Journal dune femme de chambre (Classiques t. 32241) (French Edition)

More fanciful theories exist, as well.

One is that the Basques are the descendents of the survivors of Atlantis. Where does the Basque language come from? Just as no one is sure about the origins of the Basques themselves, linguists are not in agreement over the origins of Euskara, the Basque language, either. In Basque, the word euskara is not capitalized, but when using it in English, it is customary to capitalize it, just as we capitalize the names of other languages. Although there are theories none of them proven beyond a doubt that Basque is related to other languages such as the Georgian family of languages in the Caucasus, or the Berber language family of Africa, or even the Quechua language of Latin America , so far the only thing most experts agree on is that Euskara is in a language family by itself.

That is, it is not related to any other language in the world. It is, therefore, not an Indo-European language the large group to which English, French, Spanish, and Russian belong. How many Basque Speakers are there in the Basque Country? There are less than , fluent speakers in the Autonomous Community of Euskadi Araba, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and about , more who have learned some Basque but are not considered fluent.

Since most of the Basque speakers of the world live in that area, these numbers give us a close estimate of the number worldwide. Despite persistent theories about where the Basques came from everything from a lost tribe of Israel to refugees from Atlantis , there is no evidence that the Basques of ancient times lived anywhere other than where they are now, in the Pyrenees Mountains of northern Spain and southern France. The evidence available suggests that the Basques are the descendents of prehistoric man dating from the Lower Palaeolithic.

Discovered in at Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, Ardeche, France Prehistoric cave paintings have been discovered in several mountain caves in the Basque homeland. Dolmen de Mazerlegos near Burgos, Spain. Menag in Malaga, Spain -- the largest dolmen in Europe. Thousands of megalithic sites remain throughout areas of early Basque occupation in Spain, France and Portugal. The Basques are known to have had their distinctive language as early as 7, BC, and they have the last remaining non-IndoEuropean language in the area.

Their language, Euskara, is the oldest surviving language in all of Europe; many of their words for tools still incorporate the word for stone. Attempts to link the Basque language with others, such as the Berbers of northern Africa, the Mayans and Old Sanscrit have not worked out. Basque has not been shown to be related to any other language on earth. Those used to European languages found Basque very difficult to learn. There was an old story that the devil spent seven years among the Basques to learn their language, but only managed to learn three words; when he crossed a bridge to leave the land of the Basques, he forgot those.

Many Basque words have entered other European languages. For example, laranga 'that which was first eaten' is the origin of the word orange one of the few words in the English language that no other word rhymes with , and Basque sailors swearing 'by Janicot' gave rise to the British 'by jingo. Writings are known from other nearby peoples, such as the now assimilated Iberians of southeastern Spain. The Iberians also had a non-IndoEuropean language, which has so far defied translation.

Some of the oldest tombstones of the Basques were said to contain some kind of writing, but the Christian missionaries destroyed them. For as long as anyone can remember, they have had seven provinces; the oldest is called Gipuzkoa Gu-iz-puzk-ko-ak , which means 'we whose language was broken. A typical Basque house livestock often lived on the first floor. Those in the mountains raised sheep, while those along the water were fishermen and traders.

Every Basque meal was accompanied by bread ogi and cider sagardo , and cider-houses were common in the countryside. Basques are normally dark-haired, small to medium statue, with broad chests developed from living in the thin air on mountains. Most Basques have type O blood, with a high incidence of RH negative. The mountain town of Tolosa in Gipuzkoa. The Basque Domingo de Carnaval in the seaport of Mundaka. Egia truth , the light of the soul, Begia eye , the light of the body and Etchia sun , the light of the earthly day. The divine light manifested on Earth as three powers: Erditze the Fruitful , of the high pastures, Beigorri the Passionate , of the red earth and Alherbeltze the Crusher , of the black rocks.

Alherbeltze later shortened to Bel ruled the stone circles erected throughout what is modern day France and Spain by the Basques, and the three manifestations of divine light in human affairs celebrated therein: The stones were often carved with representations of the fact that here the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds was thin: The two worlds are inhabited equally by men and are therefore equal themselves.

Bel's reign was celebrated on May 1 usually with a Maypole Dance , while Leheren's reign was celebrated November 1; of course, in the days before mechanical clocks, each day started at sunset the day before. The 3X3 manifestations of the divine were represented by the Circle of Nine, a circle with nine stones; sometimes the ninth stone was horizontal, with two uprights flanking. The Path of the Three-fold Light is followed by Basque mystics, but Basque Witches follow more down-to-earth hierarchies. Mari is the oldest and supreme goddess of the Basques.

She is the goddess of thunder and wind, the personification of the earth. The Dragon Maju also called Sugaar , lord of thunder, is her husband, and her twin sons are one good Atarrabi , one evil Mikelats. Encounters between Mari and Maju result in terible thunderstorms. Mari protects travelers and the herds and gives good council to humans. She rides through the sky on a chariot of fire, and sometimes assumes the shape of the rainbow. Mari "queen" is represented as a woman with a full moon behind her head, or in an animal shape. Her symbol is the sickle.

