This work was originally published by M.G. Ramos in 1928 under the title De Astronomástica Vasca. I was lucky to find this text in the University of Washington library. This translation, by Blas Uberuaga, appeared on Buber’s Basque Page many years ago, back in 1995. I’m sure there are many errors in translation – my Spanish isn’t great and there are many things that are hard for me to translate in the limited context of the original text. I find this subject fascinating as it gives hints into the early beliefs of the Basques. I’m sure that much has changed in our understanding since Ramos first published this, but I hope it is still interesting.

Preface

For a long time, we have had the intention of publishing a study about Astronomastica Basque [1]. Painful mishaps forced us to suspend our work when we had collected abundant material. After various years, those notes have given rise to the present book and to a paper that, in abstract form, we just presented to the 17th International Congress of Orientalistas, in Oxford, with the title El sol y la luna en vascuence y en las lenguas indogermanicas.

We do not have the pretension of having exhausted the material, even having limited our study to the names of the two principle celestial bodies. Neither are we blind to the difficulty in formulating a theory that, more than being new, clashes with established prejudices. We treat a material that, unfortunately, cannot leave the realm of hypothesis and conjecture and, as such, nearly all that has been said until now must be considered, without ruling out any of our own opinions. We have endeavored to ensure that the ideas of others are reflected with the most fealty possible, and with frequency we have reproduced them literally, transcribing them in their original language when the translation would have been worth little or damaging to the form.

All of the works cited in the Bibliography have served and helped us greatly, but we should especially mention the Diccionario Vasco-Espanol-Frances of Azkue; the treaties of Basque phonetics of Uhlenbeck and Gavel; the folkloric material collected by Barandiaran; the Diccionario Sanscrito-Ingles of Monier-Williams; the Mitologia vedica of Macdonell, and the linguistic studies of Max Müller, Schuchardt and others. All of these are equally deserving of the admiration and gratitude of those interested in Basque studies.

Tarragona, September of 1928.

[1] Much has been written about the names of the celestial bodies, but, as far as we know, this is the first time that the term Astronomastica has been employed, hoping that it is accepted without difficulty. Formed in likeness with Toponomastica, it is composed of astro-, from the Greek astrón, and onomástica, which also comes from the Greek ónoma ‘name.’ In Greek, onomastikón was the title of a work whose object was to fix the meaning and the use of nouns. Therefore, we can define Astronomastica as “doctrine about the names of the stars.”

The Basques and the Sun

1. If the study of the names of the heavenly bodies in other languages is interesting, in Basque it is of an extraordinary importance. Not only must we attend to the linguistic problem, but we are also taken to other fields, especially those of folklore and comparative mythology.

Arana Goiri, founder of the nationalist school, proposed for *eusko (assumed name of the Basque), as a probable etymology, *eguzkoa, *euskoa, “of the sun, of the east,” a theory that was defended later by P. Arriandiaga and was the subject of a large polemic [2].

It is self explanatory that this topic awakened such interest among the Basques because of the relationship that could exist between the name of the sun, eguzki; that of the Basque language, euskara; and of the Basques themselves, euskaldunak. If we admit this relationship, we must concur with Arana-Goiri that the prehistoric Basques worshipped the sun. Chaho sustained that the Basques made up a people of seers, children of the sun.

2. The ethnographic problem of the Basques, the origin of this race, millenary like their language, appears full of mystery. We will not tire our readers with the exposition of the different hypotheses that historians, geographers, linguists, and anthropologists have upheld. In the International Congress of Geography that met in London in 1895, there was one who, gathering opinions of various authors, presented the primitive Basque mountains as inhabited by Iberians, Aryans, Semites, Fins, Celts and nothing less that the habitants of Africa, America and Oceana (Urroz). Today, Mr. Edmonston-Scott sees in the Basques a people originating from India, a hypothesis that recalls not only that of Philipon, but also that held in Spain by Fernandez-Guerra and P. Fita, for whom the cradle of the Cantabrians is the region of Asia irrigated by the river Cantabras [3] (Costa). Chaho alludes to the Basques of Hindustan. On the other hand, the anonymous author of Essai sur la Noblesse des Basque believed in a migration of the Basques to India. (Humboldt).

For it’s part, Basque has been connected with Celtic, American languages, Turkish, Caucasian languages, Japanese, Slavic, Egyptian, and Berber. (Aranzadi). In addition, affinities have been encountered with Sanskrit, caldeo, Etruscan, kolariana languages, etc.

[2] Strictly speaking, before Arana-Goiri the possible relation between the name of the sun and the Basques was known. We copy from a book about this published in 1873: “And with effect: he does not stop supporting this opinion the same basquefile prince L. L. Bonaparte when he takes note of the Basque language in the towns that populate the mentioned foothills of the Ural mountains, thus decomposing the word euskaldunac, appearing in the eusk the race of eguski, of the sun; an etymology that seems to indicate that they proceeded from the place from which appears the luminous star, and a conjecture that validates even more the name of the river that covers such grand words in our patria, conserving the record of this Iberian race.” (Rodríguez-Ferrer).

[3] This Cantabras was mentioned by Plinio (Humboldt). In reality, the Sanskrit name was Chandrabhaga, and its Greek form Sandrophagos could be interpreted as “Devourer of Alexander” since that Prince decided to change its name. It returned to being called, as in Vedic, Asikni, from the Greek form Acesines. The modern name is Chenab (Rapson).

The Names of the Sun

3. Guillermo de Humboldt, referring to the Bizkaians, that is, to the Basques, said that this people make use of, in general, complex signs for ideas that the other languages express with simple signs, such as moon, sun, etc.

But, do we know exactly the etymology of the names of the sun in the Indo-Germanic languages? Comparing the English sun with the Icelandic sol, the Sanskrit sura, surya, the Vedic súvar, etc., is not equivalent to giving the etymology. Sun is, as an etymologic dictionary says (Chambers), “an old word of unknown etymology.” As to the complexity, the Basque  eki ‘sun’ does not appear much more complex than, e.g., the Latin sol. If it is argued that eki is probably the result of a contraction, we have the same in the case of Latin and Icelandic. (Walde, Pictet).

What do the names of the sun mean? To discover their primitive meaning and the semantic evolution, we must reach to the Vedic súvar, svàr ‘sun, light, sky.’ In the other languages of the large Indo- European family the names of the sun usually are legacy signs that don’t define the expressed object [4].

4. What are the names of the sun in Basque? There does not exist, far from it, the variety of Sanskrit, but on the other hand the phonetic variants abound. There are two groups that can be formed:  eguzki and  eki. Variants of the first are: euzki, eguski, eguzku, iguzki, iuzki, iruzki, iruski, iluzki, iluski, iduzki, and eguzgi. All of these forms are distributed throughout the various Basque dialects of Spain and France [5]. Dechepare employs the form ydusqui(a) next to iguzqui(a).  Eguzquia is one of the Basque words cited by Lucius Marineus Siculus. (Vinson). The group eki is also composed of ekhi and iki. In the Lapurdian of Bardos the sun is also called ekheerri. The form ekherri, which is encountered in Duvoisin, properly means ‘heat of the sun.’

As much as from the phonetic point of view as the etymological, the priority probably corresponds to eguzki. Gavel, even recognizing that at first glance this form seems the more primitive, admits equally the possibility that the g comes from r or d, and that the change would have happened under the influence of a false analogy with  egun ‘day.’ Uhlenbeck asks if we must leave behind r or else g. And he adds: “For the moment it cannot be determined what relation remains between the diverse forms.” But studying the Basque vowels, he cites as a probable alternate case e: i, eguzki: iguzki, iruzki. Later, when treating the alternation of i and e, he says: “Dans la plupart des cas la priorité semble appartenir à l’ e, mais à cet égard il nous reste beaucoup de doutes. Parfois l’étymologie nous donne la certitude souhaitée, p. ex… eguzki: iguzki ‘soleil’, mot duquel le synonyme eki peut à peine être séparé.”

The forms euzki, iuzki are explained perfectly by the relaxation of articulation since the consonants b, g, d, r are subject in Basque. This is the reason that they permute between themselves with such frequency and that they are confused in rapid and relaxed pronunciation, leading in many cases to complete suppression. (Gavel). Something similar occurs in Spanish with the fricative g in intervocalic positions ( agua, aguardar) and the d of participles terminating in -ado, which in familiar conversation is greatly reduced or lost. (Navarro Tomas).

In regards to the group eki, there exists a rare unanimity in considering their form as the result of a contraction. Even Novia de Salcedo is inclined to believe that it is the same eguzki, syncopated. Vinson also has it originating from eguzki, while Schuchardt presents us with the hypothetical form *egu-ki, from which eku derives. Apriaz says that it could also proceed from *egu-gi, *egu-ki, tomando a egu in its primitive sense; ekhi would be before eguzki.

5. The priority between eguzki and eki could be discussed. But it also could be that none of them was the primitive name of the son. As Schuchardt said: “in the course of time many Basque words have been lost, for which reason its current vocabulary does not lend a sufficient cooperation.” Lacombe, in the conclusion of his study of the names of ‘tree,’ says that it is not possible to establish conclusions over the Basque mentality in ancient times, because Basque is only known from a very recent epic and has lost a great number of words. For his part, Eleizalde recognizes that in Basque “the lexicon does not correspond to the importance of the conjugation, since it is natural that during the decline of a language the most accidental part, which is the lexicon, is lost the most.”

