Basques
| Note: This article is about the Basque County of Spain For basque (clothing), see : Basque |
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The Basques (/bɑːsks/ or /bæsks/; Basque: euskaldunak [eus̺kaldunak]; Spanish: vascos [ˈbaskos]; French: basques [bask]) are a Southwestern European ethnic group, characterized by the Basque language, a common culture and shared genetic ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. Basques are indigenous to and primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country (Basque: Euskal Herria), a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.
The Pyrenees mountains which straddle the Spanish/French border is the home of the Basques, the Catalonias (capital Barcelona), Zaragozan and Andorra peoples. Each of these "states" produced their own money and postage stamps. Today, the Basques curerrency is the Eusko while the rest use Euros. [Note 1]
Etymology of the word Basque
The English word Basque may be pronounced /bɑːsk/ or /bæsk/ and derives from the French Basque (French: [bask]), which is derived from Gascon Basco. These, in turn, come from Latin Vascō (pronounced [ˈwaskoː]; plural Vascōnes—see history section below). The Latin /w/ generally evolved into the bilabials /b/ and /β̞/ in Gascon and Spanish, probably under the influence of Basque and its relation Aquitanian (the Latin /w/ instead evolved into /v/ in French, Italian and other Romance languages).
Several coins from the 2nd and 1st centuries BC found in the Basque Country bear the inscription barscunes. The place where they were minted is not certain, but is thought to be somewhere near Pamplona, in the heartland of the area that historians believe was inhabited by the Vascones. Some scholars have suggested a Celtic etymology based on bhar-s-, meaning "summit", "point" or "leaves", according to which barscunes may have meant "the mountain people", "the tall ones" or "the proud ones", while others have posited a relationship to a proto-Indo-European root *bar- meaning "border", "frontier", "march".
In Basque, people call themselves the euskaldunak, singular euskaldun, formed from euskal- (i.e. "Basque (language)") and -dun (i.e. "one who has"); euskaldun literally means a Basque speaker. Not all Basques are Basque-speakers. Therefore, the neologism euskotar, plural euskotarrak, was coined in the 19th century to mean a culturally Basque person, whether Basque-speaking or not. Alfonso Irigoyen posits that the word euskara is derived from an ancient Basque verb enautsi "to say" (cf. modern Basque esan) and the suffix -(k)ara ("way (of doing something)"). Thus euskara would literally mean "way of saying", "way of speaking". One item of evidence in favour of this hypothesis is found in the Spanish book Compendio Historial, written in 1571 by the Basque writer Esteban de Garibay. He records the name of the Basque language as enusquera. It may, however, be a writing mistake.
In the 19th century, the Basque nationalist activist Sabino Arana posited an original root euzko which, he thought, came from eguzkiko ("of the sun", related to the assumption of an original solar religion). On the basis of this putative root, Arana proposed the name Euzkadi for an independent Basque nation, composed of seven Basque historical territories. Arana's neologism Euzkadi (in the regularized spelling Euskadi) is still widely used in both Basque and Spanish, since it is now the official name of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country.
Basque Americans in California
The presence of Basques in California dates back four centuries. Basque explorers arrived in what is now California in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. There is a significant presence of Basque-Americans in the Bakersfield area. Many of Bakersfield's oldest and most historic restaurants are Basque, including Woolgrowers, Noriega's, Pyrenees, Benji's, and Narducci's. Memorial Day weekend features the Kern County Basque Festival, sponsored by the Kern County Basque Club. This three-day festival features food, music, dance, and handball games. Explorer Juan Bautista de Anza was of Basque heritage.
Notes
- ↑ While thereis a straight one-to-one Euro to Eusko exchange rate , there is a five percent fee for cponvwerting Euskos to Euros.
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