Although Mari is said to live in the deepest caves, stone circles where she is worshipped are typically erected on the summits of many mountains. In a later pantheon, Mari became the earth goddess Lur, whose husband was the sky god Ortzi also called Ost and whose children were twin girls, Ekhi the Sun also called Eguzki and Ilazki the Moon also called Illargui or Iretargui.

One beam of Ekhi's light destroys the spells of evil wizards, while Ilazki's light guides the souls of the dead. Lesser spirits are the Laminak fairies , the Lamiak water nymphs or mermaids and Basajaun satyrs of the forests. The Basajauns are an ancient race who taught man many of the arts of civilization or alternately, were tricked out of the knowledge by humans. They typically warn shepards that a storm is coming by whistling. Additionally, ancient stone circles on mountains are said to have been built by the Intxitxu, invisible spirits of the ancestors. From the cemetary at Argineta, Ellorio, Bizkaia Basque tombstone.

Both the Greeks and the Basques of ancient times believed that the first people were centaurs. The very word centaur is derived from the Basque word Zalzaval horse-man. Cave art from Ekain Deba - Guipuzcoa , 25, B. Cave art from Lagarma Cantabria , 15, B. Cave art from Santimamine Kortezubi-Vizcaya , 17, B. Many prehistoric cave paintings in the Pyrenees depict the horse, and one of the oldest Basque festivals the Rigodon dance, from erri-goi-doi, meaning "City of Heaven" features a man in the horse costume zamalzain, the horse-man dancing around a cup, variously referred to as the Grail or the entrance to the spirit world.

Today, this is a glass of wine. The zamalzain, in his dance, plays the part of a shaman in instructing the watchers how to gain entrance to Errigodoi. The Basques used to refer to themselves as the descendents of the Centaurs Cantavres , who came to earth on the mountain ridge at Oca today, Demanda in the center of an ancient island. In ancient times, the Basque area of Europe was indeed an island. In the 9th century, Beato de Liebana of the Monastery of Liebana wrote a manuscript called 'Comentarios al Apocalipsis' which included a Mapa Mundi showing the Basque region as an island; he copied this map from ancient documents preserved in the monastery.

When a group of Basques settled in Britain between 9, and 5, BC, they took with them the worship of Bel, his Holy Day of May 1, and the building of stone circles. Later, the Beaker People arrived and mixed with the Basques, bringing their innovations, such as working silver and gold.

When the Greek geographer Pytheas sailed around Britain in BC, he called them the Pretanic Isles because the inhabitants called themselves the Priteni. This evolved into Prytani Prytaini, Prydaini , and later became Britanni. The inner chambers of these structures were used for ritualistic purposes, and the Prytani buried their dead in a fetal position so they would be ready for rebirth. At Belteine, the rebirth of summer was celebrated with bonfires atop many hills, where cattle were driven through the flames to ensure their fertility for the coming year and the people also jumped through the flames.

The Prytani also worshipped the Old Serpent, who was thought to travel across the countryside on straight paths at certain times of the year. The old straight tracks called ley lines today that criss-cross Britain between standing stones have been dated to between BC and BC. Pict carved stones from Scotland. Left, a cup and ring Pict carving from Scotland. Right, a Pict running cross lauburu from northern England; this is the oldest and most extensive design in Basque art. The Circle of Nine.

The Prytani were masters of brewing a special ale from heather flowers that was so good, the Celts who came later greatly coveted the secret of the brew. Neolithic shards dated to BC show traces of the fermented heather ale, so we know this was one of the oldest drinks of the Prytani. It was from this ale that the Celts later made the first whiskey. The story goes that a clan of Celts was brewing heather ale one cool night when the vapor from the brew condensed on their stone roof and ran into a drinking cup. When one of the Celts drank it, he thought he had discovered the fabled 'water of life,' uisge-beatha.

When the English later conquered the Celts and ordered the making of heather ale stopped, the Celts replied, "Pog mo thon! When the Celts swept through the lowland empire of the Basques in Gaul the Basques retreated to the safety of their seven mountain strongholds , the Celts adopted the Basque short sword later borrowed by the Romans and the worship of Bel.

Thus, when the Celts entered Britain in force to face a thousand years of warfare against almost a million Prytani, both sides worshipped Bel, held May 1 as a Holy Day, and had chiefs named Bel. The seven royal houses of the Prytani were descended from the seven sons of a great Prytani king, and each ruled its own province.

The Celts called them 'Cruithni,' which meant 'tribe of the designs,' after the tatoos they sported. The Celts originated somewhere in central Europe and expanded their empire in all directions. Around BC, they suddenly appeared and destroyed the Etruscans and then sacked Rome. The Romans noted that the Celts were tall and muscular, with hair they bleached blonde, and often went naked into battle.

When the Romans protested the Celts armed incursion into the area, the Celts told the Romans that anything they could take by force of arms was rightfully theirs. However, when Rome rallied after a few hundred years, it took over much of the empire the Celts had carved out. The Caledonians were a mix of Prytani and Celts, who had come from Ireland, and although Agricola killed 30, of them, he paid a high price himself. As a result, after building a series of forts, the Romans withdrew and the Caledonians returned.

