BASQUE (Fr. Biscayan, Lat. Vasrones, whence Fr. Ouseons, Med. Lat. Biscaini, Basque Euskaldun or Eskalkun). An isolated language of Southern France and Northern Spain, of entirely unknown affinities, spoken by about 440,000 persons. It is most plausibly supposed to be the sole representative of the ancient Ibe rian languages, which were superseded by Latin when the Romans conquered Spain and Gaul. In structure, Basque belongs to the so-called poly synthetic or agglutinative type of languages, since it incorporates into the verb the pronomi nal elements for subject and object. In this re spect it bears a marked resemblance to certain dialects of the Caucasian group. and even to some North American Indian languages. All attempts to trace a real connection. however. between Caucasian and Basque have thus far proved unsuccessful, while parallels between Basque and American 'Indian are probably to be regarded merely as accidental coincidences. The late Geol.°. von der Gabeleutz sought to trace an affinity between Basque and the Berber dialects, hut this theory also is open to grave doubts. It seems safest, in the present stage of linguistic knowledge, to regard this language as forming a family by itself.
Basque is divided into several dialects, of which the chief are those of Guiptizcoa. Biscay, Lahourdin, and Lower Navarre, all of which adopt the Roman alphabet, conforming their orthography to either the Spanish or the French, according to their position south or north of the Pyrenees. Basque words are accented, as a rule, on the final syllable, which ends in a vowel, or in s, r, 1, n, and once in t. It possesses nouns, adjectives (which have no radical affinity with the nouns), pronouns, and verbs. Grammatical gender is lacking, while the verb, like the Ger manic, has, properly speaking, but two tenses, present and past. The noun has two numbers and seven cases, nominative - accusative, instru mental, genitive, dative, locative, sociative (gison-are-kin, with the man), and caritive (gison-a-yabe, without the man). The article, originally, as in Indo-Germanic, a demonstra tive, stands between the noun-stem and the flec tional ending (gison-a, the man; genitive, gison er-en; dative, gison-ar-i). Similarly, the ad jective, which follows the noun, alone receives inflection (vr garbi, pure water; genitive, ur garbi-ar-en). The Basque verb is either transi tive, in which case the object can never be omitted, or intransitive, and both classes are strong or weak, according to the absence or pres ence of the auxiliary verb. In the intransitive verb the subject precedes, while the order of the transitive is object, verb, subject (h-a-bit, thou guest; but h-a-kar-t, thee bear f ). The substan
tial agent of a transitive verb is denoted by the instrumental (gison-a-k yen du, the man has eaten it; literally, by the man was its eating), forming a curious partial analogy to the usage in many modern Judo-lranian languages, as well as in the Australian dialect of Encounter Bay. In addition to the indicative mood, the verb has an optative and an imperative. The rather meagre tense-system of the Basque is supplemented by a future and a future perfect, nearer and re moter perfect, as well as pluperfect by analogical influence from the Romance languages, as ibili ko n-ais, which is almost exactly equivalent to the English 1 hare to be a-going, or the French irai, I have to go, from Latin ire habeo. The numerical system, as in the Central American langutwes, is primarily vigesimal. Basque lit erature is not extensive, and is mostly of a popu lar character, poems, quasi-dramatic composi tions somewhat resembling the mystery-plays of the Middle Ages, and the like, together with translations of religious literature. Although it has adopted numerous loan-words from French and Spanish. it has maintained its own remark ably against its Romance neighbors.
Consult: Grundriss der Sprachteissen schaft, Vol. M. (Vienna, 1887), where an ex cellent summary of Basque grammar is given; Gerland, "Die Basken and die Iberer," in art/ 1)er, Grundriss der romenischen l'hilologie, Vol. 1. (Strassburg, 1892-98) ; Mahn, Denkmiiler der baskischen 1:prachc, mit einer Einleitung ilber des 8tudiuin ders•lben (Berlin, 1857) ; de Azene, Ruske! Lzkc»dca: Gratedlice ettskara formed(' y t•educide (Bilbao, 1891), Basque and Spanish; Van Eys, Dietionnairc basque-francais (Paris, I 8 73 ) ; Van Eys, Gratunutire comparee des dia lertcs besgucc (Paris, 1879) ; Van Eys, Outlines of Basque Grammar (London, 1883) ; Vinson, Excel sur la longue basque par Francois Ribdry, truduit du honyrois (Paris, 1877) ; Essai crime bibliographic de la longue basque (Paris, 1891) ; Campion, G•amdtica de los cuatro dialectes de lengua. cuskara (Toulouse, 1884) ; Aizquibel, Diccionario basco-espaiiol (Toulouse, I882-85) ; Larramendi, Diccionario trilingue del Castellano, Basettence y Latin (2 vols., San Sebastian, ]853) ; :Michel, Le pays basque, sa population, se longue, sex mocurs, sa litteratine et sa musigue (Paris, 1857) ; Linsehmann and Sehuchardt. Lei car•aga's Baskische filcher von 1571, Neues Testament, Kalender, tend Abe, im genauen Ab- . durek (Strassburg, t000).