque Is A Wild Language

if you love namexployed then please consider leaving us super thanks in the comments of this video it's a great way to make a one-time donation to the channel and help support name explainer the languages found in modern Europe are pretty uniform in a lot of ways most arrive from the Indo-European family tree of languages that can all be put neatly into groups within that family like the romance languages of French and Spanish the Germanic languages of Dutch and German the Slavic languages of Polish and Czech and so on there are of course however some languages found in Europe that don't conform in this way take Albanian in example while part of the Indo-European family of languages it sits alone on a branch with no other living relatives then we also have the uralic languages of Europe most noticeably Hungarian Finnish and Estonian while these three are all related to one another they aren't part of the Indo-European tree and there's of course also Maltese Europe's very own Arabic language as we've talked about before but there's one language in Europe in particular that bucks the trend of all the other languages of Europe in a very odd way on top of this is a seriously perplexing mysterious confusing ancient Amber bewildering language this is of course the language of Basque Basque is an absolutely wild language in so many ways Basque is spoken by The Basque people in The Basque Country an area of Europe in the west of the Pyrenees that straddles between Spain and France though primarily within Spain one of Spain's autonomous communities is called Basque country and yes it resides within the wider Basque country area the perplexing things about Basque begin with its very Origins and that's because we have no idea where it comes from it has no relation to any other language we know this because its words sound nothing like the words of other nearby languages take the French and Spanish word for big Grand slash Grande these are more or less identical to one another so we can assume that these languages must be related in some way shape or form the best word for big however is hondea this sounds nothing like the French or Spanish word for Baker nor any other languages word for bigger so we can assume there's a completely isolated language what makes this even Wilder is the fact that Basque is nestled between France and Spain so the fact this language sounds nothing like evil of those makes it even more perplexing as to how it's so isolated the leading theory on the origin of the Basque language is that it comes from an ancient long-lost language that we have dubbed Iberian this language of Iberian eventually died out but bass continued being spoken though that's just a theory on the matter as the way this language is so isolated well the leading theory in that case revolves around the geography of the land in which it is spoken Basque countries nestled within their Pyrenees as mentioned and this mountain range could be pretty inaccessible especially in the ancient past this means that the Basque language could evolve in an isolated environment and conversely people who spoke other languages couldn't easily get to the ancient basket speakers so the language couldn't be influenced by outside tongues Basque as mentioned is also super super old older than things like Old English old high German Latin Ultra slavonic in fact it predates every Indo-European language in Europe as we shall talk about it's widely considered to be the oldest living language in Europe it's believed to date back to Neolithic times as a language spoken by hunter-gatherers basically it's super old super unique and super mysterious Basque is such an anomaly in the realm of European languages that there's even a myth involving a certain someone trying to learn this language but to no avail Basque is seen as a very difficult language to learn due to how unique it is as it has no relation to other languages for example if you wanted to learn Spanish but already knew Portuguese things would be a little bit easier for you because they are related this isn't the case with Basque as there's no other languages it relates to or someone who wants according to myth try to learn the language was none other than the Devil Himself the devil wanted to learn Basque so he could corrupt the people of the Basque country and send them to Hell however after seven years of trying to learn it he gave up as it was too complex even for him this is why Basque has also become known as the language the Devil Couldn't learn it's is quite the feat for a language to be so complex and different that even Satan gave up on it Basque wouldn't have always been such a strange anomaly however in Europe's past there would have been other languages like Basque ones that didn't relate to any other languages these kinds of languages are known as Priya Indo-European languages because they were the languages spoken in Europe before Indo-European languages took over the continent Basque is the sole surviving pre-indo-european language in Europe while its contemporaries are no more vasque has been able to outlive them all and is still spoken to this very day according to Wikipedia there are around 750 000 speakers of the language today were 343 000 of them being able to speak it passively and 6 000 of them being monoglots this means that there are 6 000 people on our planet who only speak this ancient mysterious language if you happen to be one of those six thousand please let me know but I but I guess you can't understand what I'm saying right now my bad the fact that Basque has survived into the modern day just as the the Enigma of it all there have been plenty of chances over the Millennia for this language to be wiped out like many other pre-indo-european