Talk:Vasconic languages

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Irish??

What are the *clear* traces of Vasconic in Irish? Akerbeltz (talk) 02:25, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Ha ha, I was just about to put a {fact} behind that one! Trigaranus (talk) 09:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd have to look it up. I haven't read that stuff in a while, and have no idea where it might be in my stuff. But it is one of the pieces of evidence used to argue that Goidelic and Brythonic have separate origins on the mainland. kwami (talk) 10:11, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, could it be things like J. Morris-Jones, "Pre-Aryan Syntax in Insular Celtic" (1900) and things in that tradition? I'll see if I can get my hands on any of these. Trigaranus (talk) 12:29, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

1900? As a rule of thumb, discount any theory on the relationship of X with Basque that predates Koldo Mitxelena's Fonética Histórica Vasca because they all worked of contemporary dictionaries with no regard to distinguishing Romance loanwords from native words or the fact that the phonology has changed in the intervening millenium or two. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Hang on, I've found something more recent: Celtic connections : proceedings of the 10th International Congress of Celtic Studies, (Edinburgh, 1995). There's something by Orin Gensler on the issue in there. Just to have a look at that substratum in Irish, I mean. Trigaranus (talk) 12:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

He's of the Vennemann school I'd say. This is by Vennemann [1] And since for one the most intensly megalithicised prehistoric areas, Ireland, a Hamito-Semitic pre-Celtic substratum has been suspected and demonstrated by Morris Jones (1900), ascertained by Pokorny (1927-30) and - in my view - established for once and for all by Gensler (1993)... It goes on like that. There's another snipped on Gensler's work [2] (bottom of the exchange). I know they're not the best sources but I rarely buy crackpot stuff - I'll have to see if i can find an actualy article by him. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:46, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Found a good summary of the Irish substratum thingy [3], do a search for Gensler; recent scholars like McCone seem to take an equally dim view. Reading around, Gensler's work seems to focus on comparing syntactic structures. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:52, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Your PDF ref only makes a single mention of Basque, in a footnote that has nothing to do with this. I don't recall Gensler mentioning anything about Basque either, but that might just be my memory. He's no Vennemann, though: Many of his colleagues at Max Planck think he's on to something. The traces he finds of AA in IC are like the traces of Welsh you find in English: subtle and not definitive, but so unlikely to be coincidence that they're still convincing. The Basque traces in Gaelic were I believe in vocabulary, not typology, and so much clearer. kwami (talk) 13:11, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I was looking for stuff that tells us the general approach of Gensler's work, I haven't found a perfect match :b He may be on to something but so far he's failed to even ripple Basque linguistics. I've redone the page in my sandbox, thoughts welcome. Feel free to edit in the sandbox. Ignore the dialect table at the bottom. Akerbeltz (talk) 13:39, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

PS That aside, remember this thread is about the strange point re Irish, not Basque itself. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:39, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

There's a very detailed (and quite disillusioning) discussion of Gensler and his proposed substratum to be found here (by Isaac). It's the most recent thing I've found on the issue, and it seems to quite decidedly trash Gensler's suggested evidence. Read through it, it's a really very systematic, complete and compelling assessment. Trigaranus (talk) 15:18, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Disillusioning? I'd say reassuring! Akerbeltz (talk) 15:40, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd have to compare them side by side, as Gensler had addressed many of the very issues Isaac uses to refute him, but while looking for where Isaac discusses Basque, I came across the odd argument that AA in IC can't be true because there's no evidence of AA in Iberia, as if a seafaring people must have come by land, rather than just hopping the coast and not taking hold every stop along the way. [G does not claim that AA were the original inhabitants of the isles, only that they may have preceded Celtic by a few centuries and had been culturally dominant over indigenous peoples, as say the Phoenicians appear to have been in the Balearics.] (And anyway we have no evidence from most of western coastal Iberia.) But again, all this is completely irrelevant, because Isaac does not address Gensler as addressing Basque, and as far as I can remember Gensler did not address Basque. How is any of this relevant to the claim of Basque loanwords in Gaelic? kwami (talk) 22:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The original question in this string came about as a query on what on earth the "proven Basque substrate" in Irish was. That's how we ended up looking for refs, the first one thrown up was Morris-Jones in 1900. I pointed out that anything pre Mixtelena is usually rubbish because they compared modern Basque to (modern) language X. Triganus then came up with the Orin Gensler thing as being more recent so we were trying to figure if he's a crackpot or not ;) Akerbeltz (talk) 00:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

First of all, I made no claim of a Basque substrate in Irish, only that there was evidence of contact. (All that would imply is that, for example, Brythonic may have been a migration from the ancestors of Gaulish, and Goidelic from Celtiberian, not that Vasconic was ever present in Ireland.) I unfortunately do not have any refs at hand for evaluation, and it would take a godawful amount of time to try to track it down in paper form, so I can't say how reliable this is, except that it was reasonably recent. Secondly, I don't see that this has anything to do with Gensler, who's talking about typological similarities of IC (primarily Brythonic, if I remember correctly) and AA, features that are unusual in Europe and not found in Continental Celtic. Maybe I've misremembered and Gensler was the source, but Isaac says nothing about any such claim on his part. kwami (talk) 00:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I know it wasn't you, but it was there on the page anyway. No idea who put it there. Akerbeltz (talk) 00:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

