Larry Trask, a world expert on Basque linguistics and the history of the Basque language, passed away on March 28, 2004. This is an archive of his site, including his Basque pages, posted here with permission of his family. Some links to external pages and to Larry's email address still exist on these archived pages. Please be aware that, for the most part, they likely do not work anymore. To learn about Larry, see this article.

Welcome to my Basque page. I'm a linguist with a special interest in the Basque language, and I've tried to make available here some useful information on Basque. I think I can guarantee that the information you'll find here is accurate and free of the errors, misconceptions, and just plain lunacies that so often turn up in published sources of information on the language.

These pages are under development, and comments, suggestions, and corrections are most welcome; you can e-mail me here. If you can't find the information you're looking for, I'll be happy to try to answer a brief question, or to provide a reference to published work where you can find answers to longer questions.

But please note: I do not want to hear about the following:

Your latest proof that Basque is related to Iberian / Etruscan / Pictish / Sumerian / Minoan / Tibetan / Isthmus Zapotec / Martian

Your discovery that Basque is the secret key to understanding the Ogam inscriptions / the Phaistos disc / the Easter Island carvings / the Egyptian Book of the Dead / the Qabbala / the prophecies of Nostradamus / your PC manual / the movements of the New York Stock Exchange

Your belief that Basque is the ancestral language of all humankind / a remnant of the speech of lost Atlantis / the language of the vanished civilization of Antarctica / evidence of visitors from Proxima Centauri

I definitely do not want to hear about these scholarly breakthroughs.

The information here is divided into several sub-pages, each dealing with a different topic. Here they are; choose whatever you're interested in.

• FAQs About Basque and the Basques
• A linguistic sketch of Basque
• An external history of the language (NOT READY YET)
• Prehistory and connections with other languages
• Some important Basque words (and a bit of culture)

Links to Other Basque Sites

• Buber's Basque Page (history, culture, sports, cuisine, genealogy)
• Euskara, the Language of the Basque People (a brief account of the language with some vocabulary)
• Universal Survey of Languages: Basque (a very brief account with samples)
• Eugenio Alberdi's Basque Language Page (mostly links)
• Euskal Mintegia (the home page of the Basque Studies Program at the University of Nevada)
• University of the Basque Country Home Page
• The Basque Country (a brief travel guide)
• The Basque Country Today (a political and economic description)

  Getting Back

  • Go to the top of this document.
  • Go back to my home page.

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  url of this page http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/larryt Revised: 5 September 1996
  Copyright © 1996
  

  This page is part of Buber's Basque Page and is maintained by Blas Uberuaga. Please report any problems or suggestions to Blas. Eskerrik asko!