When the Romans returned, they concentrated on subduing the Celts in the south, where they met less resistance. As the Romans expanded their territory northward, they came into conflict with the Prytani, whom they called the Picts painted people. Although the Roman soldier was, one on one, probably the best warrior around, the Prytani had huge numbers and were fierce fighters. The Prytani were expert horsemen and on the water, the large Prytani fleet proved more than a match for the Roman galleys.

This wall was 37 miles long and nine feet tall, with forts every two miles and many signal towers in between. On the northern side, it had a 36 foot wide ditch, while a road ran along the protected southern side. Even this did not protect the Romans from the Prytani warriors. A joke of the time goes like this: The Romans were marching north when a Prytani warrior leaped out from behind a hillock and said, "So you're Romans, are ye?

Give me your ten best men, then! A hundred Roman soldiers were sent up. Five minutes later a lone survivor stumbles back and drops dead before he can say anything. In a fury, the Roman commander sends his entire army up the hill. The sounds of battle ensue, followed by one Roman officer appearing on the hill. There were two of them all the time! Not giving the Picts time to mass their numbers, the Romans swiftly destroyed many Pict towns and armies, killing 10, a day at the height of their campaign. Afterward, the Prytani decided they could live with staying north of Hadrian's Wall. The Romans withdrew from Britain after a few hundred years, and when they left the Celts took over in the south and the west.

In the west, the Celts had mixed with the Prytani they found there when they arrived and created a distinct group called the Cymry Welsh. He ruled the kingdoms of Gwynedd and Powys, put down several rebellions and defeated the withdrawing Romans at the Battle of Badon. Finally, his nephew, Maglocunus, son of Cadwallon Lawhir, pushed aside Arthur's son Cuneglasus charioteer of the Bear's stronghold and defeated Arthur at the Battle of Camlan, a border area between Gwynedd and Powys. Niall of the Nine Hostages, High King of Ireland, returned to Ireland with captured fellow Celts as slaves, while some of his men settled in parts of the north and formed alliances with the Prytani.

They called their new settlement among the Prytani 'Dalriada' and here they deposited the Stone of Destiny later to be called the Stone of Scone which they had brought with them from Ireland. These Celts called themselves 'Scottii,' and they intermarried with the Prytani royalty and fought alongside them against both the Romans and the Celts in the south and west. The weakened Celts were thus easily defeated by an invasion of Anglo-Saxons in A.

When the Anglo-Saxons met the Prytani, however, a much smaller army of Prytani completely wiped them out. Am I not he who will sing Of beauty in what is small; Beauty in the battle of the Tree-tops Against the country of the Prydein. Columba converted the Prytani to Celtic Christianity, he needed an interpreter to converse with the Prytani King; even though Columba was fluent in all the Celtic dialects, the Prytani tongue was unknown to him.

Shortly after their conversion, the Prytani embarked on a massive project of carving crosses everywhere. Many of the stone crosses discovered in Britain and called Celtic are in fact Pict. He even crossed to Ireland to fight Celts there, and was only persuaded to stop fighting by an offer from the Celts to give the Prytani all the women descendents of the Tuatha de Danann held in bondage by the Celts.

These descendents of the Tuantha de Dannan had been kept in captivity because of a plea by the Egyptian Princess Scotus, originally the wife of the great Celtic warrior Milesius, who died in Spain before the Celts invaded Ireland. Scotus had come to Ireland as the third wife of Eremon, who was one of the eight sons of Milesius, and the first ruler of the Celts in Ireland after he killed his brother Eber and the Druid Amergin.

Scotus had pleaded for the lives of the conquered Tuatha de Dannan, so Eremon had spared a few of them and kept them in perpetual bondage. A thousand years of fighting invaders had left the Prytani with a diminished population, so Oengus accepted. Oengus returned to Britain, where he declared himself the King of the Prytani and the Celts. For centuries, the Prytani had resisted constant invasions by the Vikings. However, in A. The Prytani had just won the battle with the Celts and put Elfin's head on a pike, when the Vikings attacked and killed the King of the Prytani, his successor, and the leaders of all seven royal houses.

Two years later, the seven Earls of Dalraida who had replaced the ruling body of the Prytani were lured to a treacherous death at Scone by Kenneth MacElfin, son of the slain Celtic chieftain and a Prytani Princess mother. Already having declared himself the King of the Scots, he now declared himself the King of the Prytani, swearing it on the Stone of Scone. Of the remaining Prytani, some were massacred, some were driven north, and the remainder intermarried with the Scotts. By this time, the Prytani constituted only about ten per cent of the population of northern Britain.

The Prytani had had 69 recorded kings in their kingdom, and the most enduring legacy they left was the naming of their island after themselves: Britain, after Ynis Prydain. Those left in the far north intermarried with Vikings, who could now settle there without much opposition. These mixed bloods were called Gaileys foreigners by the Celts, who made them a Sept of the Clan Gunn.