[4] Profesor Whitney said: “The words for ‘sun’ have nearly the same history, generally designating it as the ‘brilliant or shining one,’ or as ‘the enlivener, quickener, generator.’ There are hardly two other objects within the ordinary range of human observation more essentially unique than the sun and the moon, and their titles were, as nearly as is possible in language, proper names.”

The following words are from Pictet: “Il résulte de ce qui précède que les anciens Aryas on rattaché leurs principaux noms du soleil à deux racines dont l’une signifie briller et l’autre produire. Le groupe qui se relie à cette dernière est de beaucoup le plus étendu, et comprend des termes dont les suffixes de dérivation variaient sans doute déjà au temps de l’unité. Il y avait cependant d’autres noms pour désigner l’astre du jour, dont la synonimie a pris chez les Indiens un si riche développement.”

Max Müller calculated the number of names for the sun that figure in the Sanskrit dictionaries as thirty seven and he added: “The sun might be called the bright, the warm, the golden, the preserver, the destroyer, the wolf, the lion, the heavenly eye, the father of light and life.” For his part, Sayce said: “So the sun was compared to a charioteer or a one-eyed monster.”

The number reported by Max Müller is fairly modest. A complete study of the names of the sun in Sanskrit would be very curious. Not being able to extend ourselves on this point, we limit ourselves to enumerating some of the epiteths and metaphors which have been given to the star of the day, all of which we have taken from the dictionary of Monier-Williams: “Bird, Bull, Eagle, Bright one, Sight ruler, Bright eye, Day-jewel, Day-king, Day-leader, Day-lord, Day-maker, Day-nourished, Lord of heaven, Sky-banner, Sky-illuminator, Sky-jewel, Sky-meteor, Sky-ornament, Star-jewel, Sun planet, Having divine rays, destroyer of Râhn, etc.”

[5] As the linguistic atlas of the Basque Country is near completion, we have desisted in noting the dialects and sub-dialects to which each of these forms pertain. We have done the same in various other parts of the book, avoiding when possible initials and abbreviations. For the same reasons of clarity and since the bibliography is at the end, we have limited ourselves to citing the authors.

Eguzki and Egun

6. We now study the etymology of eguzki. All agree that it is a question of a compound word. Its first element is egu-, which we will study later. P. Arriandiaga disagrees on this point, decomposing eguzki into eguz- or egutz-gi. The second element is -zki, according to Uhlenbeck, and -azki, according to Apraiz, who deduces it from ilazki: ilargi, ‘moon.’ In his opinion, it is a question of a doublet or bimorph, and  azki is equivalent to argi ‘artificial or secondary light.’ He establishes later ingeniously the parallelism ilazki : ilargi ::  eguzki : *egurgi. He explains the disappearance of this last form by collision with a derivative of egur ‘firewood.’

Ki, -gi, is a restrictive determinative particle (Vinson); a suffix that indicates: fragment or subject (Apraiz); a material object, fragment, species, class (Azkue); matter, thing (Astarloa); or reunion, aggregation (Chaho).

Schuchardt has eguzki, iguzki derive from egu-, but he finds it difficult to explain the second element and compares it to that of izarski, which in the Bajo-Navarran dialect means ‘clear weather with starry sky.’

For L. Mendizabal, the second element is izki, which, in turn, is decomposed into iz-ki and means ‘light, thing that illuminates.’

7. If from the morphologic study we go to the semantic, we will find a great variety of interpretations. For some eguzki means ‘maker of the day’ (Larramendi). For others, it means ‘light of the day’ (L. Mendizabal); ‘solar, diurnal light’ (Schuchardt); ‘diurnal light’ (Barandiaran); ‘luminary of the day’ (Apraiz); ‘thing of the day’ (Astarloa); ‘matter of light’ (P. Arriandiaga); or ‘luminous’ (Campion).

8.  Egun ‘day’ has as variants eun and ein. More interesting than the phonetic alterations is the semantic evolution of egun or egu. This last form is conserved isolated in the Bajo-Navarran of Aezkoa with the meaning of ‘today.’  Egu(n) intervenes in the formation of numerous derivatives, with the double meaning of chronological time (day’s journey) and weather (temperature, readiness) (Apraiz). The final n disappears in forms like eguantz ‘dawn,’ as opposed to the Bizkaian egunantz which conserves it. As Vinson says: “le n final est souvent adventice en Basque.”

The e of egun, which to Astarloa signifies ‘soft, sweet, delicious, consolant,’ to Uhlenbeck is probably a prefix. F. Amador de los Rios relates egun with the Turk gun ‘day,’ a form that “Basque conserves with the articulative e placed in front.” The Academy of the Basque Language opines that egun is composed of egu-un.

P. Larramendi saw in egun(a) a composition of eguzki-lan(a) ‘work and effect of the sun.’ Chaho also sustains that from the name of the sun,  eguzki, ekhi, the day was called eguna, that is to say, period of beneficent clarity. Bonaparte has it derive from ek, radical of eki ‘sun’: ekidun, ekiun, egidun, egun ‘that has sun.’

9. What is the primitive meaning of egu(n)? Vinson attributes to it that of ‘light,’ and, more concretely, ‘natural light.’ So that in its origin it wasn’t ‘day, space of twenty four hours,’ but day in the sense of the French phrase il fait jour. Analogously, we can say with respect to the German Tag ‘day,’ that its etymological meaning is that of ‘Zeit des Brennes der Sonne’ (Kluge), ‘hot weather’ (Meringer). In English, as Skeat says, ‘day is the hot, bright time.’

Vinson, some years later, basing himself on ilen ‘Monday’ and eguen ‘Thursday,’ affirms that egu- is not properly ‘day, in opposition to night,’ but rather ‘sun,’ in which case eguen means ‘solar.’ Schuchardt also admitted for egu- the double meaning of ‘sun’ and ‘day.’ From egu- proceed eguzki ‘sun’ and egun ‘day, today.’

10. There exists a very interesting word which, until now, has passed unnoticed. We are referring to guar which in the Basque of San Sebastian means ‘ray of sun.’ It appears derived from egu-, and in such case it would be confirmed for it the primitive sense of ‘sun.’ The elision of the e of *eguar could be a case of phonetic alteration, very frequent in Basque, e.g. phaile ‘reaper,’ variant of ephaile, and the surname Chavarri, from Echavarri. We take these examples from Gavel, who makes note that, at times, the suppression of the initial vowel gives as a result the returning of certain words to a more primitive state.

In the case of -ar, we believe it is an ancient suffix. This is exactly one of the affixes not studied by Azkue in his Morfologia Vasca. It is present, in general, in adjectives such as azkar ‘vigorous,’ baldar ‘lazy,’ etc.  Ilar is ‘funeral bell,’ according to Azkue, but L. Mendizabal decomposes it into il-ar = ‘of death’ (bell, mourning, funeral, etc.). If we ignore the scope of the suffix -ar as adjective, it becomes harder yet for us to explain its intervention in  *eguar ‘ray of sun,’ izar ‘star,’ ondar ‘arena,’ istar ‘thigh,’ etc.

11. We have, then, as very probable, that primitively egu- meant ‘sun, (natural) light, and day’ [6]. In the languages of inflection there exists the semantic process in virtue of which two distinct forms of the same word end up differentiating themselves as much in use as in meaning. So, in Latin there is tepor and tempus, whose primitive meaning is `heat’. (Sayce) [7].

In Magiar, the same term nap means ‘sun’ and ‘day.’ However, when there is the danger of confusion, ‘day’ is expressed by nappal. (Belfadel). In Turkish, gün is ‘day’ and günes ‘sun’. (Bonelli).

Basque makes indiscriminate use of the nominal composition, phonetic alterations [8], and suffixation to differentiate and concretize the meaning of words. From egu-, the sun was called eguzki; the ray of sun *eguar; the day, egun.

On the other hand, it is not strange that egu primitively meant sun, light and day, at the same time. Today, the Spanish term sol has these three meanings, as can be seen in any dictionary.  Sol is not only the celestial body of the day, but it also means ‘light, heat or influx of this star.’ In addition, it is equivalent to ‘day,’ with which we take the cause as effect. When we say tomar el sol, we make use of an expression analogous to that of in English, to walk out of the sun, to bask in the sun, etc. In these phrases sunlight is substituted by sun. (Whitney). We remember that, in the same Basque, euzkie refers in Ataun to the solar or diurnal light. (Barandiaran).

Another of the derivatives of egu(n) ‘day’ is eguraldi ‘weather, atmospheric state,’ a word now used by Dechepare. For Vinson, eguraldi is derived from egun ‘sun,’ and means exactly ‘return of the sun, that is, the reappearance of the sun after bad weather.’ But the most probable is that the semantic process has been the following:  Egu(n) ‘day’ (hot, bright time; Zeit des Brennes der Sonne) and aldi (in its origins ‘weather;’ later, suffix), formed the compound eguraldi, literally ‘weather during the day,’ which later came to be physical weather in general. We still have the term in Roncales gaialdi, which means ‘weather during the night’.