But it was me who put the claim there. I just never said anything about a substrate: "clear traces" is all I said. I'm sure that could be worded better ("evidence of contact"?), but I remember the conclusion more than the evidence. kwami (talk) 10:27, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry, we're not trying to mix things up here. If I have the time, I'll see if I can find something more or less recent on substrate theories in IC next week. I was in fact looking for a paper discussing Vasconic influence, but haven't found any so far (the only thing found being Gensler going on about AA, and his critics). It still strikes me as odd that there should be clear indications of a Vasconic substrate in IC; never heard of that, at least not beyond that stream that claims Vasconic belongs to a very loose and very wide AA potpourri. (Btw: I love the "crackpot" touchstone for linguists! "Is he sensible? Nah, must be a crackpot!) :-) Trigaranus (talk) 09:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I've just found a promising candidate here, by G. MacEoin. How can one not love the internet? Haven't had time to read it yet, though. Trigaranus (talk) 10:02, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Nothing in it about Basque and Goidelic, though. kwami (talk) 10:27, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

The only clear trace of Basque-Irish contact I'm aware of has been pointed out by Peter Schrijver (see Google Books): it's the Old/Middle Irish word ainder "woman", which has a convincing etymology in (Proto-)Basque/Aquitanian (and-er(h)e, "noble" + "woman", hence "lady"), but not in Celtic, and must for phonological reasons be a late (5th/6th century) borrowing into Irish (if it were old in Irish, it would have become *inder or something like that, like ingor from VL *ancora "anchor"). Aside of that, there's also adarc "horn", which seems to be somehow connected with Basque adar "horn". Perhaps there was a colony of Basques in 5th/6th century Ireland? I know, it's weird, but in this one case, the evidence is clear. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:41, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

<shrugs> I'm always highly suspicious of theories based on a single word on the basis that "it can't be anything else" - I'm not arguing that it's not a loan into Irish but the link to Basque is tenuous and that aside, there where a whole lot of languages kicking about Europe at the time which are wholly undocumented. Hardly a "clear trace" either way. Akerbeltz (talk) 23:24, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Just read the source; the evidence and the arguments are all there. The etymological connection is as clear as any etymology can even be: the semantics and the phonological form fit (almost) hundred percent.

If it's not Basque, it must still have been a word from a non-Irish (not necessarily non-Celtic or non-IE, but likely so) substrate language in 5th/6th century Ireland by all appearances, which is remarkable enough. I'm not attached to any specific explanation; the true historical background might be quite unspectacular, although it may well still have had a remarkable story behind it. Basque travellers, merchants, refugees? We simply have no idea.

I'm not saying this one word proves any "pan-European Basque substrate" fantasies; that's patent nonsense. The predecessor of Basque must have been only one of a great variety of different languages in Bronze Age Europe, forming lots of genetic units (isolated languages, smaller and larger families and phyla), judging from what we know about ancient non-IE languages in Europe, and the analogy with North America prior to European contact. It just happens to be the only one that survived the Indo-European expansion to the present day. However, and-er(h)e is apparently morphologically complex, which would make it specifically Aquitanian/Basque, and extremely unlikely to be connected with some substrate language on Ireland which separated from Basque millennia ago. An Aquitanian colony is a much more likely scenario, because the donor language appears to have been very closely related to Aquitanian. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:12, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

If it's just one word it's better off removed than staying there, giving undue weight to very minimal amounts of borrowings; any more than that is letting the crackpots have their day. At this rate we might as well say Irish is a germanic language, or english is a celtic one for its whopping one hundred borrowed welsh and irish words. 74.56.208.54 (talk) 21:58, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Family vs isolate

I think we better continue this topic here. There's just not enough material in Aquitanian to start arguing for subdivisions today. Maybe in 50 years time if we got lucky and found more material, we may be able to find subdivisions but not at the moment. As for the dialects vs language family - it has been pointed out to me on many occasions that we're simply collecting data from as reliable a source as possible, not conducting our own research. Since virtually all Basque linguists see Basque as a single language with various subdialects, then that should be good enough to override the rather odd thing on Ethnologue (which as we know is not the most reliable source). Akerbeltz (talk) 00:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Akerbeltz and I have been discussing this on my talk page in a parallel discussion. I said there, "If Aquitanian is not attested as continuing as a side branch to Basque, and there is no evidence of dialectical diversity within Aquitanian, and all Basque dialects are mutually intelligible," then we have no justification for an article on Vasconic languages. I had also said, "This started out as an attempt to find a better use of the name Vasconic (which I occasionally see in the literature) than Vennemann's stuff, and also as a place to summarize our articles on Aquitanian and the dialects," which Akerbeltz said "sounds like something worth doing, since Vasconic does kick around. Let me mull this one over?"