languages but it wasn't the first thing that could have wiped it out was the Indo-European migrations these are a series of hypothetical migrations around Europe that potentially explained to us how Indo-European languages became the mainsay of the continent and in turn wiped out many of the pre-indo-european languages these migrations are thought to have happened from around 4000 BC to 1000 BC yet for some unknown reason these migrations never made their way to The Basque Country this was probably because of just how isolated The Basque country is it's surrounded by mountains as mentioned so those early migrators probably wouldn't be able to settle there around the Basque language and people to flourish while the other tongues of Europe were radically changed the Basque language stayed isolated for thousands of years after that the next Potential Threat to the language came in 196 BC this is when the Romans finally arrived in the iboom peninsula in the midst of the Punic Wars the Roman Republic which will become the Empire had a huge influence in Europe one that set many of the modern borders and languages of Europe to this day what's interesting about Rome is that while they claimed huge parts of Europe they actually let many of the cultures they claimed carry on just doing their thing as opposed to forcing room and culture on them it's one of the reasons why the Empire lasted as long as it did despite this however the Latin language is still influenced in many parts of the Empire giving us the modern romance languages today which usurped a native pre-indo-european languages once spoken there this of course didn't happen to The Basque language Rome did have possession Over The Basque country but the language survived this is because the Basques and the Romans became key allies together they defended the Iberian Peninsula from the Celts and other Iberian tribes The Basque country and the language thrived during its time under Roman rule unlike many other languages during that time period of course Western Rome would eventually meet its demise and The Basque Country wouldn't ever be as dominant as it was during this time during the Middle Ages the Iberian Peninsula saw all kinds of powers claim its land from Germanic tribes to the Islamic invasions of the 8th Century A.D yet despite all this thanks to its proud Heritage and isolated location the language was able to carry on being spoken during all this upheaval something that really helped the Basque language and identity find protection were a series of laws that were put in place during this time known as the Pharaoh these highlighted how important it was for the Basque country to maintain its own degree of autonomy this greatly helped the language maintain itself and protect itself from Outsiders the language faces biggest threat however years after when Spain came under the rule of dictator Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War in the 20th century during this time Franco banned The Basque language calling it an enemy of God this is because he forced the use of Spanish language above everything else with this band in place the language did start to dwindle but it was still spoken by small pockets of people in secrecy and thanks to this undying support once the language was unbanned it meant it still had speakers who could help revive the language this all means that this supremely resilient language that could easily have been a raise from our planet on numerous occasions it's still around to this very day it's absolutely wild every single aspect of this language is perplexing from its prehistoric Origins to its isolation lack of connection to any other language and to the fact that it's still around to this day and you know what I love it for that Basque gives us an insight into what language is like in Europe from a time before the likes of the Romans and even before Indo-European languages were really a thing and of course we have to talk about that name this is name explained after all it should come as no surprise that we aren't entirely sure as to where the name Basque comes from the leading theory on it is that might mean something like Foresters but we aren't entirely sure though of course as I'm sure many of you know the final confusing thing about this language is that in Basque Basque isn't called Basque it is instead called uscala like with the name bask this one two comes from equally unknown Roots Basque is undoubtedly one of the biggest mysteries in the world of language and it seems for the time being many of the Mysteries surrounding this language will remain unsolved name explain depends on viewers like yourself supporting the channel financially on patreon so a huge thank you to everyone who does donating just one dollar a month helps the channel amazingly and gets you bonuses including ad-free videos exclusive content the power to request ideas to be made into actual name explaining videos and your name at the end of the video with all these awesome people visit patreon.com forward slash name explain or click the link down below to find out how you too can support the channel thank you thanks for reaching the end of the video why not watch another And subscribe to keep up to date on all things name explain you can find myself on Instagram while name explain YT and join the Facebook group of friends on name explained to talk with myself and other name nerds although that will be linked down below anyway I hope you enjoyed this video and once again thank you all so much

Channel: Name Explain

Views: 240,786

Keywords: Name Explain, Etymology, Language, Word Origins, Basque, Basque Language, Europe, Spain, France, Educational Video

Id: ok-HzG4QMWY

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 11 2023