This semantic process can be compared with that of Sanskrit tapas ‘heat’ and Latin tempus, with the difference that in Basque eguraldi didn’t obtain the meaning of ‘metaphysical time’ [9].

12. The relationship that egu- could have with ego ‘south or noon’ is also very interesting, as observed by Aranzadi and Apraiz; and with egur ‘firewood,’ given the affinity of ideas between light and fire (Apraiz), although Charencey pretended to relate egur with the romantic forms of the Latin curtus [10]. Apraiz also relates with egu(n) the origin of other terms like  ekaitz ‘storm’ and ekhain ‘June.’ According to this author, ekain probably proceeds from egu-gain, that is to say, ‘the month of the high, of the supreme day.’ Instead, for Vinson ekain(a) is a corruption of  ekhail(a) and means ‘the month of the sun.’ Chaho said: “the month of June receives in Basque the name of Ekhain, Ekhigain, that is, ‘solar exaltation.'”

[6] Max Müller said: “So many suns are so many days and even in English yestersun was used instead of yesterday as late as the time of Dryden.”

[7] The following words are from Professor Max Müller: “Because it was felt to be important to distinguish between the bright one, i.e. the sun, and the bright one, i.e. the day, and the bright one, i.e. wealth, therefore the root VAS to be bright, was modified by inflection and broken up into Vi-vas-vat, the sun, vas-ara, day, vas-u, wealth. In a radical and in many an agglutinative language, the mre root VAS would have been considered sufficient to express pro re natâ, any one of these meanings.”

[8] In the Bizkain of Lekeitio, gaba is the night and gaua the cerrazon. In Castillian, we have próximo and prójimo (Azkue).

[9] Bréal says: “Le temps c’était à l’origine ‘la temperature, la chaleur.’ Le mot est de même origine que lepor. Puis on a désigné de cette façon le temps (bon ou mauvais) en général. Enfin on est arrivé à l’idée abstraite de la durée. Il est resté quelque chose de l’idée de la temperature dans la verbe temperare.”

[10] For Charencey the initial e of egur is euphonic, like that of egosi, which he attempts to make derive from the Spanish cocer.

God and Moon in Basque

13. If we pass from the names of the sun to those of the moon, we observe a curious parallelism. The primitive name seems to be il, ila. Vinson is inclined towards this last form, basing his opinion on the fact that ‘month,’ that is ‘full moon,’ is expressed by ilhabete. But the dictionary of Azkue also registers the Bizkaian form ilbete ‘full moon.’

The names of the moon used today form four groups: 

1. Ilargi, with its variants ilargi, ilhargi, irargi [11], iratargi, iretargi, idetargi. Dechepare and Lizarraga employ the form ilhargui.
2. Argizari, which has as variants argizagi, (in Lizarraga arguicagui) and argizai. Larramendi sites the form argizaila, which we don’t find in the dictionary of Azkue. In regards to argizaita and argizaite, only the first of these forms figures in the cited dictionary, but with the meaning ‘clarity of the moon.’
3. The Bajo-Navarran ilazki, ilaski.
4. The Roncales goiko.

In the Aryan languages, the moon has been denominated almost always by relation to its function as measurer of time, from here that ‘moon’ and ‘month’ are expressed ordinarily by a common root. (Costa). Another such thing happens in Basque.  Argizari is composed of argi ‘light’ and izari ‘measure,’ that is ‘light-measure.’ (Max Müller). In the Edda, the moon is called ârtali ‘year-teller.’ By exception, in Latin luna (from *luc-na) means ‘brilliant.’ (Max Müller).

Ilazki is the form that corresponds completely to eguzki ‘sun’ (Vinson). As we have said, Apraiz established the parallel ilazki : ilargi :: eguzki : *egurki, deducing that its second element is azki=argi ‘artificial or secondary light.’

14. Much has been discussed about the Roncales goiko(a) and over the supposed worship by the Basques of the god Moon. In Basque, God has the name Jaungoikoa, Jainkoa, although the primitive name was Urtci, a word that appears in the so-called Codice of Calixto II: “Deum vocant urtci,” affirms the Norman pilgrim Aymeric Picaud, bearer of the Codice, in one of the chapters with which he augments it, relating the impressions of his trip to Santiago de Compostela. (Urroz).

Urtci would have properly meant ‘God of the thunder’ or ‘God of the sky,’ because even in our days the form ortzi means ‘thunder; thundering cloud; heavens, sky; clarity of the sky.’ The Roncales orzargi is equivalent to ‘light of the sky;’ the Bajo- Navarran orzgorri is translated by ‘reddish sky.’ [12]

The modern name of heaven in Basque is zeru, from the Latin *cæ lu.

15. If the Basques of the XII century still called God Urtci, the Slavs at some time also worshipped only one god, creator of the lightning. Perkunas, in Lithuanian, is the god of the thunderstorm, and is used as a synonym for deivatis ‘deity.’ The same meaning is attributed by Castren to the Finn term Jumala, which means ‘thunderous.’ (Max Müller). From the identity of the mythologic traits of the gods of the thunder of the various branches of the Indo-European family, it is inferred that a god of the thunder existed in the Indo-European epic, in spite of there being no common name. (Macdonell).

Van Eys noted the affinity that connects the Thursday of the Basque week,  ostegun ‘day of the explosion,’ with that of the Scandanavian and Teutonic, consecrated to the god Thor. Thor, son of the Earth, was the God of the thunder, who hit with his hammer the heads of the maleficent giants that occupied the cloud of the storm, causing to fly from his fierce blows the thunderbolt, in roaring explosion. (Urroz).

In the opinion of Urroz, orzegun, ostegun ‘Thursday,’ mean literally ‘day of the sky.’  Ortzi also enters in the composition of ortzirale, ostirale ‘Friday.’ Among the names of the rainbow figures that of  orzadar ‘arc of the cloud,’ according to P. Fita; ‘horn or arc of heaven,’ according to Azkue.

16. Prince Bonaparte believed to have heard in Roncal that they called the moon goikoa ‘that of above’. (Arana Goiri). Since then, the lexicographers, including Van Eys, when explaining the term Jaungoikoa ‘God,’ decompose it as Jaun-goi-ko-a, literally ‘the lord of the high.’ (Costa). But the discovery of Bonaparte made some think of the possibility that Jaungoikoa might mean ‘lord of the moon.’ For others it signified ‘the lord Moon’ or ‘the lady Moon.’ From there, there have been those who deduced that the word in question is a clear vestige of remote ages in which the moon constituted, the same as between the Accadians of the Caldea, the supreme deity of its mythology. (Costa).

But Arana Goiri comes saying that the Roncales didn’t refer to the moon as goikoa ‘that of above,’ as Prince Bonaparte believed to perceive, but  gaikoa ‘the nocturnal,’ because for ‘night’ they say gai, in place of the gau of other dialects. However, the dictionary of Azkue registers the term goiko ‘moon’ and adds: “It is not gaiko. Goikoak ezdu argitzen=’the moon will not give its light'” is the phrase cited by Azkue, who took it from a manuscript from London.

Whatever the Roncal name for the moon was, it doesn’t appear probable that it intervenes in the composition of Jaungoikoa, the modern name of God, but of relatively modern origin. (Arana Goiri). According to some, this term is due to the Christian sentiment of the Basques, and was formed no earlier than eight or nine centuries ago with Basque roots, although lacking the most elemental rules of syntax. Unamuno said: “The little primitive and spontaneous character of this denomination, the reaching to us such a complete and intact compound, the inclusion in its first component the notion of lord or dueno ( jau, jabe), which supposes a certain level of culture, make me believe, if the rest of the dates that appear from this study are taken into account, that it is a word of recent introduction, perhaps due to the Christian missions.”

On the contrary, Cejador sustained that the religion of the Lord of the high is very ancient and was not born among the Semites, but was abandoned among the Iberians, that is, the Basques, before the Hebrews knew it by revelation.

[11] ‘… lunam, irarguía,’ said Lucius Marineus Siculur (Vinson).

[12] Something very similar has occured in the Indo-European languages – As Sayce said: “All the words which have a spiritual or moral meaning go back to a purely sensuous origin: Divus, Deus, Dieu, was once the bright sky.“

Ila and Ilargi

17. We now study ilargi ‘moon,’ that, with its variants, forms the group of greatest extension.

Its composition is perfectly clear:  il-argi, or perhaps ila-argi.  Il,  ila, we have already said seems to be the primitive name of the moon, although today it doesn’t have an independent life, used only in derivatives, e.g., ilgora ‘first quarter,’ literally ‘moon above’ (Azkue). According to Chaho, in the Basque calendar, except for two months whose names are taken from the sun, all of the rest receive their denomination or qualifier from the moon, illa, with the designation of the agricultural works or other circumstances that refer to the life of the fields.

We have also said that the name of Monday, ilen, parallel form of  eguen ‘Thursday,’ can be derived from il ‘moon,’ in which case it would mean ‘lunar,’ in correspondence with the English Monday and the Latin dies lunæ. (Bonaparte, Vinson).  Ilen is properly the genitive form of  il ‘moon,’ equal to the Anglo-Saxon case monan in monan dæg ‘Monday.’ (Skeat).

