Armenian Origins Of Basque and Etruscan?

Interestingly, this culture largely disappeared across Europe around the time of the Younger Dryas and was replaced by the 12K BCE individual from Villabruna in Italy. But the Magdalenian culture survived in the Iberian Peninsula which is seen in the genetic admixture of Neolithic Iberians. The Iberian Peninsula basically acted as one of the primary refuges for people who survived the Younger Dryas event.

Interesting, Eboard, thanks!

As to the origin of the Basque language, I would guess that it could have been imported from the Anatolian farmers that settled during the Neolithic, but it could have already been present from the Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers that inhabited the area. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a mix of both, i.e. a local language that was later influenced by the spread of farming communities from the East but that's purely a hunch from a non-linguist.

That's quite likely, IMO. Especially it having been there since the Paleolithic. I don't know about you, but the more I read, the stronger impression I get that languages change VEEERY slowly. There are borrowings, or total assimilation in some cases, but most of the time, maybe what we see nowadays is not SO different from what was back then, linguistically speaking. If anything, it may be more likely that there were more languages back then than now, not the opposite. But some are super resistant. I was reading recently how in Algeria, for example, the Arabic language that is written (classical) has remained pretty much stable for 3000 years. The spoken language differs, but people understand both without any big trouble. That happens in several other places too. So why not since way earlier than is often assumed?

Daniel Everett (a linguist who wrote a few books) even has a theory that puts language back in the Australopithecus. He is a Darwinian, but makes a good point, I think: even in super ancient archaeological sites, and especially in islands, the tools found show that people must have had a way to communicate. Otherwise, how would the build a boat, or convince others to cross a river or a sea, or "talk" about making a fire or a special spear? Etc. It is often assumed that they were very simple hominids, but the "hardware" was already there for language. The difference in brain size wouldn't prevent them from having language either. (Neanderthals are said to have had slightly bigger brains than us, for example).

Anyway, just some thoughts, FWIW.
 
@thorbiorn , thank you for that great collection of quotes! I too was hoping there was more in the sessions, but that's something.:-)

Wouldn't the "hurrian territory", and modern Armenia, be right about where Zoroaster is supposed to have been born? I think Laura mentioned it, or maybe it's on "When Zarathrustra Spoke".

From Wiki as well:
Hurrian is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language spoken by the Hurrians (Khurrites), a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. Hurrian was the language of the Mitanni kingdom in northern Mesopotamia and was likely spoken at least initially in Hurrian settlements in modern-day Syria. It is generally believed that the speakers of this language originally came from the Armenian Highlands and spread over southeast Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.

For those interested, on the Wiki summary about the language itself, there are MANY language traits that I think are VERY similar to Basque as well.


The ergative, the SOV order, the high rate of suffixing, even what was deduced about its sounds... We would have to compare them way more carefully, but I was surprised by the parallels, because some of those traits are rare in languages nowadays. They aren't unique to Basque, but still the minority. So, I can well imagine the two being related. More digging to be done!
 
After listening to modern Armenian:


it's clear to me that it lacks clear direct phonetic links to Spanish/Basque. But I understand too that modern Armenian is quite different from old one and ancient Basque could also sound different from modern one, including sounds.

I also agree Spanish and most common modern Basque are very close in terms of sounds. There is one point that still keep me thinking, though, since I found one exception.

The most common type of Basque nowadays, both spoken and written is 'Batua' (meaning 'united'), which is a modern artificial construct to 'unify' Basque speakers, so they can use the same language and understand each other. The reason to create this was that people from some villages could really not understand each other, even living in villages within the same province, few kilometers apart.

Examples of this are the 'types' of Basque spoken in villages like Lekeitio, Ondarroa, Azpeitia or Ea. A person only knowing and speaking 'Ondarroan Basque' still today will have a real hard time, to say the least, to understand a person speaking 'Lekeition Basque' for instance.

I guess if we wonder how this language was kept alive for so long there and isolated, we could have another symptom of the same cause with this?

Anyway, the exception that I think I found in terms of sounds is quite clear (IMH and non-expert O) in relation to 's', 'sh', 'ts', 'tz', 'tx', 'x', 'te', 'tu', 'rr', 'ye', 'yi', 'yo' 'yu' sounds, primarily. There is some difference on some of those sounds in Batua compared to Spanish for example, but the case I will show is far more marked, really changing the general sound, in my view.

The funny thing is that this is not related to a specific area, but to a set of 'conditions' that some people meet. These would be:

- Being born/raised in some of the Basque small villages that have their own type of Basque (so with evidence of upmost isolation somehow).

- Having Basque as first language (which is extremely rare nowadays, even for older generations since Spanish and French are extremely important, widespread and dominant - probably partially because they are easier to learn).

- Belonging to an older generation (rough approx. ~1920's or before, the reason is that from ~1939 to ~1975 the use and teaching of Basque was banned and prosecuted in the Spanish side during the 20th century dictatorship times, so Spanish was pushed and promoted as dominant in pretty much the full Spanish side of the border).