I know that Ethnologue is not very reliable. They do, however, specifically state that all dialects have some degree of mutual intelligibility except Souletin. It's generally difficult to get data on mutual intelligibility, but Akerbeltz assures me that Souletin is generally intelligible with Batua, at least to the point that he can get by at a non-native level. Of course, I can get by in German using Germanified English with almost no ability in German, but if by 'get by' he means that he can follow basic conversations going on around him, that would clinch it. But it would be nice if we had a decent source. —kwami (talk) 01:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

"But it would be nice if we had a decent source". Ethnologue is not a perfect source, but it is a decent source. It uses fairly loose criteria for separating divergent dialects into separate languages, but it is fairly consistent in that usage and is put together by trained linguists. No source is perfect, of course. But Ethnologue is too often unjustifiably disparaged because it is produced by a religious organization. Indeed, there are only three classifications that attempt to classify all the world's languages. Ethnologue, Linguasphere, and Ruhlen. Of the three, the ISO selected Ethnologue as the base to begin from. There were non-linguistic reasons for that to be sure, but it would not have been selected had it not been a scientific source. I am rather tired of hearing otherwise professional linguists disparaging Ethnologue because they have an old population figure for some language or other or because they listed too many dialects for some language or other. Ethnologue has a very easy form for fixing errors. I've used it many times myself. Now, to the issue at hand. ISO 639-3 has combined the three separate languages into a single Basque language, and, since Ethnologue is the admistrative arm for ISO 639-3, then the next issue of Ethnologue will follow suit. So the whole question of three languages or one has become moot. The next issue of Ethnologue will follow ISO 639-3 in collapsing the three Basque varieties into one code element. So unless Aquitanian is something different than "Old Basque", there's no real language family here. (Taivo (talk) 04:48, 1 March 2009 (UTC))

OK, just for a chuckle: I just read the ISO 639-3 Change Request Form that collapsed Navarro-Labourdin into Basque and it cites Wikipedia, Basque language as one of its bibliographical sources! LOL (04:53, 1 March 2009 (UTC))

Taivo, you misunderstand me. I meant that it would be nice if we had a decent source that Souletin was mutually intelligible with the rest of Basque. Ethnologue states that it is not: if we're going to conflate the two, it would be nice if we had a good source to justify our difference from Ethnologue (though as you said that looks to soon be moot). I agree: Ethnologue is a decent source, more than decent. (Certainly if you compare it to Ruhlen!) However, it is not reliable: in order to use it reliably, you have to know where it's wrong, which defeats the point of a reliable source. Maybe I'm jaded because coverage of some of the languages I know best has been absolute garbage through the 14th & 15th editions. We'll see this month how much they've cleaned it up. kwami (talk) 09:59, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry if I misunderstood. I get torqued at a certain group of my fellow Native American specialists who refuse to recognize the quality of any of SIL's work just because they are a missionary organization. You could consider this Change Request Form for Souletin Basque as a reliable source, I think. Especially given the breadth of the endorsement of it. (And, if the next edition of Ethnologue isn't to your liking in the languages you work with, then do what I have done and send in the appropriate correction forms. This is our resource.) I would still not hesitate to call Ethnologue as reliable a source for the breadth of its coverage as we have. There are always more reliable sources out there, but that usually entails detailed knowledge of a particular language or group of languages and how recently that material has been brought to the attention of the Ethnologue editors. (Taivo (talk) 12:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC))

Well, they DO implicitly say it's MI. If it wasn't, Trask, Mitxelena et al wouldn't be listing Zuberoan under dialects, would they? And the Zuberoan dictionaries would be publishing under Zuberoan-French, not Basque-French (the Casanave-Harigile ones for example, Hiztegia Français-Eüskara - Züberotar eüskalkitik abiatzez "on the Zuberoan Basque dialect"). Everywhere you look, both the indigenous view and the implicit scientific approach classifies Zuberoan as a dialect, not a seperate language and we have Trask stating quite clearly that the dialect differences are overemphasised. What more do we want? I really feel that this is a rather fruitless exercise in splitting hairs - we'd have a better chance of arguing that there's not Kurdish language. And I've just had a quick look around in my language books, it's actually quite difficult finding a source that explicitly says that German for example is a language of MI dialects + the standard... Akerbeltz (talk) 12:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for that Taivo - yes, the merger proposal is full of bona fide vasconists, Hualde, Aierbe, Olaziregi etc, from both sides of the mountains. Let's move on :) Akerbeltz (talk) 12:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Akerbeltz, you said you wanted to mull over what to do with the name 'Vasconic'. Have you thought about it? Just a redirect, maybe? But Taivo, it's only implied to be MI because it's thought of as the same language. By that logic, Cantonese is MI with Mandarin. It would still be nice to see a ref that specifically addresses the issue of MI, though I hope it's clear that I'm not trying to hold things up on that point—a sociolinguistic definition of a language is still a linguistic definition, even without MI. kwami (talk) 12:38, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I think we should leave the page here because it is a concept that crops up every now and then, so better get it sorted.