For Mahn, ila, illa ‘(the) month’ is an abbreviation of illargia ‘(the) moon.’ According to Astarloa, ilargia is a term composed of ilun or  iluna ‘darkness’ and argui or arguija ‘light.’

18. From the semantic point of view, the interpretations of ilargi are as diverse as those of eguzki. According to Vinson, it properly means ‘clair de lune.’ Schuchardt translates it by Mondlicht, Mondschein. Other interpretations are: ‘light of each month’ (Larramendi), ‘light of the darkness’ (Astarloa), ‘sleeping or dead light’ (Chaho), ‘dead light or light of the dead’ (Mahn), ‘dead light’ (Vinson), ‘light of death’ (Van Eys), ‘light of the dead’ (Uhlenbeck). In Basque il,  hil, mean ‘dead, to die, to kill, to extinguish, etc.’ In Sanskrit nákta, nákti, náktan ‘night’ come, according to Pictet, from the root naç, ‘to die, to perish’, which he hasn’t been able to verify.

The theory of Mahn that illa is the same as illargia, but abbreviated, takes him to maintain that the its primitive meaning was that of ‘moon’ and that later it came to mean ‘month,’ as it seems to be verified in the word illabetea ‘full moon, month’ as opposed to illargibetea ‘full moon;’ and from there he deduces that the Iberians began the months with the full moon, while other peoples, for example the Hebrews, began them with the new moon, as is seen in the name for ‘month’ chodäsch, which comes from châdash ‘to be new.’

If ila hasn’t arrived through its semantic evolution to mean ‘today’ is is due to having encountered the name of the night, gau, from which is derived gaur ‘today’ (=’this night’ according to Uhlenbeck; ‘of night’ according to Vinson); if it isn’t a question of semantic phonetics, they very well may have been the same word, gau proceeding from *gaur, with soft r, analogous to that of some names of the numbers, which have lost it.  Irur, hirur ‘three’ continues to conserve the r in various dialects, in contrast to the form iru of others.

19. It isn’t strange that ‘today’ and ‘night’ in Basque would be the same word or have a very close relation. Among the Gauls, time was counted not by days but by nights. The custom of dividing time in moons brought the consequence of saying night to time. The English word sennight, contraction of seven night, means ‘week.’ Also in English, the quincena is called fortnight, in Middle English fourtenight, fourten night = ‘fourteen nights.’ In ancient French anuict (hac nocte) was said for aujord’hui ( hodie). (Skeat, Fr. E. De Echalar).

According to Pictet, the Aryans had lunar months, and since the phases of the moon couldn’t be observed well except at night, it was natural that they counted time by nights, in place of doing so by days. This custom was conserved between various peoples of the same race. In Rigveda, ksáp, kshapa not only meant ‘night,’ but ‘day,’ (measure of time of twenty four hours). Also, in Sanskrit there exists the term  daçaratrá, which properly means ‘ten nights,’ but which is applied to a period of ten days. [+].

20. It has been desired to relate the Basque il(a), hil(a) with the Caucasian and Camitic languages. Among the former there are the Georgian forms kvla, klva, and the mingreliana qvilua, which mean ‘to kill.’ Uhlenbeck believes that the Basque il maybe comes from *kil. In effect, the phonetic history of Basque allows one to think this way. But we don’t see as probable the relationship with the Caucasian forms. Neither does it appear prudent to us to relate il, *kil with the English to kill, to quell; the Albanians yll-i ‘star, heavenly body,’ the Sanskrit il, which means, among other things, ‘to sleep,’ and its derivative  ilayati, which is equivalent to ‘to be still.’ It is known that the primitive meaning of the Latin sepelio was probably ‘to sleep,’ as it turns out from various texts of Plato and Virgil, cited by Breal. The Spanish cementerio, from the Greek koimeterion, has in this last language the meaning of ‘dormitory.’ (R. Barcia). On the other hand, with reference to the Sanskrit ilayati, it should be noted that in Basque il,  hil, as adjectives, also mean ‘still, tranquil’, and so they say ur hila ‘still water.’ Chaho, in his legend of Aitor says : “Those tombs are his best bed, obia; that dream his best dream, the dream of the repose, ilona; his death was the great dream, iltza.”  Illa, according to the same author, expresses in Basque “the immobility, the tightening and death.”

Others compared the Basque il(a), ill(a)=’moon, month,’ with the Greek helios ‘sun.’ Fr. E. de Echalar understands that ille=’month’ must mean in Basque ‘light.’

Schuchardt, comparing the vocabulary of Basque with that of the Camitic languages, encounters in one of the Berber dialects the form t-alli-t ‘month, new moon.’ For his part, Costa supposed that in the Iberian language ‘month’ must have been said as ail, judging by by the Basque il,  illa and by Berber, whose Kabil, Targui and Ghadamesi dialects place likewise the word tallit or thallith (tema al or alli).

21. With respect to argi, for Vinson it meant ‘reflected, secondary, artificial light.’ According to Gavel, the primitive meaning of argi was that of luminous, and from there the meanings of ‘brilliant’ and ‘clear’ are derived. On becoming a noun, it came to mean ‘light,’ literally ‘that which is luminous.’

Argi can be related with an old Indo-European root, ARG, whose primitive meaning must have been that of ‘to shine,’ but which later served to express the ideas of brilliance and whiteness. Thus, we have the Sanskrit arjuna ‘white,’ the Greek argós ‘white’ and the names of silver: Greek argyros, Latin argentum, Spanish argento. Also compare the Spanish arcilla.

New Interpretations of Eguzki

22. Given this exposition of the diverse theories and interpretations, we will give as summary that in Basque, in spite of the relative transparency of the compound names, the origin and primitive meaning of the names of the ‘sun’ and the ‘moon’ have not been able to be settled in a definite manner. It is only known that, as probable, that egu and  ila could have been, in ancient times, the names of the celestial bodies in question.

We have already said that egu means at the same time ‘sun, (solar) light, day and today.’  Il(a) is equivalent to ‘moon, month.’ It is also possible that it meant ‘night, obscurity.’ In modern times, ilun, ilhun serve to name the night in the Upper- and Lower-Navarran dialects. Lopez Mendizabal interprets ilazki ‘moon’ (with palatalized l) as composed of ila-iz-ki, literally ‘light of the night,’ that is to say, ‘moon.’ As can be seen, there exists a certain parallel in the semantic evolution of egu and il(a).

Of the modern names for the sun, the most interesting and of a most primitive aspect are eguzki (or eguski) and eki. And of the names of the moon, argizari, ilargi and ilazki (or ilaski).  Ilazki is the parallel form to eguzki. According to the most general opinion, eki is a contraction of eguzki.  Argizari and ilargi do not offer doubts in regards to their composition. Thus, the key must be in eguzki and ilazki. The interpretations that have been made from the beginning are more of a logical character, thus as Astarloa said, “our first fathers regularly gave it (the sun) the name thing of the day,  star of the day, or light of the day or some other thing synonymous with this meaning.”

23. Regarding the second element of eguzki, that is -zki, it is not evident to us that it means ‘light, star, thing, etc.’ In order to suppose this, eguzki must be decomposed as eguz-ki, egu-(a)zki or egu-(i)zki. The existence of ilazki in correspondence with eguzki makes it very probable that the z forms part of the first element. And referring to egu-(a)zki, egu-(i)zki, we ask: Do the suffered alterations agree with the principles of Basque phonetics? It is not very easy to show the transition from eguazki or eguizki to eguzki.  Egu-aski has been able to give, perfectly, eguazki or egubazki. Examples:  eguantz ‘dawn,’ eguargi ‘clear day,’ eguasten ‘Wednesday,’ which has as variants egubazten, a form cited by Vinson but not by Azkue. In regards to  egu-(i)zki, we only come across it in a manual dictionary, whose author must not be very sure of this etymology when in another place of the same dictionary he decomposes eguzki as egutz- gi.

With the possibility that eguzki comes from egutz-gi, egu-azki, or  egu-iz-ki, we are left with the possibility that it decomposes into  egu-zki, or better yet into egu-uzki.  Zki by itself does not mean anything nor can it be a Basque word. But it could be an ancient double suffix, composed of -z and -ki, which brings us nearer to the hypothesis of Schuchardt and we must compare eguzki with izarski. This suffix –  -ski, -zki – would be analogous to -zko, whose functions can be the following: 1) material cause, 2) manner, mode, 3) medium, 4) multitude. (Azkue).  -Zko and -zka are also diminutive suffixes, but they seem to be alterations of -sko and -ska. (Azkue).

24. Finally, the solution egu-uzki remains. Many find it inadmissible, pointing out the meaning of the second element, in Latin nates, clunes. But, can linguistics have prejudices? Have we fallen into the errors of the French preciosity of the 17th century?

One of the various meanings of uzki is that of ‘eye of a needle,’ but there is no lack of dictionaries that translate it as ‘eyelet of the needle,’ when it is known that needles do not have eyelets, but eyes. This will give us the key to the instinctive repugnance of the Basque writers. Any dictionary of the Spanish language, beginning with that of the Royal Academy, when treating the term ojo, will indicate, between its various meanings that of ‘hole that has the needle so that the thread enters.’

