{"id":1998,"date":"2019-05-12T15:00:34","date_gmt":"2019-05-12T15:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=1998"},"modified":"2019-05-12T15:00:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-12T15:00:34","slug":"basque-fact-of-the-week-earliest-written-evidence-of-euskara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2019\/05\/12\/basque-fact-of-the-week-earliest-written-evidence-of-euskara\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Fact of the Week: Earliest Written Evidence of Euskara"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Euskara, the language spoken by the Basque people, is now spoken by about 750,000 people. The language is perhaps the most singularly important feature identifying the Basque people. Indeed, the word for a Basque person in Euskara — euskaldun<\/em> — means ‘one who has Euskara.’ Thus, the history of the language itself is of great interest and importance in understanding the history of the Basque people. Given that Basque has not had a strong written history, reconstructing the history of the language is challenging. The earliest known evidence for Euskara comes from a set of lead tablets from the Roman period. These tablets have the word “NESCAS” or “NISCAS” written on them, apparently referring to the modern Basque word neska<\/em>, which means girl, used, in this context, to invoke the local nymphs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The first phrases in Euskara. Image from Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n