- Belonging to a certain family within that village (!). I *believe* (no proof so far) that this could be related to the specific 'house Basque' (term still in use today to refer to the specific type of Basque that was spoken within a certain family). In turn, this might be related to specific influence of either Spanish or French in certain families due to specific situations in the past.

For certain people belonging to that quite 'picky' group, this different type of prosody applies as per the sounds mentioned above (again in my opinion).

You can hear yourself some examples of this in the following videos (BTW this Youtube channel is an absolute treasure in my view [politics content aside, which I dislike], since it collects so many interesting details related to how people spoke and still speak in some of these small villages).

You will find big differences between young people speaking and *certain* old people speaking.

Now, focusing on the differences, some of these can be heard, for example in:


Check 02:06-02:15 & 08:43-08:53



Check 07:56-08:15 (with some French influence, interesting since that village is not even close to the French border).

Check 13:38-14:13.




Check 0:50-01:30

Check 09:33-10:02 This is fun, at the end of his intervention he asks to the interviewer 'entendido?' ('understood?' in plain Spanish). :D



Check 06:19-06:32


Urnietako Ahotsak

This one has multiple examples like:

0:58-01:31 who has no defect in the Spanish 's' pronunciation like seen around 01:29-01:31.

03:03-03:58.
11:47-12:04.


Elorrioko ahotsak

01:15-02:39.
13:42-14:11.
18:49-19:24.

My personal conclusion is that if these differences in prosody can be found within few generations of Basque speakers (with the extra conditions mentioned), and if the other links found between Basque and Armenian apply only to old Armenian, it might not be a too far reach linking Armenian with Basque even in apparently unrelated aspects like prosody if we could look back in time to check. Time machine anyone? :)
 
Very interesting, thanks @Basque Seeker ! I can hear some differences, indeed, although not knowing Basque, I'm probably missing a lot. You mentioned sounds and prosody, but what about the grammar and lexicon? Are they very similar?

Funny, I was having a conversation with @thorbiorn just yesterday, and we were wondering to what extent languages change. He mentioned differences in Feroese compared to Danish, for example, and how within 50 years, isolated groups couldn't understand each other well anymore. We also talked about how education and politics (like "Bantua Basque") can create a stability, and how, depending on (perhaps) the territory, the culture and genetics, languages branch out. The question is by how much and at what pace... There are so many variables, depending on whether you look at phonology, syntax, lexicon, etc. To what extent is there language "evolution", and to what extent do languages remain stable throughout the centuries if a group of people are isolated? I don't know, lots of research to do still. :-)
 
@Chu pitifully from grammar point of view I couldn't find anything to add to the list you gathered.

For lexicon, I could access modern Armenian but not old Armenian on top of what has been posted in this thread by @Altair

For modern Armenian I could find few similarities in lexicon wrt Basque. I checked multiple basic verbs, numbers, colors, animals, pronouns, body parts, adverbs, etc.

Some examples I found:

[English: transliterated Armenian / Basque]

Stone: k’ar / har - harri
Far: herru / urrun
Water: jur / ur
To come: ari / etorri
Freedom: azatut’yun / askatasun
Fast: arag / askar
Horse: dzi / zaldi
I: i / ni
You: du / zu
Your: dzer / zure
That: vor / hor
Sharp: sur / zor - zorrotz
Edge: yezr / ertz
Sea: tsov / itsaso

Which I couldn't find are the type of super, really clear Basque-sounding words like the ones you can find on the names of towns, rivers, lakes, etc. in Armenia and nearby region (e.g. Urmia, Artik, Harich, Urartu [although not existing anymore it literally sounds in Basque as "water you can take" and the city was next to a lake, that was cool!], Norashen, Arevshat, Saratak, Arevik, Hatsik, Hartashen, Zorakan, Atabe, Ardoti, Ilurta, Alisgori, Shenako, Kumelaurta, Jandari, Kesalo, Alaverdi, Urasar, Agarak, Daranak, Areguni, Norabak, Aghitu, Ashotsk, etc.). It looks like the most 'Basque sounding' words in Armenian language are either lost or modified as per influence of other languages, maybe.

There could be indeed similarities, probably more interesting ones with old Armenian, but maybe the 'time' covered clear links with layers and layers of veils, which blurr the truth :S

Super interesting though!
 
Oh, apologies if I wasn't clear (although your findings are interesting too, because the author himself mentioned that it would have been a comparison between old Armenian and Basque, not modern Armenian).

My question was only about Basque: are there grammatical and lexical differences between the Basque spoken by people, say, born in the 20s, and modern Bantua, or even modern dialects that you know of. Or is it just sounds and prosody that have changed quite a bit? That is related to the question of how fast grammar actually changes. My guess is that it is slower than sounds, and much slower than commonly believed. It happens, yes, but it is harder to change because it would mean changing how people actually think, symbolize and view the work. FWIW!
 