25. The etymologies proposed for begi ‘eye’ are various and there has not been a lack of those who pretend to relate it with Hebrew or with the Caucus languages. We must not enter in its analysis and comparison with other languages. But it occurs to us that uzki seems to have the second element in common with begi, which is the same -ki or  -gi already studied before.

It is curious to observe that in the Roncales of Ustarroz the name of the sun is eguzku, this final form coinciding with that of the Roncales variant of uzki, which is uzku.

26. In order to comprehend well the confusion of ideas that carried uzki to its degradation, it is convenient to have in mind that uzki ‘nates, clunes,’ is encountered tightly linked with terms such as uzkar ‘ventosidad,’ which in turn is a phonetic alteration of puzkar; buztan ‘cola, rabo, tail’; putz, butz `blowing, ventosidad.’ So that it is most probable that uzki, in the sense of ‘nates, clunes,’ comes from *puzki.

In losing the p of *puzki, the homophone is produced and from there follows the collision with uzki ‘eye,’ a term that seems to have a very diverse origin, perhaps from *kuski, *kuzki, in whose case the nucleus or radical element of ikusi ‘to see’ reappears, which is decomposed as i-kus-i. This would also explain why in some phonetic variants of eguzki and ilazki there is the interchange between the s and  z, which is very frequent in Basque.

Even Novia de Salcedo, when studying the etymology of uzkerr(a), admits that it is aferesis of puzkerr(a). One of the laws of Basque phonetics consists in that the explosive surds in the initial position are made voiced and with respect to the labials, in the current state of the language no indigenous term can begin with the letter p, because these initial p have become b. (Gavel). And the initial b is lost preferably in front of u, for the great affinity that exists between the two. (Uhlenbeck, Gavel).  *Puzki has been able to become uzki, whether by mediation of an aspired sound or, by that which is most probable, through a form *buzki.

27. The words related to the idea of ‘to blow’ in almost all languages are onomatopoeic and generally begin with a labial. Thus, we have, as equivalents of ‘to blow’: English puff; French bouffer; Norwegian  blaase, puste, pruste; dialectal Norwegian puffe (Falk); Lithuanian pusti; Spanish and Catalan bufar. In Sanskrit, phut-kara means the action of blowing, whistling. (Meillet). Monier-Williams confirms that phut, phute is an onomatopoeic word and observes that that it is only used with kri ‘to do’ and its derivatives. Thus, phut-kri means to blow, literally ‘to do blowing.’ Compare the Basque putz-egin ‘to blow,’ which also properly means ‘to do blowing.’ The variants of putz ‘blowing’ are butz, bütz, hütz, utz, and can serve as an example for the phonetic study of the initial p.

Ilazki

28.  Ilazki ‘moon,’ which as we have already said corresponds to eguzki ‘sun,’ seems to us to be a composition of ila-uzki. The reduction of the diphthong au is a current thing as much in Basque as in the Indo-European languages.

Au contracts in o, in a and in u. As an example of the first, we have in Bizkaian the verbal forms dot of daut, nozu of nauzu. Uhlenbeck very prudently says that this contraction is limited to the cases in which the diphthong is followed by a consonant, and as a result there are verbal forms which conserve it, such as dau, dabe (from *daue), nau, nabe ( *naue).

Au reduces to u in very rare cases, e.g. the suletine urthiki, from aurthiki ‘arrojar.’ As Uhlenbeck says, together with basaurde ‘wild boar’ we also have in Gipuzkoan basurde, which comes from the first, or in another case, is a composition of bas (= basa) and urde.

On the other hand, the contraction of au to a is frequent in all dialects. (Uhlenbeck, Gavel). There remains in some cases doubt whether the phonetic process is the reverse, by dipthongation sporadic of a to au before n. This phenomenon is present in the Bizkaian dialect. Uhlenbeck cites, among other various examples, aundi ‘large’, from andi. On the contrary, Gavel believes that andi comes from aundi and that the accumulation of consonants has served to facilitate the elision of the u. This could also be the case for ilauzki.

Certain au diphthongs have become ai in Suletin, where, for example,  laudatu (from the Latin laudatum) has converted to laidatu. It is also common of in Suletin the reduction aun to añ by interim of ain. (Gavel).

The contraction of au to a in all Basque dialects being very frequent, the examples that we could cite are very numerous. Beside auspo ‘bellows,’ aulki ‘chair, bench,’ aurpegi ‘face,’ jaube ‘owner,’ Jaungoiko ‘God,’ aurkitu ‘to find,’ laurogei ‘eighty,’ laureun ‘four hundred,’ and the verbal forms dauku, zauku, etc., exist as many other forms aspo,  alki, arpegi, etc.

29. All of this allows one to suppose that ilazki proceeds from  *ilauzki. If one wants to object that basaurde conserves the diphthong or reduces to basurde, we can answer that ‘forest’ in Euskara, is not basa but baso. The first of these two forms intervenes in compound words and means ‘wild.’  Baso also enters in some compounds with identical meaning.  Basauri ‘locality of the forest’ and noun of place, conserves the diphthong. But in basurde we must see more correctly a compound of  baso-urde or bas-urde.

Apart from the fact that the reduction of au to u is very infrequent, in the concrete case of *ilauzki we would have had *iluzki, and so the name of the moon would be confused with that of the sun, since, as we have seen, iluzki is one of the variants of eguzki.

30. Even more than the phonetic demonstrations, it is important to consider the reasons of semantic order. Our opinion is that eguzki is formed once weakened egu ‘sun,’ with the end of designating concretely the celestial body of the day. From there, uzki would be the current name of ‘eye.’  Eguzki, then, properly means ‘eye (of the) sun, eye of the day,’ in the same way that ilazki means ‘eye (of the) moon, eye of the night.’

The Sun and Comparative Semantics

31. The hypothesis that in the composition of eguzki the element ‘eye’ enters is also based on the observations of comparative Semantics. Without going much further, in the Indo-Germanic languages we will find a curious affinity of ideas between ‘sun’ and ‘eye.’ In Old Irish, suil means ‘eye.’ (Meillet). In Sanskrit we have seen that the sun was compared with a monster with only one eye. In addition, between the epiteths that were given to it are those of ‘brilliant eye’ and ‘celestial eye.’

But the English language has another metaphor even more beautiful and that is the name of the daisy which in Middle English was dayësyë and in Anglo-Saxon dæ ges eage, literally ‘eye of day, day’s eye,’ that is to say, the sun, which it resembles. (Skeat) [13].

32. The scientific name of the daisy is Bellis perenis. In Spanish it is called vellorita, margarita de los prados, chiribita, maya and pascueta. (Lacoizqueta). This author translates it to Basque as ostaiska. Baraibar, among the Araban words, mentions  chiribita=’vellorita or meadow daisy’ and decomposes this term into chiri ‘disc, pulley, wheel’ and bita ‘little,’ that is ‘little wheel or little pulley.’

In Basque the words for daisy and those for butterfly are confused. Among those for butterfly we have chiribia, chiribiri, chirita, etc. The Bizkaia pitxilote, pitxoleta mean at the same time ‘daisy’ and ‘butterfly.’ In these same terms it is necessary to look at the origin of bichileta, with which in the Castillian of Araba designates the spring. (Baraibar).

The sunflower is called eguzki-belar in Basque, literally ‘grass of the sun,’ or simply ekhi, which, as we have seen, is one of the names of the diurnal star. The P. R. de Bera translates sunflower and tornasol as ekilili, while Azkue cites the forms ekilili ‘calaminta’ and ekhilili ‘helianthus,’ which literally means ‘flower of the sun.’ Lacoizqueta gives as the name in Basque of the calaminta egilili(a), citing as well the form egilicha of the dictionary of Larramendi. He interprets the first element as egi(a) ‘hill, knoll,’ but the form ekilili of Azkue causes us to believe that in egilili, egilicha also enters the name of the sun. In such a case, to the list of the names of said star, we can add egi, which placed next to egu brings us to a radical element eg-, ek-, with -i, -u being merely suffixes. At the same time, it would confirm the priority of egu, egi, eki, ekhi over eguzki. Very probably, among the first it is necessary to look for the primitive name of the sun.

Bonaparte said: “Understood that ek means sun, because we have ekhi or  eki, synonyms of eguzki.”

33. In Sanskrit, ákshi means ‘eye.’ Well then, the dual serves to identify the sun and the moon, that is ‘the (two) eyes.’ Also in Sanskrit, dríshti has, among others, the meanings of ‘eye, pupil; aspect of the stars.’  Nabhås-cakshus ‘eye of the sky’ was one of the names of the sun. (Monier-Williams). The Greeks called the stars ‘eyes of the night.’ (Max Müller).

34. If we pass from the Indo-European languages to Tagalog of the Philippines, we will see that hari means ‘king, queen’ and is a term of Sanskrit origin. In this last language, among many other meanings, it has that of ‘sun.’ Pardo de Tavera says that maybe the Tagalog kings gave themselves this name, as in other nations they give themselves the name ‘son of the sun [14], son of the heavens or of the moon.’ According to this same author, in the Malaya-Polynesian languages, in which hari means the sun, it always appears preceeded by mata ‘eye.’ In the purely Polynesian languages, ao, which means the sun, also appears preceeded by mata.

