Language family Vasconic Linguist list xaq | ISO 639-3 xaq | |
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Extinct by the Early Middle Ages(except in the Northern Basque Country) | ||
The Aquitanian language was spoken on both sides of the western Pyrenees in ancient Aquitaine (approximately between the Pyrenees and the Garonne, the region later known as Gascony) and in the areas south of the Pyrenees in the valleys of the Basque Country before the Roman conquest. It probably survived in Aquitania until the Early Middle Ages.
Contents
Archaeological, toponymical, and historical evidence show that it was a Vasconic language or group of languages that represent a precursor of the Basque language. The most important pieces of evidence are a series of votive and funerary texts in Latin which contain about 400 personal names and 70 names of gods.
History
Aquitanian and its related descendant, Basque, are commonly thought to be a remnant of the languages spoken in Western Europe before the arrival of Indo-European speakers. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza's studies of the genetic history of Europe identified a cline of genes with highest frequencies in the Basque country, and lower levels beyond the area of Iberia and Southern France. Cavalli-Sforza describes this weakest of the five patterns he obtained as isolated remnants of the pre-Neolithic population of Europe. It corresponds roughly to the geographical spread of rhesus negative blood types. Cavalli-Sforza's conclusion that the Basques are a genetic isolate as well as a linguistic one has since been widely discussed and sometimes challenged.
It may be possible to trace the Aquitanians more or less directly back to the Chalcolithic culture of Artenac, but the age of the Aquitanian language, and of the Basque language, is uncertain. Some contend that Basque dates to the age of metal; others, citing the derivation of words for "knife" (aizto), "ax" (aizkora) and "hoe" (aitzur) from the word for "stone" (haitz), conclude that the language dates to the Stone Age or Neolithic period, when those tools were made of stone.
Persons' names and gods' names
Almost all of the Aquitanian inscriptions that have been found north of the Pyrenees are in the territory that Greek and Roman sources assigned to Aquitanians.
Some inscriptions have also been found south of the Pyrenees in the territory that Greek and Roman sources assigned to Vascones:
Relations with other languages
Most Aquitanian onomastic elements are clearly identifiable from a Basque perspective, matching closely the forms reconstructed by the vascologist Koldo (Luis) Mitxelena for Proto-Basque:
The vascologist Joaquín Gorrochategui, who has written several works on Aquitanian, and Mitxelena have pointed the similarities of some Iberian onomastic elements with Aquitanian. In particular, Mitxelena spoke about an onomastic pool from which both Aquitanian and Iberian would have drawn:
For other more marginal theories see Basque language: Hypotheses on connections with other languages.
Geographical extent
Since ancient times there have been indications of a relationship between Southwestern France and the Basques. During the Roman conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar, Aquitania was the territory between Garonne and the Pyrenees. It was inhabited by tribes of horsemen who Caesar said were very distinct in customs and language from the Celts of Gaul. During the Middle Ages, this territory was named Gascony, derived from Vasconia and cognate with the word Basque.
There are many clues that indicate that Aquitanian was spoken in the Pyrenees, at least as far east as Val d'Aran. The placenames that end in ‑os, ‑osse, ‑ons, ‑ost and ‑oz are considered to be of Aquitanian origin, such as the place-name Biscarrosse, which is directly related to the city of Biscarrués (note the Navarro-Aragonese phonetic change) south of the Pyrenees. "Biscar" (modern Basque spelling: "bizkar") means "ridge-line". Such suffixes in place-names are ubiquitous in east of Navarre and Aragon, with the classical medieval ‑os > ‑ues taking place in stressed syllables, pointing to a language continuum both sides of the Pyrenees. This strong formal element can be traced at either side of the mountain range as far west as an imaginary line roughly stretching from Pamplona to Bayonne (compare Bardos/Bardoze, Ossès/Ortzaize, Briscous/Beskoitze), where it ceases to appear.
Other than place-names and little written evidence, the picture is not very clear at the west of the Basque Country, as the historical record is scant. The territory was inhabited by the Caristii, Varduli and Autrigones, and has been claimed as either Basque or Celtic depending on the author, since Indo-European lexical elements have been found underlying or intertwined in place-names from nature, like rivers or mountains (Butron, Nervion, Deba/Deva, suffix ‑ika etc.) in an otherwise generally Basque linguistic landscape, or Spanish, especially in Álava.
Archaeological findings in Iruña-Veleia in 2006 were initially claimed as evidence of the antiquity of Basque in the south but were subsequently dismissed as forgery.
The Cantabrians are also mentioned as relatives or allies of Aquitanians: they sent troops to fight on their side against the Romans.
The Vascones who occupied modern Navarra, are usually identified with the Basques (Vascos in Spanish), their name being one of the most important pieces of evidence. In 1960, a stele with Aquitanian names was found in Lerga, which could reinforce the idea that Basques and Aquitanians were related. The ethnic and linguistic kinship is confirmed by Julio Caro Baroja, who considers the Aquitanian-Basque relation an ancient and medieval stage ahead of the well-attested territorial shrinking process undergone by the Basque language during the Modern Age.