I agree, that the perceived view by the people is not definitive but it must be taken into account at least. In the case of Basque, it coincides with the classification of Zuberoan as a dialect by Basque linguists. But I will do my best to find something explicit. May take a while though. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:47, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I got Rebuschi here who states that ...le basque présente un continuum du point de vue de l'intercompréhension entre locuteurs appartenant à des localités voisines,... (in his intro re Basque and its dialects). I'll keep looking for something specific re Zuberoan and Lower Navarrese for example. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I know it's a bit pedantic, but all of Western Romance is un continuum du point de vue de l'intercompréhension entre locuteurs appartenant à des localités voisines, but nevertheless we don't consider it to be a single language, partially because speakers from further away don't understand each other so easily, but mostly because of differing national standards. With Basque, there's the question of whether Souletin is MI with its nearest neighbors, whether all Basques can communicate in their local dialect with someone using Batua, and whether all Basques can communicate using their local dialects with each other (say, Bizkaian and Souletin). Certainly in the latter case there would be no question it's a single language, but in the case of the first two, it's a judgement call. I'm not saying we should make that call, but it would be useful info to have, and we could simply present it without making the call. kwami (talk) 20:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It is sounding almost like the situation that ISO 639-3 considers a macrolanguage (Batua in this case) with several partially or somewhat non- mutually intelligible languages/dialects as with Kurdish. With all these things, there's judgement calls left and right. Portuguese speakers have little trouble understanding Spanish, but the reverse is not true. I've often seen speakers of Russian and Ukrainian conversing with one another in their native tongues with little loss of information. Remember the old saw: "A language is a dialect with an army and navy." (Taivo (talk) 01:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC))

It would certainly be useful info to have but sorry if I'm getting a touch frustrated here - generations of Basque linguists (not just people off the street) have been happy calling Basque a language and the 8 or so main variants dialects. They continue to do so. Why are we even contemplating overriding them?? Just because Ethnologue thinkg so and because it's so obvious to the Basques/Basque linguists that no-one bothers explicitly stating that Zuberon is MI with its neighbours? Sure, as Taivo says, judgement calls come into it but *we're* not here to make that call. Not until a major camp of vasconists comes out saying they consider Zuberoan a separate language. Which won't happen anyway with the ever increasing influence of Batua. Akerbeltz (talk) 01:18, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry, Akerbeltz. I'm not going to override generations of Basque linguists here. I'm more or less musing on the situation that is faced in countless other places around the world--common identity through language or different identity through language. (Taivo (talk) 01:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC))

Yes, I got that and I know full well how difficult it can be to come up with any sort of criteria to distinguish between the two that won't fall over the moment you turn your back. Echoing a little that has been going on on the Linguistics page, if experts on Basque call Zuberoan a dialect, well, then a dialect it is... no? And Ethnologue, for all its good points which I highly appreciate, isn't an expert on Basque. Akerbeltz (talk) 08:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Can we park this for a few days? I'm researching sources for Erromintxela - we may get our vasconic family after all out of left field. If it turns out to be a Kriol that is. Akerbeltz (talk) 21:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, done. Check out Erromintxela... I don't think I've ever done a more highly referenced page just in case ;) Now we can start arguing if Basque plus a Creole make a family! Akerbeltz (talk) 02:46, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Creoles don't belong to families or else there might be. In this case, however, since the lexicon is Romani it wouldn't be Vasconic anyway. Has anyone filled out a Change Request Form and Create Code Form so that this can be included in ISO 639-3? (Taivo (talk) 03:13, 3 March 2009 (UTC))

Yet we're happy to group English? Anyway, having read a few pieces, the grammar is indeed overwhelmingly Basque... again reminiscent of English :b Akerbeltz (talk) 03:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

English isn't a creole. 80% of the lexicon in any connected piece of speech in English is Germanic and the grammar is nearly 95% Germanic. The English verb phrase is about as Germanic as you can get. It's only when you count "penicillin", "jurisprudence", etc. in the dictionary that you get the high percentages of loanwords. You don't find many loanwords in the core vocabulary. I didn't sit down with vocab lists in the Erromintxela article to see how much of the core vocabulary was Basque and how much was Romany, but that would be a key element in determining whether it was a Basque relative with large amounts of loanwords, a mixed language candidate, or something else. If the grammar is overwhelmingly Basque, then it's not a creole anyway since creoles have simplified grammar. (Taivo (talk) 09:48, 3 March 2009 (UTC))

So, looking at the article, the core vocabulary seems to be Romany (and the article implies that there's no Basque vocabulary). There isn't enough information in the article to know how much of the grammar has been simplified. The experts seem to think that it's a creole. So that makes it "not Vasconic", but "Creole". (Taivo (talk) 09:55, 3 March 2009 (UTC))