[13] It is worth noting the admiration with which the English authors speak of the daisy, especially Chaucer from whom these beautiful verses are taken:

“The daisie, or els the eye of the daie,
The emprise, and the floure of flouris alle.”

and later:

“To seen this floure agenst the sunne sprede
Whan it riseth early by the morrow
That blissful sight softeneth all my sorrow.”

The following words of Trench are so admirable that we could not resist the temptation of copying them in their original language:

“… but take ‘daisy’; surely this charming little English flower which has stirred the peculiar affection of English poets from Chaucer to Wordsworth, and received the tribute of their song, becomes more charming yet, when we know, as Chaucer long ago has told us, that ‘daisy’ is day’s eye, or in its early spelling ‘daieseighe’ the eye of the day; these are his words:

That well by reson men hit calle mey
The “dayesye” or elles the “ye of day.”

Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, Prol. 184.

For only consider how much is implied here. To the sun in the heavens this name, eye of day, was naturally first given, and those who transferred the title to our little field flower meant no doubt to liken its inner yellow disk or shield to the great golden orb of the sun, and the white florets which encircle this disk to the rays which the sun spreads on all sides around him. What imagination was there, to suggest a comparison such as this, with the power which is the privilege of that eye, from earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth, and of linking both together.”

[14] In India, for example, the clan of the Sisodias, clan of the reigning family of Odeypur, come from the solar race and are supposed to descend from Rama, encarnation of Vishnu, the sun-god (Le Bon).

In Egypt each Pharoah carried the title of son of the sun, preceding his phonetic name, and the first element from which his prenames were composed were also the sun. In the majority of cases, the phonetic name began with Ra, as in Ramses (Encicl. Espasa).

Returning to Egun and Eguzki

35. We must not forget that egun presents the physiognomic characteristics belonging to a passive participle. In Basque, these participles fulfill as well the function of the infinitive of other languages.  Izan means at the same time ‘to be’ and ‘been,’ ‘to have’ and ‘had.’ The same participle can become a noun, and in the specific case of izan we have the Lapurdine izan(a) which means ‘(the) ranch,’ ‘(the) possession,’ that is, ‘that which is had.’ The morphology of egun is very similar to that of egon ‘to be (estar).’ We could decompose egun into e-gu-n, in which case the nucleus or radical element would be -gu- and not eg-, ek-. We have already said that for Uhlenbeck the e of egu(n) is probably a prefix. The theories of Schuchardt are also favorable to this hypothesis. But we do not believe it necessary to appeal for aid a comparison with the Camitic languages. If egun contains a verbal nucleus, it cannot be anything but the idea of ‘to shine, to sparkle, to gleem.’ These ideas are translated today as dirdiratu and its phonetic variants. But dirdiratu more correctly has the meaning of ‘to reflect, to reverberate,’ and is properly an onomatopoeia. Thus, as dirdir is the idea of the reflection, of the reverberation, dardar is that of the tremor, of shaking. In Sanskrit we have didi, didi, which means ‘to shine.’

There does not exist, then, a verb in Basque able to express adequately the ideas related to the brilliance of the sun. This does not fail to call attention, since Basque, as we have seen, is not lacking names for the celestial bodies and their functions, for being this one of the things that most intensively excited the imagination of primitive man.

Egun very well may have been the verbal form of eg-u, eg-i, which later substantived in egun ‘day.’ In such as case, the e of egun would not be a prenuclear element, as Azkue called it, but rather an integral part of the nucleus, or the result of the fusion of two e‘s.

36. Now let us suppose that the initial e of eguzki is a prefix, as Uhlenbeck believes.  Eguzki would then be decomposed as e-guzki and even in this case we would notice the presence of the element – guzki, from  *kuski, *kuzki = ‘eye.’ But if it was a prefix of a verbal character, the relation with ikusi ‘to see,’ which probably comes from *ekusi by assimilation, would still be even tighter [15]. This *ekusi, with the suffix  -ki, would give us *ekuski, a possible predecessor of eguski, eguzki. We could relate *ekuski with the word ekariu, which appears on an Iberian inscription and which is believed to mean ‘the two eyes.’ (Vinson) [16]. So that by this new hypothesis, eguzki would properly and exclusively mean ‘eye,’ which reminds us of the case of the Old Irish suil.

[15] Ekusi is not only a hypothetical form, but also real. In the Bizaian of Orozco, in Gipuzkoan and in Roncales it is still used as a variant of ikusi, and it has the derivatives ekusgarri, ekuskete, ekuslari, ekusmen, etc.

Ikuski is one of the names of the devanadera in Basque. It must be a contraction of ikuruski. Other variants are ikurizki, ikoroski, and ikolaski.

[16] As only a side note we say that the name that the gypsies give to the eye is aquí. As dui aquías ya chichí = ‘the two eyes of the face.’ This is not strange if one takes into account that the caste of the gypsies is native of Indostan and that the Romanian or Caló conserve certain affinities with the Aryan languages of that peninsula. The gypsy aquí looks quite similar to the Lithuanian akis, Latin oculus, diminutive of *ocus, and Sanskrit ákshi, which mean the same.

The Sun in Mythology

37. One poetic metaphor [17], in which the sun is like an open eye in the immensity of the sky, has given place to various myths, as much in India [18] as in other regions of antiquity. Sayce has said that mythology is based in a large part on the metaphors of language.

Vedic mythology offers us curious examples of the affinity of ideas between sun and eye during the time of the primitive Aryans. And not only in the Vedas, but also in the Avesta, where hvare (related to the Vedic svar) calls the sun the eye of Ahura Mazda. (Macdonell). As far as Egypt, one of the festivals in honor of the sun is celebrated in the thirtieth day of the epiphi, under the name of “birthday of the eyes of Horus.” (Encicl. Espasa) [19].

But, it is especially in the Vedas where we can encounter very abundant material. We take, for example, the origin of the universe. One of the hymns of the Rigveda tells that the gods celebrated a sacrifice with the body of a giant named Purusha, and from his only eye formed the sun.

The idea of this myth is very primitive and agrees with the traditions of other regions. (Macdonell). Thus, we have that in Japan the most interesting version about the origin of the universe is that the sun and the moon were created from the eyes of the progenitor, in the same moment at which he washed himself with an object to purify himself from the stains that he had contracted in his visit to the underworld after the death of his consort. (Amesaki, cited in the Encicl. Espasa).

38. In Vedic mythology the sun is the ‘eye of the gods,’ above all of Surya, Mitra, Varuna [20] and Agni. In the Atharva Veda it is called ‘the king of the eyes.’ In the Vedic hymns, it also receives the epiteth ‘eye of the world.’ Its gaze penetrates all it reaches. Before the sun, the stars, like thieves, disappear in the shadows of the night. The sun is guardian of all beings, animate or inanimate. It observes the good and evil actions of men.

As much as Indra as Agni and Varuna, all were gods endowed of a thousand eyes. According to the Ramayana, the peacock owes the eyes of his feathers to the first. (Roussel, Shovona Devi).

The material is very extensive. We could fill various pages with citations from the Vedas, many of them beautiful. The reader whose interest is piqued by this brief reference can consult any good treatise of Vedic mythology, above all that of Macdonell, which is excellent.

[17] In Castillian literature, among the metaphors referring to the sun, we find this, from Quevedo:
Bermejazo platero de las cumbres,
A cuya luz se espulga la canalla.

One of the henchmen of Góngora called the sun el gran duque de las bujías, believing to realize its splendor with such disparate (Campillo).

[18] Macdonell says: “The highest step of Vishnu is seen by the liberal like an eye fixed in heaven. The opinion that Vishnu’s three steps refer to the course of the sun is almost unanimous.”

[19] In Egypt, the sky is also compared to an immense face, whose right eye was the sun and left eye was the moon (Encicl. Brit.)

[20] Macdonell says: “The eye of Mitra and Varuna is the sun. The fact that this is always mentioned in the first verse of a hymn, suggests that it is one of the first ideas that occur when Mitra and Varuna are thought of. The eye with which Varuna is said in a hymn to Sûrya to observe mankind, is undoubtedly the sun. Together with the Aryaman, Mitra and Varuna are called sun-eyed, a term applied to other gods also.”

Basque Mythology

39. Does there really exist a Basque mythology? [21] To answer this question, we should have some idea of the primitive religious traditions of the Basques. It is believed by many, Campion among them, that the Basques professed a naturalist religion. But of it, we know little to nothing concretely, supposing that it consisted in the adoration of the elements and the celestial bodies. Menendez Pelayo also suspected that the protohistoric Basques were adorers of the celestial bodies and, especially, the moon, but he adds that maybe vestiges of this cult remain in the Basque traditions, without resorting to the problematic Jaun Goikoa, Moon god. (Urroz).

Arana Goiri says: “Are there traditions concerning the religious cult that the Basque race observed thirty or forty centuries ago? None.” For Vinson, the Basques converted to Christianity around the tenth century. P. Lhande opinions that in the language of our times there does not exist a single term that permits arriving to the conclusion that there were ancient divinities among the Basques. Another Basque-French writer, L. Apesteguy, affirms that the Basque race is so saturated with Christianity that it did not conserve any of the religious forms that preceded it. From there it is deduced that it completely renounced its prehistoric pass in favor of the doctrines and disciplines of the Church. All of the dogmatic, liturgical and moral vocabulary is taken from the Church.