Ah, ok, sorry I misunderstood. Well, that's a thing, because Batua wasn't the fruit of 'evolution' or something like that, it was an artificial construct specifically created by local scholars and linguists in order to deliver a method to unite the speakers.

The 'picky' group that I mentioned before could be compared against the younger speakers of the same 'house Basque', and there the only difference would be indeed in prosody/sounds.

There are for example multiple nouns and even verbs belonging to specific 'local' Basque dialects, but those are kept by younger speakers of those dialects too.

Some evidence of this with Ondarroan dialect, for example:


If we compare those (either older generation or younger generation) speakers of local dialects with speakers of Batua we will see some differences both in grammar and lexicon.

But those types of differences are consistent through time between older and younger speakers of different Basque dialects.

For more details on differences in lexicon and grammar between dialects you can check some examples here:


And in Spanish:



I also tried to check how Basque evolved (or not) in America, but pitifully I found just few examples of several generations of Basque speakers living in US. Most of the Basque speaking people who emigrated there and brought there their language did so in the 20th century.

I found a case of a family with 3 generations of Basque speakers in Idaho, for example, in this video:


Check 20:14-21:53.

I found interesting the fact that she speaks Batua instead of her family dialect. Also, listening to her it's clear to me Basque is not her first language as per the struggle she goes through to speak.

It's clear the way we speak wires the way our brains work and think.

Not sure if this helps, though.
 
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I can't really judge how close Basque and Armenian languages are and apart from the mentioned legend that a leader of Basques came from Armenia with his 7 sons there is little to suggest that Basque actually originated from Armenian language. It may just as well be that both languages are derivatives of the Atlantean language or its dialects and both peoples might be survivors of the Flood aka Atlantis destruction (note that present day Basques and Armenians inhabit mountainous regions or highlands).

I'm finding this and the Romance languages discussion threads (and there may be more, I'm slowly going through this board which I'm highly interested in) quite insightful. Very helpful in shedding some light on + providing the opportunity to learn not only on seemingly unrelated languages (in and out of the Indo-European language family, which seems to be a partial/ distorted picture of the history pf languages it holds) but also the history of the 'very connected' people of the ancient European/ Near East/ Steppe territories.

Thank you @Altair for researching and providing the great info (and books). My impression is that the the very old and fairly intact ("resilient" languages as Chu puts it) are later offshoots or potentially even 'somewhat preserved' forms of pre-Flood (Younger Dryas) language(s). That may be why research suggest they are related and often compared to the likes of Etruscan and Iberian (and there are more obscure ancient European cultures/ languages that don't fit the modern-constructed language family trees).

I forgot something: one interesting fact about Basque and Armenian both (and there are others), is the resilience they have shown. In spite of all odds, invasions and what-not, they are VERY old (Basque is believed to date from at least the Neolithic). I sometimes wonder what makes it so. Just geographical isolation alone wouldn't do it, I think. There is something intrinsic to the language (and the way its speakers think, which is VERY different in Basque), that is maybe intrinsic to the speakers themselves too? I don't know. But some languages sure are resistant, while others are very vulnerable regardless of the number of speakers.

Albanian is possibly another example though the modern official version is profoundly different to the original (especially the one spoken by the people) due to many recent rounds of standardization and endless pressure/ influences from the many invasions/ empire border changes, common throughout the history of the region seen as the natural boundary of East and West.

Nonetheless, the two main dialects that comprise it, Gheg (spoken in Northern and central regions) and Tosk (spoken in the South/ part of Greece/ South-eastern Italy etc), appear to have and still preserve VERY old roots. Both Gheg and Tosk, including old versions of it like Arbëresh, Thracian Arvanitika and others (considered languages on their own) have been linked to Etruscan.

Your thought about the languages being intrinsic to the speakers seems pretty valid to me, and I can add to that the resilience of the speakers themselves in refusing to submit/ maintaining their culture and identity which they identified with core elements like language and traditions. Local history suggests they sought isolation or they generally lived self sufficiently in the highlands and lands which historically were difficult to influence no matter the size of the armies going through or the power the imperial rulers at different times. Seems there was something inherent in them, part of their values and way of thinking (akin to ancestor/ ancestral values worshiping of the romans as an example), that made them lead their lives in tough conditions with no access to resources and all life-sustaining benefits of the portions of the population that submitted, so as to preserve their identity/ culture which I suspect they saw as the one and the same. The small pockets of these strong-willed people (weathering the storms so to speak) are the reason these ancient forms of language have survived. Roughnecks and probably far to rigid-minded but hey, they may have preserved jewels of language, as in (and this is a very subjective take of mine) archaic, more authentic and more in-tune with the world ways of expression/ communication. This something difficult to explain but I know and feel when I speak proper Gheg, pronouncing the words and speaking the old (efficiently short) sentences, that there's weight and substance behind my expression; it's as if it was more than just a series of sounds arbitrarily assigned to that expression, it's 'the right' sounds..

Didn't mean to go on a tangent here, but your thought sparked that connection.
 
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