# Why did the Basque language survive?



## AndrasBP

Hello everyone,

Do you know if there is any explanation (or at least a theory) as to why Basque is the only surviving pre-Indo-European language in Europe? (not counting Finno-Ugric languages). After all, the Basque Country does not seem to be the most isolated part of Europe. I may be wrong, but wouldn't such a language be more likely to survive on an island like Sardinia or Crete, or somewhere in a remote Alpine valley?


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## fdb

Fenno-Ugric is presumably post-IE, not pre-IE., as far as its presence in Europe is concerned.

Maltese is another non-IE language spoken in a member state of the EU.

Turkish is spoken in the European part of Turkey.

Several non-IE languages are spoken in the Northern Caucasus region, which is also counted as part of Europe.


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## Dymn

Maltese and Turkish are post-IE as well.


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## AndrasBP

fdb said:


> Fenno-Ugric is presumably post-IE, not pre-IE., as far as its presence in Europe is concerned.


Yes, they're not really pre-IE.



fdb said:


> Maltese is another non-IE language spoken in a member state of the EU.
> 
> Turkish is spoken in the European part of Europe.


Maltese and Turkish are certainly "post-IE" languages in Europe. (posted before I saw Dymn's post)



fdb said:


> Several non-IE languages are spoken in the Northern Caucasus region, which is also counted as part of Europe.


Yes, you're right about that and those languages seem to be native to that region. OK, I should have written "in a large part of Europe lying west of Russia".


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## iezik

AndrasBP said:


> Do you know if there is any explanation (or at least a theory) as to why Basque is the only surviving pre-Indo-European language in Europe?



My preferred theory is Chaos theory: Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics and it is focused on the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions.

The languages of a given area change rather quickly. For example, French, Hungarian, English, Slovene were thousand years ago different languages than their current versions. Languages also changed by many successful invaders. So, the "map showing languages during different times" can be thought of as a dynamic system. Then, a chaotic system can have an attractor, a point that stays stable. One language can survive long time at the same place whereas the other places change languages faster.


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## CyrusSH

I think one of the main reasons was that Celtic people couldn't establish a strong empire in the west of Europe, if this thing happened then Basque culture would be absorbed into Celtic culture, like what happened to Etruscan and many other extinct cultures.


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## jimqk

Perhaps another way to look at this is to ask why have a few language families, above all Indo European, spread over most of the world? Is there some linguistic factor,  or is it just an accident of history?


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## Penyafort

The Pyrenees are also full with remote valleys, which is the reason why Romanization up there was slow in Ancient times, Muslims never really ruled there in the Middle Ages, and the upper varieties of Aragonese and Gascon have resisted much better the pressure of Spanish and French in modern times.

They are certainly a high barrier separating Iberia from Europe, the natural corridors for invasions being mostly on both sides of them. The core of the resistance of Basques (or perhaps Basco-Iberians) to the IE Celto-Roman invasions was along the feet of this mountain range, as toponomy shows.


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## ahvalj

If we look at the isolated language families in Western and Central Eurasia, Basque, three Caucasian families and Burushaski are confined to the mountains and only Yeniseyan is found in the plain (Yeniseian languages - Wikipedia).

Pre-Roman Hispania was actually not predominantly Celtic (Paleohispanic languages - Wikipedia).

The last attested non-Indo-European language of Western Europe to die out was probably Pictish that went extinct about a millennium ago. It is also fully possible that other non-Indo-European languages survived for some time here and there in small pockets, like North Picene did (North Picene language - Wikipedia).


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## Borin3

Don't forget Albanian language also survived


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## Stoggler

Albanian is Indo-European


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## Borin3

Albanian is Illyrian and Illyrian is pre-European


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## berndf

Borin3 said:


> Albanian is Illyrian and Illyrian is pre-European


Albanian cannot be assigned to any of the larger Indo-European branches but it is definitely an Indo-European language.


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## fdb

ahvalj said:


> The last attested non-Indo-European language of Western Europe to die out was probably Pictish that went extinct about a millennium ago.


 
Virtually nothing is known about Pictish, apart from a small handful of proper nouns. In the absence of facts, it is wide open to speculation. The majority of authors seem to think it was Celtic (and thus IE).