Unamuno also recognizes that neither in the customs nor in the language of the Basques do there remain marks of an indigenous cult or of religious beliefs prior to the introduction of Christianity.

As historic testimony, there remains that of Strabo, who says in his Geografia that the vascones reunited with their families on the nights of the full moon, to venerate with songs and dances an unnamed god. (P. Lhande) [22].

40. We will not repeat that said before about the adoration of the sun by the Basques, assumed by Arana Goiri, and about the Jaungoiko ‘lord (of the) moon,’ of Bonaparte and Vinson. Neither will we speak of the supposed Basque gods Asto ilunno deo, Baicorixo deo, Ilumbero, etc., of the votive stone tablets found in the Novempopulania, since such vestiges are more accurately signs of the relatively modern influence of foreign people and civilizations. (Urroz). However, in the opinion of Schuchardt, Asto iluno (name of a deity) is a synthesis of the Basque terms aste ‘week’ and ilhun ‘night.’

The dolmenes of Eguilaz, Aralar, Aizgorri, and other places of Euskadi have been conveniently explored and studied, but by the fact that they have the entrance facing to the east, we cannot deduce with certainty that they were druidic altars, nor that the tribes that erected them worshipped the sun.

41. Neither in the swastika is it precise to see a survival of primitive paganism. The swastika, which for C. Jullian is the essential problem of Basque civilization, appears reproduced to the point of satiation, not only in the old discoid steles of Basque cemeteries, but also in the furniture and façades of the houses. (Courteault).

Among the decorative motives of the Basque tombs, stars of six points, rosettas or daisies, and helices, that is, swastikas, are abundant. (Colas). All of them could be astral symbols. But it is also possible to suppose that these motives appeared about the stars responding to a need of the artistic spirit of the community, and far from being symbols of complex beliefs, they were simply fillers of the surfaces vacated by the lack of the forgotten anthropomorphic decoration. (Frankowski).

[21] With reason, Aranzadi said: “… the absence of certain other original elements of culture, as for example that of mythology and epics, which disgusted Vinson, do not have the transcendental significance that he attributed to it, if we take into account the meager extension of the territory and the millenary influence of Latin and Castilian in the leader classes of the country.”

[22] Strabo says: “According to some authors, the Gallegos lack all religion; but the celtiberos and the bordering towns on the side of the Septentrion, recognize one deity without a name, to which they pay tribute, each family forming at the full moons, in front of the door of its house and during the night, dance choirs, which they last until the morning” (Costa).

The Sun and Moon in Basque Folklore

42. We see, then, how debatable the religious origins of the Basques are. With these antecedents, it is adventurous to speak of Basque mythology. Because of that we cannot assess the fantasies of Chaho, which, as P. Lhande said very well, lack completely scientific value. In these last years, matured speaking of Basque mythology, and with such a title an interesting conference in Euskara was given by the distinguished professor of the Seminary of Vitoria, D. Jose Miguel de Barandiaran, soul of the Laboratory of Ethnology and Eusko-Folklore, one of the most flowering sections of the meritorious Society of Basque Studies. But it suffices to cast a glance at the conference of Mr. Barandiaran, to become convinced that it is more accurately a study of folkloric character. The data retrieved in it has, however, great interest and permit curious comparisons with Vedic mythology.

In Berastegui they say that the sun is the eye of God, and the same occurs in Elduayen with respect to the moon. We have already seen that in the Vedas the sun is the eye of the gods, the eye of the world.

In Berastegui and Abadiano the children are told that the moon is the face of God, and in Rigoitia it is shown by the nights saying that it is Jesus. For its part, the Rigveda compares the adorable light of Surya with the face (anika) of the great Agni.

43. But there is another fact even more interesting, which confirms the tight affinity of ideas between sun and eye. According to Barandiaran, in Ataun the sun is called euzkibegie. He translates this as ‘the eye of the diurnal light,’ without doubt by way of supposing that eguzki actually means ‘diurnal light,’ in which Schuchardt coincides. But whatever the primitive meaning of eguzki, when encountering a compound like euskibegi, we must all agree in that it is composed of euzki, variant of eguzki, and begi ‘eye,’ that is, sun-eye, which is precisely one of the interpretations of eguzki proposed by us.

So that, with the word eguzkibegi, on one side we observe the existence of a pleonasmo, and on the other a case of semantic evolution. Right now, the explanation of the why of this evolution is lacking. The same Barandiaran will tell it to us: “In Ataun they call the solar or diurnal light euzkie.” It cannot be more clear. On encountering the Basque of Ataun with which eguzki meant at the same time ‘sun’ and ‘light of the day,’ there was a desire to differentiate the two, reserving euzki for the solar light and adding begi ‘eye’ to form the name of the diurnal star. Maybe their ancestors did the same to differentiate egu ‘day’ from egu ‘sun’ by way of uzki, which at that time must have been the current name of ‘eye’ (organ of sight).

In English as in Spanish, however the lexical richness of these languages, sun and sol have very diverse meanings. In English, sun means not only the luminary that lights up the day, but also, in general, the body that occupies the center of a planetary system, and anything extremely splendid or that gives physical or moral light. It also means sunny place, the place where the sun gives fully, and is a synonym of sunlight. In Spanish, in addition to the diurnal body, we designate with the same word ‘day; light, heat or influx of the sun; musical note; genero de encajes, and coin of Peru.’ We cannot express light of the sun or ray of the sun with only one word, as in the English sunlight, sunshine, sunbeam. On the other hand, Spanish has at its disposal the term solana, which in English must be translated by sun, sunny place.

In the Dictionary of Azkue, eguzkibegi and its variants mean ‘sunny place,’ that is ‘solana.’ Said variants are: eguzkubegi, ekhi-begi and eki-begi. There is, in addition, in the Gipuzkoan of Ezquioga, the term ekera, which means ‘sunny place,’ ‘east,’ and which, according to Azkue, is a variant of egutera.

Etymologies of Chaho

44. Agustin Chaho, a Basque-French writer, conceived the legend of Aitor, patriarch of the Indo-Atlantis race. Many are the fantastic etymologies which said legend contains, but it is to admit the insight with which some questions are treated, among them the affinity of ideas between sun and eye, although Chaho departs from a diametrically opposed principle. It is worth recording his words: “You must have seen a mountain, severe in the twilight, smiling in the dawn, when its hilly flowers become green and the first rays of the sun convert the drops of dew to diamonds: such is the forehead of man, when he leaves the dream of the night. There the divine will positions the two eyes, Beghiak, that is, the two suns, Bi- Ekhiak; the two corporal intelligences, the two truths, Bi-eghiak; the two mirrors from where the imagination takes its loaned evocations, from where the comprehension calls the tribunal of the interior sun and of the spiritual eye the marvels of the external world. It is by the eyes that man sees: Ikus, Ekhas: it is by this vision reflected in the interior crystal that the intelligence instructs, learns, conceives, Ikhas, that is, Ikhus-as, begins to see the truth. Man acquires science with the eyes of the body and of the spirit, and transmits it by way of the word which paints things to the imagination, and sketches the ideas of the understanding, Erakhats, that is, it shows them, makes them see, teaches them, Ikus-Eras. Thus the eyes of man are the iluminating stars of his thought, in the same way that the sun is the eye of Nature. The vigilant eye signifies a guardian, and the sun is also called Beghiraria, argus or celestial guardian. The eyes, according to the inspired poetry of the language of my people, are the emblem of science and prudence, as the bodies are an emblem of strength, of brilliance, of light and of pride: a lamb that has seven horns and seven eyes has been the myth of the solar truth, the symbol of the Basque civilizations.”

The Grammatical Gender of the Celestial Bodies

45. Did the nouns in Basque have a grammatical gender? Astarloa regards as useless weight the distinction of gender, of which Basque nouns lack. Uhlenbeck agrees with Schuchardt in supposing that at one time they had it. He sees a proof of the primitive differentiation in the feminine form of the second person singular in the present of the transitive verb.

46. Among the nouns that lack sex, as for example the names of the stars, it is curious to observe that for the Germanic people the moon was primitively of masculine gender, and the sun feminine. In the mythology of the Edda, Mâni, the Moon, is the son, and  Sôl, the Sun, the daughter of Mundilföri. The same occurs with the Gothic mêna, sunnô, and the Anglo-Saxon môna, sunne. In English, Chaucer, in the fourteenth century still alluded to the sun as feminine, in phrases such as this: “to fynde the degree in which the sonne is day by day, after hir cours abowte.” That in English sun and moon have changed gender is due to the influence of classical models. (Max Müller) [23]. Even in our days, the German Sonne ‘sun’ is feminine and Mond ‘moon,’ masculine.

In Sanskrit, the well-known names of the moon, such as Kandra, Soma, Indu, and Vidhu, are masculine. The Lithuanians also give the moon masculine gender, and the sun feminine. (Max Müller).