Mm ok, fair point. I'll look at the (sparse) material in more detail re grammar but at first sight it looks like Basque grammar was taken on board wholesale (using a form like dinat is pretty fancy grammar). So what *do* we call a language that retains its vocab but switches its grammar? The word pogolect is kicking around some of those Erromintxela articles but I've never come across the word and googling it isn't helping much either. Ideas? Aren't there a few Papuan societies which have done something similar? (PS I'm not fixed on calling it a creole - it just seemed to fit from what I remember from my lectures). Akerbeltz (talk) 12:06, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

PPS responding to the core vocab question on the Erromintxela talk page. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Languages that have grammar from one source and their lexicon from another source are usually called mixed languages, but I'm not a specialist in contact languages like pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages. There are very few true mixed languages in the world, but this seems like a good candidate. (Taivo (talk) 12:42, 3 March 2009 (UTC))

Ah! Ross gives Mixe as an example of metatypy, as Basque restructured through contact with Gascon, but still of direct Basque descent. kwami (talk) 01:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Errr... let's not get carried away? I lost my Haase book who mentions this, might be the time to re-order but I wouldn't list Mixe Basque as a separate language just yet. I can't remember what it was but there's something at the back of my mind about what that one doesn't really qualify as a language. Put that on hold? Akerbeltz (talk) 12:00, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a suggestion. I've done enough making you guys run to the library; you can take it from here. kwami (talk) 20:34, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

If the theory of Vennemann (of a basque substratum in indogermanic language groups - especially in germanic) is mentioned here please include his main book (the fat yellow one) as a reference here. It is written partly in english and partly in german. It is given here in the Wikipedia article on Theo Vennemann. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.201.116.195 (talk) 09:24, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

No, in a word. His theories are widely discredited, not only by Vasconists but also by Indo-Europeanists. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:15, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

No, the whole article is on V.'s theory, so this book should be included. By the way, his theory is not descredited, since all arguments against him merely are bullshit. Apply logic and nothing remains. Germans call that grausam! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.209.248.59 (talk) 11:05, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Huh-uh, Germans call that Firlefanzereien. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:03, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

sudden move

yeah, so this move wasn't necessarily a great idea; at least the links pointing here should have been fixed. --dab (𒁳) 11:23, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. kwami (talk) 19:32, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

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Merge with Vasconic substratum theory

Do we really need a separate article about the Vasconic languages? As far as I know, the term Vasconic languages was coined by Theo Vennemann for a language family that included Basque (together with its earlier attested form, Aquitanian) and other hypothetical unattested languages, which latter–according to Vennemann–left a trace as a substratum visible in many European toponyms. He did so with a wise precaution that the subtratum language–if his hypothesis is correct–must not necessarily have been a direct ancestor of present-day Basque itself. (NB: The validity of Vennemann's Vasconic theory itself is of no concern here).

The term "Vasconic languages" however was initially not coined for a language family that contains Basque, Aquitanian, potentially extended by other historically attested languages which might eventually be be proven to be related to Basque/Aquitanian (as has been suggested e.g. for Iberian). My question is: can anyone provide us with reliable sources which employ the term "Vasconic languages" in the latter sense, and thus not directly connected to Vennenmann's hypothesis? If not, we'd better merge this article to Vasconic substratum theory, because the question of the external relations of Basque/Aquitanian should be exclusivly dealt with in the article "Basque language", section "Hypotheses concerning Basque's connections to other languages". The latter subject actually could deserve its own article, but that is another topic.

Note that Trask (1997), which is given as a source here, never uses "Vasconic languages" to describe the relation between Basque and Aquitanian, which latter he considers a direct ancestor of present-day Basque.

I especially invite the editors Akerbeltz, Future Perfect at Sunrise, Florian Blaschke, Kwamikagami, whom I have picked from the history as having done more than just one edit here, for contributions. IMO, this article, as it is written now, gives a free ride for POV-pushing and OR, which is pretty well visible in its history.

The IP-edit warrior 141.237.197.235 is also invited (@Akerbeltz: don't hate me for that! XD), as long you stick to our principles of WP:No original research, WP:Reliable sources, WP:Verifiability and WP:Neutral point of view. –Austronesier (talk) 19:58, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

As long as (s)he contributes something coherent, I'm fine with that ;)

I'd be ok with merging both pages though my preference would be to move that huge section on connections to other languages out of the Basque language article into a single article comprising said section, the Vasconic languages stuff and the substratum page. Akerbeltz (talk) 20:05, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

@Akerbeltz: Thanks for the quick reply, and yeah, I forgot to mention that the part of this article not related to Vennemann's article should of course be moved to the Basque language article, or to the article-yet-to-be-created. –Austronesier (talk) 20:13, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't want to mislead our readers into thinking that the word 'Vasconic' indicates Vennemann's theory. The term is used in the narrower sense in e.g. Sinner & Velaza (2019) Palaeohispanic Languages and Epigraphies, OUP, and Blevins (2018) Advances in Proto-Basque Reconstruction ..., Routledge. Blevins says, "The Euskarian language family [per Gorrochategui 1995], sometimes referred to as 'Vasconic' or simply as 'Basque' or 'Euskara', includes all present and historical varieties of Basque, as well as Aquitanian ... the term 'Euskarian' [refers] to the language family as a whole."

