Talk:Late Basquisation

Deletion?

This hypothesis is based in very specific (and peculiar) sources and does not follow NPOV (no criticisms, no other opinions).

It certainly ignores ancient historical sources that state that Cantabrians (west of modern southern Basques) and Aquitanians (historical northern Basques) were "relatives", as well as the fact that the ethnonym Vascones is first attested south of the Pyrenees (more or less, as the Pyrenees were never a real border) and later extended to include other Basque-speaking peoples such as the ancient Aquitani. It ignores the epygraphic evicence of Iruña-Veleia, the parallel in votive epygraphy at both sides of the Pyrenees (see: Aquitanian language, widespread toponimic evidence and, well, nearly everything of relevance in this issue.

Would the hypothesis be about an earlier and more obscure date, like the Bronze or Iron Age maybe, then it could make some sense. But this sounds to the lats piece of Spanish nationalist propaganda under a varnish of presumpt scholarship, much like the Vasco-Berber hypothesis or the reverse hypothesis of southern Basques conquering the north in the very same time frame, not long ago still held by the French academy.

The article is authored by a single anonymous author who backs it with a single unknown and probably not relevant author. The sources are no easy to contrast because they lack ISBN and the only online citation is a broken link (of a right-wing Spanish nationalist newspaper). --Sugaar (talk) 18:53, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I've copied the article from the Castillian wikipedia, but I plan to add more information as soon as I finish copying their article. Well, your criticism includes so many points. If you have sources for them, why don't you include a criticism section into the article? Most of the text is based on Francisco Villar's 2005 book, the only book I'm aware of which has tried to summarize the data, the studies, and the opinion of paleo-Hispanists on this very important issue. The fact that you're not familiar with Francisco Villar's work, and laughably dismisses it as the product of a "probably not relevant author", in a very serious way questions your credentials in trying to argue the issue and the arguments presented in the article.

(1) Many philologists and paleo-Hispanists seem to be adept of the Late basquenization, and that includes Jurgen Untermann, who for some time has been considered the greatest expert on paleo-Hispanic languages. Since the hypothesis has found adepts in many notable and well known linguists, then it is notable enough to be in wikipedia, especially because it concerns the Basques, who in the last years have been evoked to explain the origins of pretty much the entire western European populations. Be noted that Jurgen Untermann is not even Spaniard, so I don't believe it is possible to dismiss by use of ad hominem his contributions on the matter as the product of veiled Spanish nationalism.

(2) Untermann and Villar subscribe to the same opinion, that Basque-speakers came to Iberia after the arrival of the Celts, based on the fact that the vast majority of the Iberian onomasty has an Indo-European character, and that includes the areas historically considered non-Indo-European (and that includes the Basque Countries and Navarra, etc.). Both differ, however, in that Untermann attributes this Indo-European onomasty to the Celtic laguages, while Villar attributes it to an even more remote, however still hypothetical, Indo-European strata, the Alteuropaisch. The consensus amongst linguists favours Villar's (along with others) hypothesis.

(3) The text mentions many lines of evidence, which includes genetic and archealogical data and discoveries. I don't see how the information mentioned by you nullifies anything contained in the article (you even cite Iruña-Veleia archeaological findings, which clearly belong to the Roman period, as evidence against the hypothesis). Explain how they do.

(4) You cite "widespread toponimic evidence" against the Late basquenization, however I ask you, "how?" Both toponymy and hydronymy in the Basque country have an overwhelming Indo-European character. When trying to defend the nativeness of the Basque language in the South Pyrenees, the only piece of onomastisc evidence Michelena could use was based on theonymy, which as it is known can much more easily be changed by recent linguistic transformations than either hydronymy and toponymy. In Viscaya, Álava, and Gupúzcoa, Villar counted 32 toponymys registered in ancient historical sources, 2 of which were Latin, 6 were Celtic, and 20 Indo-European proper... and 1 Euskera. In the Basque country, 38 toponymies were counted: 1 Celtic, 2 Iberian, 5 Latin, and 25 Indo-European proper. Only one had Euskera character, and there's strong evidence it didn't precede Roman days (after all, it was the apelative Latin-Eukera Pompaelo). Explain what do you mean by "widespread toponimic evidence" supports the Euskera nativeness. Even Gómez Moreno, who advocated the nativeness of the Euskera, recognized there was no linguistic evidence for Basque nativeness, however, because Indo-Europeans must have arrived only recently in Iberia, and other peoples and languages must have inhabited it before their arrival, then, well, the Basque must have been at least one of such languages...

