 | Museo Guggenheim Bilbao
© The Guggenheim |
| 6 | irail (fern month) | 2010 |
Since 1979 the Basque
language has enjoyed official status in the Spanish provinces of Alava,
Guipúzcoa and Viscaya. Not counting expatriots, almost ninety percent of its 660,000 speakers
live in or around the Spanish Pyranees, with the rest on the French side.
Since Roman times linguists have struggled to unearth Basque's roots and
connect them with other language families, but nowadays most rank such
enterprises on a par with quests for Atlantis and hold out similar hope.
Recent genetic studies reveal that Basques represent a distinctive race
that stands apart from its neighbors by, among other things, a particularly
high incidence of Type O and Rh-negative blood.
Catholic priests accompanying the conquistadores who encountered Quechua-speaking
Incas in the 1500s were surprised to find a dozen or more words that were similar if not
identical to their Basque equivalents, such as a-ita (father). It's still far
from certain whether this arose from prehistoric Basque contact with South American
natives or just extraordinary coincidence. Even more remarkably, there's a flurry of
similarities between it and Ainu, the language of the
bear-worshipping aboriginals of Japan. Among them, Edo Nyland cites the Basque word
siku (shriveled up) vs. the Ainu sikupu (to perish); koro (money)
vs. ikoro (money); somaketa (attention) vs. somaketa (to approach);
and arakatu (to be examined) vs. araka (illness).1 The English words garbanzo, jingo, jai-alai, and anchovy [possibly]
come from Basque. |