My wife is a Gailey. Meanwhile, the Romans in Gaul had not conquered the Basques, but lived with them peacefully. Iruna 'the city' in Basque , the first urban creation of the Basques, was taken over by the Romans and renamed Pampaelo after Pompey; it was later to be known as Pamplona. A Roman-built wall in Zaragoza. Although there were Basque soldiers in the army of Hannibal, they did not not take part in the conflict between Carthage and Rome, except to defend Sertorius, the Roman general who had shown respect for them.

When the power of Rome waned, the Basques defended themselves against the barbarians who invaded the Iberian Peninsula, including the Germanic Swabian tribes and the Visigoths the latter did beat the Basques in several battles. Later, the Basques defeated invading armies of both the Berbers and Goths. When the Frankish King, Charlemagne, ravaged the Basque city of Pamplona while retreating from combat with the Arabs in AD, the Basque army caught up with him at the Orreaga mountain pass called Rencesvaux in French and the resulting massacre of the Franks was immortalized in the Song of Roland.

Although the Song claimed Charlemagne was defeated by a superior Muslim army, it was really the Basques who show up in the Song as the demons who aided the Arabs who wiped out Charlemagne's army. In AD, the Basque army crushed a second Frankish army in the same mountain pass where Charlemagne was caught, and the Basques founded the Kingdom of Pamplona later called the Kingdom of Navarre to fight against the Franks in the north and the Arabs in the south. Subsequently, Alphonso formed three Basque territories into the Kingdom of Castille. As a result of political maneuvers, the seven provinces of the Basques were divided between the Kingdoms of Navarre and Castille many times over the next few hundred years.

In , an agreement between the Castillian monarchy and the Basques of Guernica allowed the Basque councils to meet annually under a tree called the Oak of Guernica to formulate local laws. This tree came to represent liberty and independence to the Basques, and a song called Guernikako Arbola Oak of Guernica became the Basque national anthem. By the mid's, the Basque territories were being fought over by France and Spain, and the Treaty of the Pyrenees in divided the land between them.

Over a period of several hundred years, many French and Spanish monarchs were persuaded to guarantee the Basques the right to autonomy, making the journey to so swear beneath the Oak of Guernica. When Napoleon was unable to conquer the Basques, he came up with an ingenious plan: Within three days of landing, the Basques had conquered Sicily; however, Napoleon had tricked the Basques. As soon as they were gone from their farms and villages, Napoleon sent in his men to kill the women and children left behind.

The Basques in Sicily found out about this, and turned and sided with the Sicilians. Thus, Napoleon never got Sicily, and the Basques who settled there added words of their language to the already mixed speech of the Sicilians. In the 's, the Basques fought two wars against Spanish oppression, called the Carlist Wars. They ceased fighting the first war when they were promised their independence would remain; however, this promise was broken, so they went to war again.

They lost the second war, and for the first time since their inception, the autonomous rights of the Basques were legally dismissed. Throughout the 's, the Basques have formed many organizations and provisional governments to fight for their freedom. After a Basque army attacked the French in , the Spanish Dictator Franco had his friends, the Nazis, conduct the first aircraft bombardment of the war against the Basques in Guernika; the Liberty Tree survived, but over a thousand Basques were killed.

After the war, the Basques continued their struggle for freedom in their home territory. Beginning in , several Basque organizations resorted to terrorist acts against Spanish officials. On the local level among Spanish police, however, cruel suppression of the Basques continued, making the reforms slow in coming. Finally, in , the Basques were granted a measure of autonomy, and in , the new Basque president took his oath under the Tree of Guernica as dictated by tradition. The current Oak of Guernica. The most well-known Basque was probably St. Actually, he wasn't from Loyola, but a small town made infamous by the Holy Inquisition.

Since Ignatius led a group of Kabbalists who after several attempts managed to become an order of the Roman Church originally called the Companions or Company of Jesus, they eventually became the Jesuits , he probably thought it wise not to advertize exactly where he grew up. Basques were great seafarers, and they sailed with many explorers, including Columbus and Magellan Magellan's Basque lieutenant, Sebastian Elkano, completed the first voyage around the world after Magellan died during the trip; other Basque sailors on this journey brought corn to Europe.

The Basques have given us the beret txapela and the game of pilota called Jai-Alai by everyone else. The Roman soldiers brought their cult of Mithras, with its ritual killing of a bull, and the Basque town of Pamplona is well-known for its bullfights and the annual running of the bulls through city streets.

A Basque bullfighter gets a kiss for good luck. The strong tradition of oral wisdom among the Basques is replete with dozens of well-used proverbs. Keeping their language and customs intact have been difficult for the Basques, in light of French and Spanish attempts to limit their independent nature. The Basques have another popular saying: Dictons et proverbes basques. Le bonheur est la seule chose que nous puissions donner sans l'avoir. Plus on est vieux et plus on a de besoins. Ohetik mahaina, mahaitik zuzulura, korrongaz paraduzura.

Ahoa debilano sabela botz. Olentzero au foyer, Saint Jean sur la place.

Courtesy Vocabulary

Bide bazterreko pikoa eta ostatuko neskatoa goizik zohitzen. Zer probetxu da bide luzeari lotzeaz, gogo duen lekhura heltzen ezpada? Ez da eltze hain itsusirik bere estalkia ez duenik. Il n'y a pas de plus laids chaudrons que celui qui n'a point de couvercle. Astoz joan, mandoz itzuli.

