Euskara, The basque language

Homo sapiens first arrived in this corner of Europe some 35,000 years ago. For around 8,000 years, they shared the space with another species of human, Homo neanderthalensis —Neanderthal man— before it finally became extinct.

During the Ice Age, the population of the groups occupying the western part of Europe declined due to the rigours of the climate.
Those that were left tended to gather around the ice-free areas bordering the Bay of Biscay.

Just over 5,000 years ago, Indo-European tribes first began to settle in Europe; researchers agree that the Basque language predates their arrival.

As the ice retreated around 11,500 years ago, the human groups who had survived the cold in the Franco-Cantabrian area began to migrate, repopulating the ice-free territories on Europe's Atlantic Coast as far as Scandinavia and today’s Britain and Ireland.

As the ice retreated around 11,500 years ago, the human groups who had survived the cold in the Franco-Cantabrian area began to migrate, repopulating the ice-free territories on Europe's Atlantic Coast as far as Scandinavia and today’s Britain and Ireland. Linguists such as Theo Venneman and Elisabeh Hamel and geneticists such as Peter Forster and Stephen Oppenheimer are engaged in studying this period.

Several studies of Europe’s founding genetic lines reveal that the Basques have the highest percentage of maternal lineages of Palaeolithic origin in Europe. In addition, the Neolithic component has been estimated as being among the lowest in the continent. There is also a noticeable absence of Asian and African maternal lineages among the Basques. In summary, Basques have a majority component of Palaeolithic maternal lineages, considerably higher to that of other European
populations.

Cro-Magnon were the subspecies of Homo sapiens that first settled this part of Europe.

Cro-Magnon are believed to have had greater language capacity, because of their more sophisticated phonic apparatus and
because their brains were better suited for symbolic thought and expression in shapes and pictorial representations. Throughout this area some extraordinary manifestations of wall paintings and art mobilier have been found at sites such as Altamira, Isturitz, Aitzpitarte, Altxerri, Ekain, Lascaux, Santimamiñe and Praileaitz I.

The Basque language resisted the Europe-wide spread of the Indo-European peoples between the third and second millennia B.C. throughout present-day Europe. Traces of Basque can be found in the place names of Germany, England, Scotland, France, Ireland, Spain, Italy and Sardinia. These waves of Germans, Slavs, Greeks and Italians later reached Europe's Atlantic Coast, where they mixed with indigenous populations.

At the beginning of the Christian Era, the Basque lands lay within the area of influence of the Roman Empire. Basque, which is thought to have been the language of the first European settlers, predating the arrival of the Indo-Europeans, was also the only pre-Roman tongue to survive the incursion of Latin in the area conquered by Rome. With the decline of Roman rule from the fifth century on, the Vascones kept up a constant fight with the Visigothic people who sought to dominate the Ebro valley, and then with the Franks who had settled in Aquitaine. After the fall of Rome, Basque reinforced its position, spreading to its maximum territorial extension by the year 1000.

Some specialists believe that old Basque is the former Aquitaine language. For others, it is the ancient language of Europe.
Researching the origin of European place names, they relate the Basque language to that of the prehistoric inhabitants of Europe, before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans. These theses consider that there was a common language or of families of languages with a shared root, related to Basque, which were spoken in parts of Europe. Early Basque (proto-Euskera) would therefore be the language of the first European settlers. At the time of Caesar's Gallic Wars (58-51 BC), the language was used as far north as the River Garonne, north of Bordeaux and as far east as Toulouse, and in the south as far as the middle Ebro valley.

Basque was the only pre-Roman language to survive Latin in the area conquered by Rome. Two millennia later, despite the great influence of medieval, classic and ecclesiastical Latin, and later of Romance languages, the Basque language has retained its features.