The fact that you're clearly inexperienced with the issue didn't preclude you from questioning the articles' sources and information; I believe this is caused by many persons, especially professional and amateur geneticists, who don't have expertise on the matter, feeling entitled to comment on it and favour the hypotheses which they personally like or the ones that fit the discoveries on their fields. This when they themselves don't turn into amateur "linguists" and make a fool of themselves in the eyes of most professionals. Thus we see Cavalli-Sforza telling his readers that, without a doubt, the ancient Basque presence in the Iberia peninsula corresponds to the first three isoglosses of the first principal component of the Iberian geographical-genetic map, and that is supported by toponimic evidence. He doesn't tell the whole story, of course, and he probably doesn't know the whole story. And we see amateur "population geneticist" S. Oppenheimer arguing that Indo-European languages started to separate from PIE just after the last Ice Age because fellow geneticists-turned-linguists calculated such a rate of separation based on vocabulary divergence. Well...189.70.119.42 (talk) 04:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

And the fact that ABC.es is conservativelly oriented is irrelevant to the matter, since it was not some of their editors' opinions which was quoted, instead it was quotations from a Spanish linguist on his recently published books. I've updated the link. The bibliography section is yet to be added because, as I said previously, new information will be added, and along with new bibliography, copied from the Castillian wikipedia. I thought only the books' names were necessary to consider a citation to be properly referenced, but I'm going to immediately add the bibliography section with the works cited as of now.189.70.119.42 (talk) 05:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

More references

In the first version of the Spanish article a relevant quote by the linguist Larry Trask was missing:

On the other hand, the geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza and his collegues have recently been constructing a genetic map of Europe, and they conclude that the Basques are, genetically speaking, strikingly different from their neighbours (Cavalli-Sforza 1988; Bertandpetit and Cavalli-Sforza 1991; Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994. These workers find a sharply defined genetic gradient separating the population of the Basque Country from the other inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, and somewaht more diffuse gradient separating them from the other people from France, with the south-west of France showing marked affinities with the Basque Country, an observation which is strongly in harmony with the linguistic evidence discussed below.

— p.9

Nevertheless, most specialists are satisfied that the Basque language was introduced into much of the Basque Country in post-Roman times, most likely during the Visigothic period discussed above. Consequently, the traditional view that Basque is a language of Spain which has extended itself to the north of the Pyrenees has had to be revised: wenow see Basque as a language of Gaul which spread south and west.
Even today, there is a debate about the likely frontiers of Aquitanian south of the Pyrenees. Some scholars would like to see the city of Calagurris in the Ebro valley, described by Roman sources as lying within the territory of the Vascones, as Basque-speaking, and some would place Basque-speakers in much of modern Aragon. Here I note that the evidence for such views is sparse in the extreme, and most specialists, I think, would be reluctant to posit Basque speech so far south and east.
[...] South of the Pyrenees, the language not only survived but apparently spread into the entire territory of the modern Basque Country, and, some time after the fourth century, probably earlier rather than later, Basque-speakers expanded into the Rioja and Burgos to the southwest. [...]

— p. 39

At present there is an intense debate in the Spanish Wikipedia [1] [2] [3] on whether to delete, move or reorganise the article. A number of arguments have been introduced, being the strongest one, in my opinion, the claim that it contains "original research".

• It is certainly true that the section called "Evidence" relates a number of factors that have not been put together by any scholarly publication as yet.
• Also it is important to make clear that the statement "recent archaeological findings of Aquitanian morphology point to an important migration dated in the V-VI centuries and give the theory a new breath" has not been made by the authors cited (not at least by Agustín Azkarate, or Iñaki García Camino). They agree on the Aquitanian connection of the findings but do not infer from it that there was a migration. The archaeologist Cepeda (2001) and the linguist Villar (2005) do however posit the possibility [4].
• The idea of the "late basquenization" is not unitary, in the sense that some scholars see it as being caused by the "pressure of the Celtic invasions" (Rodríguez Adrados), and others as a postroman collonisation by Basques from Navarre (Sánchez Albornoz) or by people from North of the Pyrenees (Villar, Trask).