For the Acadians, the moon existed before the sun. (Max Müller) [24]. In the beginning times of the Caldea, the god Moon was the chief, the powerful, the sovereign of the gods, the lord of the spirits, the resplendent. In the time of the Babylon Empire, he had diminished in standing, but even then a hymn of the city of Ur attributed to him these concepts: “Lord, prince of the gods, only sublime in the heavens and on the earth! — Father, illuminator, lord, God, protector, prince of the gods!” (Costa). On the other hand, for the Semites, the sun came first and occupied the principal position among the gods. From here that in Acadia the moon was conceived as man and the sun as woman, while in Babylon the sun was of masculine gender and the moon as feminine. (Max Müller).

In the ancient mythology of Japan, the solar goddess fulfilled the most important role, while her brother, the lunar god, occupied an insignificant place. (Encicl. Espasa).

Among the Basques, the cult of the sun seems to have predominated. So much that, as we have said at the beginning, there are those that believe that the Basque owes his national name to the diurnal star, eguzki. Arana Goiri says: “… the Basques, without doubt from the most remote times venerated the sun with a cult so extraordinary that it is, it can be said, the only that with that of the moon has conserved until the opening of the doors of History.”

47. The lack of ancient texts and the shortage of grammatic gender of Basque nouns [25] make it very difficult to determine the sex attributed to the sun and the moon, in the case that they were actually worshipped as gods. We can only call Basque folklore to our aid, and judging by it, both the sun the moon were considered of the feminine sex. According to Barandiaran, in Elosua and Placencia they recite at sunset the following verses:

Euzki amandria
Juan da bere amagana
Biar etoriko da
Denpora ona bada.

The grandmother Sun
Has gone to her mother.
She will return tomorrow,
if there is good weather.

Another variant, recorded as well by Barandiaran in the same localities and in Rigoitia and Cortezubi, substitutes the juan da by badoya, or that is that the action of the preterit is converted to that of the present, with the confirmative adverbial prefix ba-.

In Rigoitia they often recite the following verses:

Eguzki santu bedeinkatue
Zoaz zeure amagana
Etori zaitez bijer
Denpora ona bada.

Holy blessed Sun,
Go to your mother.
Come tomorrow
if there is good weather.

48. As to the moon, the children are directed to her as well, in verses such as the following, recorded by Barandiaran in Ataun and Ormaiztegui:

Ilargi amandrea
Zeruan ze beri?
—Zeruan beri onak
Oran eta beti.

Grandmother moon [26]
What is new in the heavens?
—In the heavens good news,
Now and always.

The same author says that in other places (e.g. in Zaldibia and Andoain) these verses are directed, with minor variations, to the insect called Marigori, Matxingoringo, etc.=’vaquita of Saint Anthony.’

49. Among the riddles collected by Azkue, there is one that says:

Miña-miña lurpeko,
andre adera ekiko,
Lope txapar-ondoko.

which Azkue translates literally as follows: “It is spicy and underground, beautiful lady of the sun, Lope del de junto al matorral” (sic). And the solution is:  Tipula, iduzki ta otsoa = ‘onion, garlic, and wolf.’

Here we see that the sun has lost some years, since from grandmother she passes to beautiful señora. But, in any case, in doesn’t allow agreement in the essential the folklore of all of the towns of the Basque Country that have been studied until now.

[23] This same author says: “Now if the moon was originally called by the farmer the measurer, the ruler of days and weeks and seasons, the regulator of the tides, the lord of their festivals and the herald of their public assemblies, it is but natural that he should have been conceived as a man and not as the love-sick maiden which our modern sentimental poetry has put in his place.”

[24] The night, that is, the darkness, has always been the object of superstitious terror, the same among the primitive cultures as among the uncivilized. In the opinion of some authors, this would explain the worship of the moon, which with respect to that of the sun surpasses it in antiquity and universality. (Encicl. Espasa). On the other hand, for other authors the moon-god is, by excellence, the god of the nomadic cultures, their guide and protector in the forays that they populate at night during a good part of the year; while the sun-god is the principal god of an agricultural country. (Encicl. Brit.).

[25] The case of Japan is very similar. We copy from the Encicl. Espasa: “The most notable analogy was that which was found among the solar goddess and the aspect of the personality of Bhudda, conceived in the solar myth. The anomaly of gender preoccupied very few of the syncretists, not only because Japanese lacks gender, but also because the noumena and their manifestations are able to take on any gender.”

[26] In the popular legends of India, the dark or obscure parts of the moon were compared to the silhouette of a goat and also with that of an old woman that is spinning wool with her wheel. The popular imagination has seen the wool in the brilliant parts of the lunar disc. (Shovona Devi). It would be very interesting figure out if in Basque folklore there exists something similar. Is the grandmother moon the ancient spinner of the Indostanic legend?

In Japan, it is said that the art of weaving was practiced by the solar goddess, Amaterasu. (Encicl. Brit.).

Sin, name of the moon-god in Babylon and Asyria, was represented as an old man with a long beard. Among the Greeks, Selene, young and beautiful, was the personification of the moon. (Encicl. Brit.)

The Mother of the Sun

50. Another detail of great interest, which the cited verses contain, could not pass by us undetected. In them, not only is the sun invoked, but they also speak of a trip to where her mother is. And thus arises the question: Who is she, where is the mother of the sun?

We return again to call to our aid comparative mythology. In Vedic,  dív, dyu ‘sky’ was considered generally as the father, while the earth was the mother and Ushas (dawn) the daughter. (Monier-Williams). According to Macdonell, the conception of the earth as mother and of the sky as father (Sanskrit Dyaus pítar, Greek Zeus páter, Latin Jupiter) dates from what seems from very remote times. Because the idea that the sky and the earth are parents of the universe was not only familiar to Vedic mythology, but also to those of Greece, China, and New Zealand. There remain vestiges in Egyptian mythology as well. (Macdonell) [27].

This idea was the product of the observation that man made that both the sky and the earth are charged with providing the nutrition of living beings: the sky in the form of rain and light which fertilizes the earth and the earth with the vegetation that leaves from her bosom. The myth of the conjugal union of the sky and the earth is encountered amplialy diffused among the primitive cultures, and it is believed that it is probably prior to the separation of the Indo-Europeans. In the Vedas, sky and earth are not only called parents but also are invoked as parents of the gods. Also, the dawn (Ushas) is spoken of incidentally as mother of the sun, for preceding it in its appearance. (Macdonell).

According accounts by Herodotus, the Egyptians had laws and customs that, in their majority, were the opposite of those that the rest of humanity observed. This observation could also be applied to their mythology. They personified the sky and the earth, but made the earth the husband and the sky the wife. This anomaly was based on purely grammatical reasons, since in Egyptian the term ‘sky’ pet was feminine and to ‘earth’ masculine. (Frazer).

51. For the primitive Basque, the sun was personified as a woman, whose mother was the earth. In the least, the meaning of the phrase authorizes one to suppose thus. We must not forget that the children recite these verses at sunset, and on saying go to your mother, when the sun is hidden by the horizon, it seems to be an allusion to the Mother earth.

Otherwise, it is necessary to think that the Basques believed at one time in the existence of an underworld, analogous to that which the mythologies of other cultures present. In that of the Eskimos, for example, arises the curious coincidence that the one who governs is an ancient woman, named Sedna. The Egyptians believed that the sun crossed this underworld during the hours of the night (Encicl. Brit.). On the other hand, in the Vedas there is no direct allusion to the passage of the sun beneath the earth. It is supposed that the belief existed that the sun retraced by night its path, returning to the east, but completely extinguished. (Macdonell).

[27] Moulton said: “Classical writers portray for us the religion of the ancient Germans and Gauls and Persians, and the portraits agree in the prominence assigned to the sun and moon, and to the associated worship of heaven and earth, which latter were regarded as father and mother of all.”

Conclusion

Do not believe that we have adduced facts and established parallels to elevate a system of Basque mythology or search for a linguistic relationship. Pictet did say that among diverse cultures epiteths can arise directed to the sun, without which follows a primitive affinity. And he added: “It was very natural to see in the sun a disc or wheel of gold, the jewel or eye of the sky, the star that sees and knows all, etc.”

W. Webster said that, in his opinion, there is only some forty motifs or original ideas in all the folklore of the human species. All of the rest come to be like the changes and variations of the pieces of a kaleidoscope. Nothing has been found in Basque folklore that is not encountered in the folklore of other countries. The only existent difference is reduced to the local color and the manner of narrating the deeds.

For its part, mythology obeys general laws and presents similarities in the myths of all cultures. (Sayce). In the opinion of this author, the relationship of the languages is the only thing that can guide us to the identity of origin.

Comparative semantics can serve us for the restitution of many lost forms and to get to the bottom of the primitive meaning of words. As was said very well by P. Restrepo: “The study of comparative semantics is of great importance. To study the semantic influences of the culture of a community in that of another; and to study the semantic coincidences is to touch that which is the most characteristic of the understanding of the language; since if in spite of the very diverse circumstances in which diverse cultures are found coincide in expressing the same ideas with the same translations, it is a sign that such an expression is not due to caprice nor to secondary circumstances that so much vary from one culture to another, but rather that it is very consistent with the nature of things and with the mode of conception of the human understanding.”