So I don't think a direct merge would be appropriate. Perhaps we could reduce the article to a dab? And probably add Gorrochategui's synonym, for something like "Vasconic, or Euskarian, may be ..." — kwami (talk) 21:03, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, kwami! That exactly was my question, whether the term "Vasconic" has caught up beyond Vennemann's theory. As far as I can see, the term is only used in chapter 12 of Sinner & Velaza (2019). I am not quite sure what Gorrochategui and Vallejo actually refer to when using "Vasconic", especially on p. 362 "...another specific feature of the Vasconic and Aquitanian language...". As far as I can judge, Gorrochategui seems to use "Vasconic" as an adjective relating to the "Vascones" as mentioned in Roman sources.

But the main point is, you are right, as soon as serious scholars employ the term without reference to Vennemann's theory, a straight merge/redirect as I have suggested will be misleading. Thanks for pointing this out. And a dab would be a good idea then.

As for Blevins, I would add a -tag to her statement if it were a WP article ;). –Austronesier (talk) 21:45, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

My verdict is to merge into Vasconic substratum hypothesis. The idea of a Vasconic language family, as such, can be entertained quite independently of Vennemann's hypothesis – we just don't have any good evidence for languages clearly related to Basque but less closely than Aquitanian is (Aquitanian may well be the direct ancient ancestor of Basque). Just like Ket is a language isolate now but was part of a whole family in the 18th century, you'd expect that at some point, an ancient ancestor of Basque was part of a family of related languages. (Even if you'd have to go back to a time before the Indo-European expansion for it, although that's not likely.) In principle there's no reason why some placenames or placename elements in, say, Southeastern France shouldn't ultimately go back to some ancient language related to Basque that was eventually replaced by Celtic and Latin/Romance.

The highly controversial (and empirically extremely improbable, based on the Uniformitarian Principle) part of Vennemann's hypothesis is the idea that this family once covered much of Mesolithic/Neolithic Europe as far north as Scandinavia. If, say, in 4000 BC, Europe was largely covered by languages ultimately sharing a common ancestor with Basque, and many of them remained in 1000 BC, this relationship would have become obscured after millennia of divergence, well over 10,000 years since the LGM, leading to a macrofamily probably more internally diverse than Afro-Asiatic at the very least, where continent-wide lexemes (lexical cognates, even if preserved and fossilised in placenames somehow) wouldn't be as easily recognisable anymore as Vennemann postulates. Even if his idea is that a relatively close-knit Vasconic family covered Europe earlier, in 6000 or 8000 BC, this would be difficult to imagine. Worse even, he requires that these lexemes have been preserved largely unchanged since the Neolithic or even Mesolithic in modern Basque. The only way to save the whole idea – required also by hypotheses that assume an origin of Indo-European more than 8000 years ago – is to posit a rate of language change so slow that I've never seen it attested anywhere, violating the Uniformitarian Principle.

So the concept of a Vasconic family – not in Vennemann's conception – makes sense, in principle. But is it actually in use anywhere? Currently not, per the above discussion. Sure, an ancient inscription written in a language evidently related but not identical to Basque/Aquitanian could turn up tomorrow. But that's speculation. Basque-Aquitanian, at this point, is effectively a language isolate. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:25, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: Herzlichen Dank for your input! As I initially said, the validity of the Vasconic theory is one thing, and I largely agree with the majority view which you have portrayed here. Terminology, however, is another thing. The current version of the article actually employs "Vasconic languages" (at least in the third paragraph) as if it were an accepted synonym for Basque-Aquitanian, and this is what I mainly contest. Kwami has cited two sources which come close to such a thing. I doubt this, however, for Gorrochategui and Vallejo's chapter in Sinner & Velaza (2019). As for Blevins' out-of-hand statement "The Euskarian language family [...] sometimes referred to as 'Vasconic'...", I still would like to see an actual instance where a notable scholar does exactly that (viz. referring to Basque-Aquitanian as Vasconic). Wikipedia is a powerful multiplier of ideas (a Multiplikator), and even the creative use of existing terminology can become a kind of "self-fulfilling prophecy", when fringe concoctions on blogs and forums are built on WP-based terminology, until the latter creeps into mainstream. We have a tremendous responsibility here not only content-wise, but also lemma-wise, which is my main concern here. –Austronesier (talk) 19:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Yes, and I agree with your argument above that Vasconic is not an accepted synonym for Basque-Aquitanian. Which is exactly why I agreed that the article should be merged into the substrate hypothesis article. There is little to none to merge anyway because the article is so poor in actual relevant content. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: Before proceeding with a merger/rd, we have to make sure that existing links which are actually meant to link to Basque are fixed. Do you have an idea why e.g. Karranga language appears in the "What links here"-list? "Vasconic languages" was in the Template:language families (which created hundreds of sublinks) but I have removed it already from there. –Austronesier (talk) 11:27, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: No idea. There are further examples that don't have an obvious explanation. I suspect there's a glitch somewhere – there may be a database that isn't fully up to date yet. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:31, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

