Late Basquisation

Updated on Oct 30, 2023

Edit

Comment

Late Basquisation is a much debated hypothesis which places the arrival of the first Basque-speakers in north-eastern Iberia from Aquitaine in the 5th or 6th century CE.

Main theories

The Basque language is a language isolate that has survived the arrival of Indo-European languages in western Europe.

There are two main hypotheses concerning the historical geographical spread of the Basque or proto-Basque language:

Basque or proto-Basque occupied since prehistory its historically attested boundaries (Southern Basque Country and Northern Basque Country), and some neighbouring areas (Bearn, Aragon valley, Rioja, eastern fringes of Castile), plus perhaps other former territories around the Pyrenees all over Gascony and sub-Pyrenean regions to the south.

At the end of the Roman Republic and during the first hundreds of years of the Empire, migration of Basque-speakers from Aquitaine overlapped with an autochthonous population whose most ancient substrate would be Indo-European. The migration is alleged to have increased, with peaks in the 6th and 7th centuries.

In his 2008 book Historia de las Lenguas de Europa (History of the Languages of Europe), the Spanish philologist and hellenist Francisco Rodríguez Adrados has updated the debate by arguing that the Basque language is older in Aquitaine than in the Spanish Basque country, and it now inhabits its current territory because of pressure of the Celtic invasions.

Evidence

According to this perspective, over a more ancient autochthonous Indo-European occupation, evidence appears of important Celtic establishments in the current territory of the Basque Country (though apparently not in the Pyrenean valleys of Navarre). Both cultures coexisted, the Celtic elements being socially predominant, until the arrival of the Romans. This is observed all over Álava and Biscay, thus being concluded that the Caristii and Varduli were not Basque tribes or peoples, but that they were Indo-Europeans like their neighbors Autrigones, Cantabri, and Beroni.

Late Basquisation is supported by the following evidence:

Abundance of ancient Indo-European onomasty before Romanization (as pointed out by María Lourdes Albertos Firmat).

Absence of vestiges in Basque language prior to romanization, in stark contrast with Aquitaine.

Deep romanization of the Basque depression (both the ager and the saltus, as indicated by Caro Baroja and Juan José Cepeda).

Expansion of the Basque language in the Early Middle Ages.

Homogeneity of the Basque dialects in the Early Middle Ages (pointed out by Luis Michelena).

Archaeological vestiges (Aldaieta, Alegría, etc.)

The genetic boundary between the Basques and their southern neighbors is quite abrupt, while it has a more diffuse character between Basques and their northern neighbors, which might indicate a displacement from Aquitaine to the south. (Cavalli-Sforza).

References

Late Basquisation Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

Contents

Main theories

Evidence

References