Minik handienak, burutik heldu direnak. Bethi ordu duena, bethi berant heldu dena.

Urrun nahi duenak heldu, ez du behar zaldia lehertu. Nehor ez da zerurat heltzen begiak idorrik. Ile politek eta begi ederrek ez dute eltzea irakitarazten. Txapela batez ez daite bi buru estal. La palombe est belle dans les airs, plus belle encore sur la table. Bizkaitarra jan da otz". Hortzak behera eta ahua goiti: Les dents en bas et la bouche en haut: Gona motz, gingila luze: Jupon court, jambe longue: Mundu huntan den gaizarik zalhiena, deusek arrestatzen ahal eztiena: Aita latz, ama beltz, larrua gorri, humea churi: Bethi ernari, behinere ezin erdi: While the Roman and German influence essentially defined Medieval culture, there were other ethnic groups around who had some impact, and left some reminders of their presence.

The chief among these also-rans were the Celts, Basques ,and Picts. The latter two groups belonged to the original human inhabitants of Europe, people who, several millenia B. Up in Scandinavia were the Germans. In what is now eastern Europe were Slavs and Celts. The Germans who later stayed behind became the Vikings and the modern Scandinavians. In the Balkans were more Ligurian peoples. In Greece you had Greeks. Further east you had Etruscans who later migrated to Italy , Semites, Persians and Dravidians until you ran into the people who looked Chinese.

The ethnic composition of Europe was quite different during the Medieval period, and even more so during the 1st and 2nd Centuries BC, when the Romans were putting their empire together. In the beginning, there were the Ligurians, Iberians and related peoples in Europe. These peoples developed from the neolithic cavemen types that settled in Europe after the last ice age ended some 10, years ago.

The Celts gradually moved in from the east about 4, years ago.

By the time Rome was getting established in the 5th Century BC, the Celts were the principal culture in most of France, plus parts of the Balkans and Spain. But the earlier peoples did not disappear, and one of them, the Basques, survives to this day in Spain and France. The Picts held out in part of Scotland until the early Medieval period, being largely absorbed by the adjacent Celts by the 10th century. The Ligurians except for the Basques , Iberians, and Etruscans disappeared. The Latin peoples, including the Romans, also disappeared as a distinct culture, but many centuries later, become the Italians, Spanish, French and other Romance types.

Of course, the people didn't literally disappear, but melded with other groups while losing their unique language and customs. Unlike Latin, the Gaelic languages of the Celts can still be heard in parts of Europe. Their earlier wanderings can still be identified by the name Galicia given to certain areas of such widely distant regions as Spain, Anatolia, and Poland. The Celts shared many traits with the Germans and Slavs. Before the Celts settled down in Gaul as the Romans called France back then , they were very similar in appearance and custom to the Germans.

This is not surprising, as the Celts lived in the same environments as the later Germans. When the Celts did settle down, they became quite civilized. They established large, walled, towns and were quite expert at metal working. Unlike the Romans, however, the Celts were not inclined to obey a central authority. The Celts were noted for their considerable individualism. This was what eventually did them in when they went up against the highly disciplined Romans.

The Celts were one of the many Indo-European tribes that migrated out central Asia, migrations that largely ended two thousand years ago, to be replaced by Oriental tribes and armies coming from even farther east in central Asia. Like their cousins the Persians who established Persia and still inhabit present day Iran , the Ayrans still noticiable in northern India , the Kurds who are still stalled in the Middle Eastern mountains , the Celts kept moving until they found a thinly populated place they liked and then set up permanent residence.

In all the areas they passed through along the way, some Celts stayed behind, but were eventually absorbed by the more numerous locals. Like most ancient invasions, the wandering Celts never amounted to more than a few tens of thousands of people when they moved into a new territory. But the warriors were fierce, and the women and children able to endure great hardship. The Celtic conquest of Gaul was much like later German conquests. The Celts were a small number under ten percent of the total population, but established administrative control over the conquered people and soon Celtic was the common language of the more numerous Ligurian, Basque, and Iberian peoples.

Yet many of these subject peoples were still speaking their ancient languages when the Romans conquered Gaul.

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Latin then became the common language. It should be no surprise that yet another common language, French, grew out of this latinized melange of languages. Like the Kurds of today, the Celts were disorganized because of the multiplicity of clans, tribes and dialects. Only a major outside threat could unite them.

The Romans were one such threat, and after centuries of skirmishing and sundry wars, Julius Caesar finally subdued the Celts in France with several years of hard campaigning during the 1st Century BC. The Celts had momentarily united to oppose Caesar, and the Romans marveled at their success against huge Celtic armies. But the Romans were better organized and led. Rome enslaved up to a million Celts out of a total population of five millions and killed hundreds of thousands during the conquest that crushed all resistance. Many Celts fled to Britain and Ireland.