On the other hand

• The article needs not ignore Basque epygraphy found at Iruña-Veleia, which could be dated as late as the VI century. Whether it is finally authentified or not is still a pending question (and some scholars, as Gorrochategui and Lakarra seem to have strong doubts about it).
• The "late basquenization" hypothesis was mentioned by Michelena in at least three publications (Michelena 1961-62, 1977, 1982), and he not only attributed it to Gómez Moreno and Sánchez Albornoz, but also to Schulten and Menéndez Pidal.
• In fact, the first author to suggest the idea was the 17th century Mauléonnais historian Arnauld de Oihenart
• Other authors which seem to reject the hypothesis are Javier de Hoz (1981) and Plazaola (2000).
• However Basque archaeologists (such as Cepeda 2001 and others) support it.

See my reference page with relevant fragments from all these authors showing different views on this appealing hypothesis [5]. Regards, --JosebaAbaitua (talk) 03:53, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

The Wikipedia page on Iruña-Veleia says "It was alleged to contain the oldest known texts written in the Basque language as well as, allegedly, the oldest representation of the crucifixion of Jesus found to date, but soon after the findings proved to be fake" with citations. I am therefore deleting the reference to the supposed finds on this page. --Genie (talk) 21:59, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

References

I think this is important to mention and update: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/12/europe/spain-archeologist-sentenced-intl-scli/index.html "Spanish archaeologist gets jail sentence for faking his finds". A Spanish court in Vitoria-Gateiz has considered the supposed Iruña-Veleia epygraphic findinds (they were alleged to contain the oldest known texts written in the Basque language) as a proven forgery based on investigation. "On Wednesday, the head of a court in Vitoria-Gasteiz found Gil guilty of forgery and fraud, sentencing him to two years, three months and 23 days in prison." This means that an archaelogist has forged a finding to claim that Basque language was already spoken in a region than actually it was. This has serious implications. There are people that are quite hostile to the "Late Basquisation" hypothesis for a number a reasons, some of them are understandable, but this is beyond academical discussion.--Bird Vision (talk) 09:51, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposed move

• Yuck, that is one ugly word. If anything, Basquisation is used in English (mostly in Gov't stuff to do with modern day euskalduntze but the concept is the same. I suggest we move it. Akerbeltz (talk) 15:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
• The move is unopposed and unblocked by any redirects, so if you'd like to move it, I think you should feel free to do so. Dekimasuよ! 10:14, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
• "Basque", being a proper noun, has a capital letter, and thus so in English does any noun or verb or adjective formed from it, e.g. France / French. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:45, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Not necessarily. See romanization, for example. I was actually surprised that we leave Westernization capitalized as well. Of course, you are correct when it comes to Americanization, Anglicization, Hellenization, etc. Dekimasuよ! 15:45, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Since no one responeded for a long time, I moved the page way back. I agree with your comments above but the thing is, in those rare instances of the word being used in English texts, the term used is Basquisation, not Basquenization. Akerbeltz (talk) 19:23, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Julio Cesar tells us that Gaul was occupied by the Belgians Aquitans and Celts, with different customs, laws and languages. There are Roman and pre-Roman stelae written in Basque in what was then Aquitania, therefore it is logical to think that they spoke this language. When the Romans went into Aquitaine, acording to Cesar fifty thousand men from Aquitaine and Cantabria fought with them. Cantabrians were not supposed they are Celtic because they did not go to help them in previous years, in which Cesar massacred them and to help and understand to the aquitans, is needed to speak the same language. The latter is further confirmed by the writings of Strabo. "The aquitanos not only the language but also by body structure are more like the Iberians that the Gauls" Strabo IV 1 (176)

In my opinion 50 years BC the inhabitants of cantabric that Cesar call Cantabros, spoke the same language as the aquitans. They dont need to learn basque 600 years later . --Nireizena (talk) 23:50, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

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Criticism

Although the lead mentions that it's a minority hypothesis, neither the body nor the lead mention why it's not mainstream. —PaleoNeonate – 20:05, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: Yes this is quite problematic, this article might need expansion from someone who is well versed in the subject.★Trekker (talk) 23:48, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Because it's basically Villar's pet idea and no other serious vasconists think it has merit. Fortunately on Wikipedia we're not obliged to prove something is non-mainstream as long as the mainstream view is reasonably well referenced. There are too many fringe theories out there, it'd be a serious waste of manpower to disprove them all, as it's a bit of a game of whack-a-mole :) Akerbeltz (talk) 11:49, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree that that is very true, but still it worries me that someone might come across the article and get the wrong impression from it.★Trekker (talk) 21:15, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

We could just add "a hypothesis put forward by Villar" into the lead? Akerbeltz (talk) 13:45, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Could be a good idea.★Trekker (talk) 21:44, 17 February 2023 (UTC)