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## ahvalj

fdb said:


> Virtually nothing is known about Pictish, apart from a small handful of proper nouns. In the absence of facts, it is wide open to speculation. The majority of authors seem to think it was Celtic (and thus IE).


Bede writes:


> This island at present, following the number of the books in which the Divine law was written, contains five nations, the English, Britons, Scots, Picts, and Latins, each in its own peculiar dialect cultivating the sublime study of Divine truth.


(Internet History Sourcebooks)


> In short, he brought under his dominion all the nations and provinces of Britain, which are divided into four languages, viz. the Britons, the Picts, the Scots, and the English.


Internet History Sourcebooks
It thus seems that Pictish was not recognizably close to either Brittonic or Goidelic at Bede's time.

_Калыгин ВП, Королёв АА · 1989/2006 · Введение в кельтскую филологию: _199-201 write that:

of around 40 Caledonian tribal names, 16 are of a definite Celtic origin, and of 30 toponyms around 10;
while some king names (List of kings of the Picts - Wikipedia) in the "Pictish chronicle" are doubtlessly Celtic (_Artcois_), other (_Brude, Itharnan, Talargan_) remain completely obscure;
while the Pictish inscriptions in the Latin and Ogham scripts can be read quite reliably, their language, except for some words and personal names, cannot be interpreted and appears not only non-Celtic, but non-Indo-European as well, e. g. the Golspie inscription: _allhhallorr eddarr naivalarrenn _(https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/9863/Padel1972_FULL.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y — pp. 93–98);
in particular, a morpheme _-Vtt~-Vdd _(Genitive?) can be perhaps discerned in some cases: _Drosten Ipevoretett Forcus _(Drosten Stone - Wikipedia);_ iratadd oarens _(Brandsbutt Stone - Wikipedia); _ettucuhett sahehhttannn hcvvevv hehhtonn _(Lunnasting stone - Wikipedia).
It has been also suggested (K. H. Jackson, J. T. Koch) that there existed two Pictish languages: the Celtic one (_Aberdeen<Aber-deon<*aBBor-dēwon, _cp. Scottish _Obar Dheathain_ — Etymology of Aberdeen - Wikipedia) and that of the pre-Celtic (or newly arrived, per Bede) Picts.


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## berndf

Fdb's comment (_Virtually nothing is known about Pictish, apart from a small handful of proper nouns. In the absence of facts, it is wide open to speculation_.) summarised the situation very well and I can't see anything in what you wrote that is in contradiction to what he said.


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## ahvalj

berndf said:


> Fdb's comment (_Virtually nothing is known about Pictish, apart from a small handful of proper nouns. In the absence of facts, it is wide open to speculation_.) summarised the situation very well and I can't see anything in what you wrote that is in contradiction to what he said.


This story has been discussed during 200 years. What do adepts of the fully Celtic nature of Picts suggest to do with the personal names, toponyms and inscriptions not etymologizable on the Celtic ground?


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## jmx

A couple of facts about the place where Basque is currently spoken:

1) The area is often very rugged; the mountains are not particularly high but the hills and valleys alternate without any clear pattern or alignment; the roads can seldom adopt a straight line.

2) The type of weather with the oceanic influence lacks extremes of heat and cold; in addition rainfall is pretty regular even in summer. All this means that the area can have quite high population density just relying on agricultural resources, to which one can add several good spots for fishing ports.


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## AndrasBP

Thank you all for your input, it's been very interesting. So it seems that mountains do have something to do with the survival of Basque, while most of the other factors may never be clearly established.


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## ahvalj

AndrasBP said:


> it seems that mountains do have something to do with the survival of Basque


Though it didn't help to the Picts:


> In graves that were like children's
> On many a mountain head,
> The Brewsters of the Heather
> Lay numbered with the dead.


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## Stoggler

I suspect that mountains have helped a number of languages around the world to survive when surrounding areas have experienced linguistic change.  Wales and (Scottish) Gaelic come to my mind - both those languages have survived (just!) thanks to the difficult nature of the terrain - they were difficult places for a conquering army to truly control or they haven't been especially tempting places for outsiders to colonise


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