Here they found sparsely inhabited lands some , people in England and Wales at the time , inhabited by a mixture of ancient peoples related to the Picts and Celts who had wandered over earlier. Soon, the Celtic culture became dominant in England. When Rome conquered Britain in the 1st Century AD, they found the population largely Celtic, with the more ancient Picts holding out far to the north in Scotland. The Romans were only in Britain for a little over three centuries before their empire collapsed.

Romanized Celtic culture survived in many places, particularly Wales, while a more purely Celtic tradition survived in Scotland. The Picts, another Liguran people, were gradually absorbed by their Celtic allies. The Romans never tried to conquer Scotland, a poor area which never supported more than , people during this period.

A principal occupation of the "Scots" was raiding the wealtheir Roman lands to the south and most Roman military activity in Britian was against the Pict and Celtic tribes in Scotland. The Romanized Celts in Britain sometimes rebelled, or at least a a few of them did. Until the Romans withdrew the last of their legions in the early 5th Century to deal with the Germans, and civil war , the Romans always had the upper hand. This should come as no surprise. The Romans were supreme organizers and managed to keep up to 60, trained soldiers on duty in Britain.

No one was able to repeat this feat until near the end of the Medieval period. After the Romans left Britain, the Germans began coming in, the Angles, the Jutes, and the Saxons, wild fellows from northwestern Germany After a century or so, eastern Britain was controlled by these Germans, who were much less civilized than their cousins who overran the rest of the Roman Empire. These four areas became the final redoubts of Celtic language and culture into the 20th century. The Basques are the last of the Iberians. Although many Celts moved into Spain, the Iberians proved a tougher opponent than the Ligurians in France.

Moreover, the Romans gained control of Spain during the 2nd Century BC, but never completely romanized the Iberian tribes. When the Germanic Visigoths overran Spain in the 4th and 5th Centuries they set up an impressive kingdom, building on the Roman base with a minimum of fuss. But they weren't as good organizers as the Romans, and in were unable to prevent the Muslims from overruning Spain.

The Muslim armies invading Spain were led by the Amazigh peoples.

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These folks were called "Berber" by the Greeks and Romans. In other words, they were called "barbarians" meaning not necessarily uncivilized, but definately foreigners because they were not Greek or Roman. The Berbers called themselves Amazigh and were pagans until coverted to Christianity or Judaism in the late Roman period. In the late 7th century they first resisted, and then embraced Islam. The Amazigh came from the Atlas mountain area of North Africa and many were fair skinned and blue eyed.

How they ended up in North Africa thousands of years ago is anyones guess. The Islamic conquest of Spain initiated an on-again, off-again centuries long struggle between the remnants of the old Visigothic kingdom perched precariously in the Pyrennes and the Iberian Muslims for control of the real estate. By the 13th Century the Christians were decided in the asendency, although the Muslims still held Granada, in the south. Meanwile, fair skinned German and the blue eyed Amazigh warriors, along with the swarthy, brown eyed Ligurians except for the Basques turned into Spanish speakers.

Spanish, of course, is another one of those languages that evolved out of all those local Latin dialects. The Basques were a mountain dwelling people, and that may account for their cultural survival. They tended to keep to themselves and the Celts, Romans, Germans, and Moslems had no compelling reason to go up into the mountains after them, except at their own risk Charlemagne's heroic champion Roland died in battle against the Basques. Thus the last of the truly ancient languages of Europe survives.

During the Medieval years, the Basques were a power to be contended with. Many Basques lived under the rule of the kings of Navarre, who, prudently enough, usually knew how to speak Basque. The local nobility had a lot of Basque blood and the Basque mountaineers were known as fierce warriors who were better befriended than made into enemies. The Basques are an indigenous people who inhabit parts of both Spain and France.

They are found predominantly in four provinces in Spain and three in France. This area is to be found around the western edge of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay. Besides Spanish or French, a minority of Basques speak their own language, Euskara , which is not only distinct from French and Spanish , but utterly different from every other language in Europe and the world.

The Basque language, however, belongs its own entire category and is utterly distinct from every other language in the world. Spanish language was greatly influenced by Euskara, particularly in the vowel set. The Basques are unique in Europe not only for their language. Investigations of Basque blood types has found that there are far more Basques with type O blood than in the general European population. Basques also have a comparatively lower chance of being either type A or type AB. Modern genetic techniques are also being applied to the Basques and it has been found that there is a great deal of difference between the Basques and their Spanish neighbours.

There is less difference, however, with the population of neighbour Aquitania in France, perhaps a sign of past interbreeding. Even more intriguingly it could also be a sign that the ancient Aquitanian people and their now extinct language may have been closely related to the Basques.

There are also interesting social differences between the Basques and their neighbours. The Basque people have an unusually close attachment with their homes. A person's home is their family in Basqueland. Even if one does not still live there and has not for generations a Basque family is still known by the house in which it once lived. Common Basque surnames could translate as "top of the hill", or "by the river" all relating to the location of their ancestral home.

This is interesting evidence for considering the Basques to be the only people who have always had a fixed and stable abode. Another interesting fact is that Basque society has traditionally been very matriarchal, with lines of succession being from mother to daughter. This is another interesting contrast with other European societies, which are uniformly patriarchal.