But what is the meaning of "Vasconic" in Trask 1997? – Uanfala (talk) 14:04, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

@Uanfala: Quite simple. He does not use the term "Vasconic" at all. Even when discussing Vennemann's hypothesis, he refers to the substratum language as "Old European". –Austronesier (talk) 15:46, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, I asked because I did a lazy web search for the term, and even though most results (not very numerous, to be fair) tended to mention "Vasconic" and "Venemmann" in the same sentence, there was at least one that as far as I was able to see used it in a generic, theory-neutral way: that was this review of Trask 1997. – Uanfala (talk) 16:02, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

@Uanfala: Bingo. Bengtson uses Vasconic in the general way as a cover term for Basque+Aquitanian+X. –Austronesier (talk) 14:44, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Vasconic as a primary language family

Since the relationship between Aquitanian and Basque has been demonstrated, there should be written "One of the world's primary language families" in the infobox. 46.177.113.153 (talk) 09:18, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

No. Aquitanian most likely being a precursor of modern Basque doesn't make it a family. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:25, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Putative?

As far as I know, relatedness between Basque and Aquitanian is in no way "putative". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.249.47.134 (talk) 02:14, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

That's not why it's putative, it's putative because we're not sure if Aquitanian is the parent (as it were) of Basque or a sibling/cousin language. If it's a parent, it's not a family (in the linguistic sense) i.e. if the only documented Romance languages were Latin and French, then it wouldn't be a family because one descends from the other, it would be merely a language isolate with an older documented form. Akerbeltz (talk) 09:10, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Removal of para on doubts and difficulties of developing proto-basque

A ref for this was requested, not supplied. A proto-basque already is in place. Who cares about the difficulties of developing one now? That sort of material would come under doubts about proto-basque, but that is something we don't do on our own. We refer to an expert. He can doubt, we can't. A reconstruction of a Proto-Vasconic language is almost impossible with currently available information. More data and research are needed to reconstruct the basics of a proto-language, as well as more information surrounding the neighboring extinct languages such as Iberian and the relationship it has with Vasconic. Reconstruction of a hypothesized Vasconic Proto-language could only be done using the comparative method, although the accuracy of the reconstructed proto-language would still be uncertain. Botteville (talk) 11:52, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Reversion of removal

Mr. Akerbeltz, if you please. You reverted my deletion with a bunch of insulting personal remarks. The remarks are against Wikipedia policy, if you please. I am sorry if you do not like my speech. It is I believe standard English. I am an English-speaker by birth-culture. Frankly I cannot see how you fail to understand my critique. The paragraph contains personal opinions. A reference was requested. It was not supplied. I removed the paragraph as unreferenced material. JUst what part of that is difficult to understand? As your self-record seems to indicate an experienced user; i.e., you ought to know better, I have tentatively marked your reversion as vandalism. That may not be the right category. In that case I would apologize. However your comment is clearly a personal attack. Moreover it does not provide a reference. Please, Mr. Akerbeltz. We are trying to run a sane encyclopedia here, not an edit war.Botteville (talk) 13:04, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

More on reversion

Hello Mr. Akerbeltz. Well you reverted a second time. I do not notice any disparaging remarks. That's an improvement. Well, here is where we stand on this. There is a 3-reversion limit. I do not know if you got the edge or I. It hinges on whether my original deletion was a reversion. Are we 2-2 or 1-2? I'm up. The help on reversions does not make it clear. It does make it clear that should either one of us go over, blocking is the probable outcome. Am I being clear or are you still confused over American English? I suppose the issue would be adjudicated on transgression. Then it might be too late for one of us. Now, the issue was, can unreferenced material be deleted? Of course it can, yes. Clear? But what if it entails a 4th reversion? At this point I want to say that this is a royal pain in the ass, not at all what I am hoping to accomplish. Can you understand my yankee English? The ironic part of it is, I actually agree with the paragraph. How to come up with a proto-basque on an isolate was a serious issue, which was solved with great ingenuity. So, I'm not going to waste any more time in this. The main article is proto-Basque. That is enough for now. When I do get to the article I may well be looking for a ref myself. That is the only way to get rid of the tag. Otherwise I do not excuse you from any of the WP rules. You play the game by the rules like a good boy. Quit being rude to your elders or to any other Wikipedia editor. If there is nothing further I am ending this conversation.Botteville (talk) 15:19, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Dear Botteville, the talk page is not really the place for a game of gotcha, either. And I don't think the "That's an improvement" or "Can you understand my yankee English" (which is simply tedious) or "like a good boy" (which is hopefully not how you normally interact with people you meet face-to-face) is a good look, either. I'm not sure where you come from, specialty-wise. The paragraph you are trying to remove from the article may not have a current reference, but you know as well as other users and as well as Akerbeltz that the fact of the matter is not under any sort of doubt. You are not helping to improve WP if you have the entire paragraph removed.

