Document Actions

Language

There are three official languages in Euskal Herria: Euskara, Spanish and French.Euskara, which is also known as Basque, is Euskal Herria's strongest sign of cultural identity. Even nowadays, the origin of Euskara is an unsolved linguistic and historic enigma. Its roots are not known, and according to linguists, Euskara is not related to any other current or historical language.
The lines of work followed by the Basque scholars have consisted in searching for the connection of Euskara with other languages, among which are the African languages (Berber, Guanche, Somali, Egyptian...), Caucasian languages (Georgian, Russian...) and dead languages.

The first words written in Euskara are those found in the Basque-Aquitaine and Pyrenees funeral wakes from Roman times (1st Century). They could be names of gods and goddesses: sembe > seme (child), anderex > andere (lady), cison > gizon (man), nescato > neskato (girl). At present they correspond to common nouns in our vocabulary.


Document Actions
http://www.euskosare.org/euskal_herria/aurkezpena_eh/hizkuntza/language/eks_structuredocument_view