In spite of this, until the Industrial Age, poor Basques usually the younger sons have emigrated to the rest of Spain or France and the Americas. This unique and isolated people has attracted the interest of a great many linguists and historians trying to discover how and when it came to be where it is. The other non-Indo-European languages in Europe, Finnish , Hungarian , Estonian , and Turkish , were all brought in by invaders from Asia during recorded history.

The Indo-European languages were introduced in the same way a few millennia earlier. When could the Basques have arrived? The answer to this important question is still not known but the number of possibilities has been narrowed down. The first time we find Basque in writing is the late Middle Ages , which is not, however, evidence of their late arrival, for the Basques were already very well established by this point. Less direct evidence must thus be considered. The most important sources are the classical writers, especially Strabo , who confirms that at about the birth of Jesus Christ the western part of the Pyrenees were inhabited by a people known as the Vasconnes.

This is quite identifiable as one of a number of variations on the word Basque. Further evidence for these people being Euskara speaking Basques is provided when lists of names and place names are considered. One theory of the origins for the Basques has them arriving along with the Indo-Europeans four thousand years ago. There have been antecedents to such an event. During the Germanic migrations that swept Europe after the fall of Rome, for instance, almost all the tribes were Indo-Europeans, except for the Alans also known as the Sarmatians who it now seems were probably Turkish speakers.

Furthermore it is now believed the Indo-Europeans began their invasion of Europe from a position just north of the Caspian Sea. South of this region is the Caucasus , a small and mountainous region home to some thirty separate languages, from two separate language groups of which there are no other relatives.

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Similarities between Basque and the Caucasian language groups have been advocated on a number of occasions. Could a group of Caucasians have joined the invasion of Europe by the Indo-Europeans that was departing just north of them? It is not impossible but there is little to no evidence for this and much against it. The relationship between Basque and the Caucasian languages is vociferously denied by authors such as R.

Trask who see no evidence of a connection, and most modern scholars agree with this view. A second argument against the idea of the Basques arriving sometime around the arrival of the Indo-Europeans is archeological. There is no evidence of a new group of people arriving in Basqueland at this time. While the traditions changed, for instance the building of dolmens slowly faded out, these changes seem far more like a single evolving society than a replacement by new groups of people. In fact the only evidence for an invasion of Basqueland dates from thousands upon thousands of years ago when Cro-Magnon people first arrived in Europe and superseded the Neanderthal s.

Could this have been when the Basques first arrived in Europe? The archeological evidence is shaky and it is difficult to assume there was never an invasion just because evidence for one has not yet been found. But so far the evidence is fairly clear, and even if the arrival of the Basques is postponed it is now quite likely that they arrived before the Indo-Europeans and thus that they are the oldest surviving people in Europe.

It is now believed by most scholars that the Basques have been in the same location for thousands of years, unmoved by any of the calamities of war, plague, or famine that destroyed all the other ancient civilizations of Europe. How could one small group of people survive when so many others were overwhelmed by the waves of invaders that have swept Europe? These questions can be dangerous and lead to speculation about racial superiority, a trap that a number of Basque writers have fallen into.

In reality, however the reason the Basques have survived is mostly luck, they happened to be at the right place in the right time over and over again. The Basques either chose their easily defended home in the Pyrenees or, what is more likely, were forced into it at some time in the past. It is quite common for mountainous regions to remain as bastions of an all but vanished group of people.

When the Celts of Europe were overwhelemed by the Germanic hordes from Asia and the Roman Empire from the south the only areas left speaking Celtic were the isolated island of Ireland and a number of mountain bastions, most of which still retain Celtic speakers to the present day, These regions include Brittany in the northwest of France as well as Scotland and Wales in the British Isles.

In these regions the Celtic language survived fifteen hundred years of isolation. The Basque homeland is quite well suited to survival. Its low mountains are combined with dense forests and heavy vegetation to make the region almost impassable to outsiders this didn't stop the Way of Saint James, connecting Santiago de Compostela and mainland Europe , but still temperate enough to support a large agricultural base. Despite this growth the soil is of much lower quality than the surrounding plains in Spain and France leaving the area a much less tempting target for invaders.

For invaders bent on plunder the Basque areas have few reserves of precious metals, especially in comparison to the gold reserves to the west in Spain or to the wealth in Gascony just to the north of Basqueland. The Basques seem to have ended up the best locale for uninterrupted survival on the continent. The first two known invasions the Basques survived were those of the Indo-Europeans and then the Celts. These two invasions occurred in prehistory and the secret of the Basque survival is only hinted at by limited archeological evidence. For the next invasion of the region, however, there is much written evidence.

The Romans entered the Iberian peninsula after their defeat of Carthage in the Punic wars. Roman rule quickly spread from the Carthaginian settlements along the Mediterranean coast through the rest of the peninsula. The northwest, including the Basque regions, were conquered by Pompey , after whom the large Basqueland city of Pamplona is named, in the first century BC.