(For anyone unsure about the linguistics behind it: The case is a rather straightforward problem of language reconstruction: In cases where we have (a) a large number of descendant languages and/or (b) a decent corpus of older stages attested — which in turn constitutes the basis for (c) a good amount of modern peer-reviewed scholarship —, a workable reconstruction of an unattested proto-language is possible (and can be presented on WP). The paragraph you are hoping to delete simply states that for the Vasconic languages, this is not the case. Let's quickly double check what we have: (a) one descendent language, (b) almost no ancient materials to work with, and therefore (c) some, but limited, scholarship on the matter. As the paragraph in question states, internal diachronic reconstruction is extremely difficult without any sister languages. So, while you may get a range of Schleicher's fable variations, or M. L. West's "Indo-European Poetry and Myth", together with extremely detailed scholarship on pretty much any imaginable aspect of PIE reconstructions, there has *not* been any sort of detailed attempt at reconstructing Proto-Vasconic. Even studies like Lakarra's articles on Proto-Basque remain fairly limited in scope and deal with a stage much later than any supposed Proto-Vasconic. But: Tentative scholarly hypotheses for proto-languages are one of the things that make WP fascinating to read, though there is literally almost no meat on the bone. For the record: Botteville and Akerbeltz are both aware of this. The issue at hand is purely whether to keep a statement that has a tag or not.)

The paragraph in question does not make any outlandish or even remotely controversial claim. It states something that any person familiar with the matter agrees with, including yourself, as you say above. I frankly do not even see sufficient cause to call for a specific citation here, and even less for an outright deletion. It's clearly not a sore on the face of the article just because the statements in it are not directly assigned to a given publication. It's simply a caution for users who do not have a deeper understanding of linguistic reconstruction and who are not about to cross-check the Proto-Basque article. Keeping it in, together with the tag if you will, gives the article a useful qualification it would otherwise lack. Simply having it removed would not be doing a service to WP. What is clearly a disservice to the climate that should motivate us to help improve this place is the tone you chose above. We're all trying to keep this place as useful and as pleasant as possible. Slow down and don't try to force-feed people your way or the highway. As someone who recently tried to change someone's mind online about the meaning of a Greek term in the Pauline Epistles (I did not succeed), let's try not to go too deep down the rabbit-hole of having it one way and none other. Trigaranus (talk) 23:04, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

More on the reversion thread

What I see happening here is a different sort of WP event that changes the picture. This is a consensus. You seem to be directing it at me but really it is being directed to the public. Personally I am quite amazed because I rarely see a consensus. I am also relieved because you've taken the matter out of my hands. It is in your hands now. I got nothing else to do with it. Trigaranus, you seem a bit amazed at this thing. Wikipedia does have a democratic side, always has had. It is called a consensus. There must be a help article on it somewhere. The consensus is a pretty powerful tool if you can get it going. What you have agreed, in case you did not realize you were doing so, is that the paragraph in question does NOT express a personal opinion. What I may or may not think does not matter now. Unless you get a further consensus to the contrary what you agreed upon must stand. You are saying, the opinion expressed in the paragraph is general opinion in the field. It does not need a reference. Fine. I'm not a vote overthrower. If it does not need a reference then someone should take out the tag. There, was that hard? If I work on the article in the future I will be sure to respect the vote. I've known of people that sat around for years waiting for a consensus, only able to act when they got one. I think you ought to be glad I brought it up. As for my tone, now look here, Akerbeltz started this with belligerent, trouble-making speech accusing me of being confused and disordered and my supposed disability was the reason for his reversions. And now you turn around and try to blame it all on me. Maybe you should go into international politics. If you quit behaving like children I will not speak to you as I would children. In fact for quite a long time Wikipedia's arbitror of disputes such as these was actually a child (she's an adult now). I used to blush at even the thought of bringing a dispute before her. I think the founder was trying to say something there. In summary, probably without realizing it, you took the one action that would settle this dispute. Although it is true that if you persistently violate the rules you will draw the attention of an administrator, who will settle the issue and may settle you. Don't think it won't happen, because it will. Meanwhile however there is this democratic side which you seem to have just discovered. I think you should send me a thank you for helping you discover it. I am done with it now. Sorry it has taken so long but if it points us in the right direction it was probably worth it. Unless there is further business I declare the issue closed. Ciao.

Hey there Botteville. No hard feelings whatsoever. I appreciate it, and thanks for the conciliatory words. I think you have a ton more edits to this wonderful encyclopaedia than I do, so you know how easit it is to get carried away when our edits are getting flak. If it's okay with everyone, I will go ahead and delete the CN tag sometime later today, to give people time to weigh in. Trigaranus (talk) 09:51, 25 May 2024 (UTC)