The looseness of the Roman federation well suited the Basques, who retained their traditional laws and leadership within the Roman Empire. The poor region was little developed by the Romans and there is not much evidence of Romanization; this certainly contributed to the survival of the separate Basque language. The lack of a large Roman presence was encouraged by the passivity of the Basques. Roman miltiary records show that there was never a need to fight insurrections in the Basque country.

Basqueland never needed Roman garrisons to control the populace, unlike the surrounding Celtic areas. On the contrary Basques were used by the Romans to guard their empire. There is a great deal of evidence for a Vasconne cohort. This cohort spent many years guarding Hadrians Wall in the north of Britain. Also at some time in its history it earned the title fida or faithful for some now forgotten service to the emperor.

There is some evidence for other Basque units serving in the empire as well. Even today nationalist Basques look back on the Roman Empire as an ideal time when, even though there was no Basque independence, the Basques were still able to have almost total internal control. As well as their lack of exposure to Roman garrisons, the Basque survival was also aided by the fact that Basqueland was a poor region. It had no unused cropland that could be used to settle Roman colonists and it had few commodities that would interest the Romans.

Only a small number of Roman traders would have come to Basqueland. This isolation is what allowed the Basque language to survive and not be overwhelmed by Latin as occurred in so many other regions of the Empire. If the Roman Empire had continued, however, there is a good chance the Basque language would have vanished. During the Roman period the territory where Basque was spoken slowly declined and by the end of the period it seems Basque had become limited to rural regions, while the major cities such as Pamplona were Romanized.

The history of Basqueland darkens, however, with the arrival of the Germanic peoples and the collapse of the Roman empire. Rather than being an isolated area in the centre of a large empire the Basques were placed at the border between the warring Visigothic and Frankish kingdoms. Basqueland became a very strategically important piece of territory desired by both sides. At the same time the Basques lost their lifestyle, which was dependent on trade with the Roman Empire.

These two changes transformed the Basques from being one of the most docile people in Europe into a group of dedicated warriors bent on survival. There are scattered reports from this period of presumed Basque brigands in Latin, bagaudae in Aquitania and Spain stealing those things which they used to be able to trade for. Most of the confrontations with the Basques were, however, instigated by the outsiders. Both the Franks and Visigoths sent armies through Basqueland repeatedly during their long running war.

While there are few records, armies of the day rarely treated the inhabitants of the lands they were passing through well. The Basqueland was probably repeatedly plundered for foodstuffs and fodder to maintain the armies. The rugged Basque territory is ideal for banditry and it is not surprising that despite the oppresion by their neighbhours the Basques could still survive. Just as in every time of persecution in their history the Basques simply moved to the hills and held out there for many years. The Basques also proved during this period that they could protect their homeland when the need arose despite the lack of central authority.

After Charlemagne 's Franks invaded northern Spain they returned home and en route pillaged the Basqueland, stripping it of any wealth they could find. The Basques came together with the Pamplona Muslims, however, and intercepted the Frankish army while it made its way through a mountain pass. Despite poor weaponry and fewer fighters the Basques destroyed much of the Frankish force. The Battle of the Roncesvalles Pass was the only major defeat Charlemagne suffered in his long career. These events were immortalized in the Chanson de Roland , an important piece of medieval verse.

Similar mobilizations by the Basques occurred just a few years later against the Islamic invaders who had seized all of Spain. The newly Christianized Basques put up stiff resistance and prevented Islamic penetration of their region for the entire period of the Caliphate. The Basquelands were eventually divided between France and Spain after the Middle Ages , with most of the Basque population ending up in Spain, a situation which persists to this day.

Until modern times the Basques lived peacefully in the separate nation states becoming renowned mariners. Basque sailors were some of the first Europeans to reach North America, and many early settlers in Canada and the United States were of Basque origin. Then one of the hardest periods of Basque history in Spain began. The Basques fought in the Spanish Civil War divided between the nationalist and leftist, siding with the Spanish Republic, and the Navarrese Carlist , siding with Franco forces.

One of the greatest atrocities of this war was the bombing of Guernica , the traditional Biscay ne capital, by German planes. Much of the city was destroyed and a great deal of Basque history was erased. Once Franco won the war he began a dedicated effort to turn Spain into a uniform nation state. Franco introduced severe laws against all Spanish minorities in an effort to suppress their culture and language. The backlash to these actions created a violent Basque separatist movement that has resulted in the deaths of about people over the past 30 years.

The end of the Franco regime saw an end to the suppression and a creation of an autonomous Basque region in Spain. ETA continues its actions, however, fighting for full independence and communism. There are 2,, people living in the Basque Country: Araba - , inh. The most important cities are: There are two official languages: Despite ETA and the crisis of heavy industries, the Basques have been doing remarkably well in recent years, emerging from persecution during the Franco regime with a strong and vibrant language and culture.

C'est un text tres interessant qui nous C'est un text tres interessant qui nous decouvre la vie des jeunes filles pauvres dans le temps passe. Il nous fait penser a une sorte esclavage meme aujourd'hui. Excellent literary insight of class relations at the end of XiXth century in France,. It was a great book with every emotion involved from humour to sadness. There's a problem loading this menu right now. Learn more about Amazon Prime. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime. Get to Know Us. English Choose a language for shopping.

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