{"id":7356,"date":"2026-08-23T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=7356"},"modified":"2026-08-09T13:29:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T13:29:50","slug":"basque-fact-of-the-week-the-links-between-gascon-and-euskara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2026\/08\/23\/basque-fact-of-the-week-the-links-between-gascon-and-euskara\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Fact of the Week: The Links Between Gascon and Euskara"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\">Last week I wrote about the Valley of Aran, which has historical and linguistic connections to the Basque Country. In the Valley of Aran, the local language is Occitan, which is related to Gascon, which has its own connections to Euskara. In fact, the words Gascon and Basque come from the same Latin root.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Vasconie_1030_Shepherd.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"233\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Vasconie_1030_Shepherd-233x300.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7873\" srcset=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Vasconie_1030_Shepherd-233x300.png 233w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Vasconie_1030_Shepherd-795x1024.png 795w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Vasconie_1030_Shepherd-768x990.png 768w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Vasconie_1030_Shepherd.png 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 233px) 100vw, 233px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Duchy of Gascony in 1150. Image from <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Duchy_of_Gascony\">Wikipedia<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gascon_dialect\">Gascon<\/a> is related to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Occitan_language\">Occitan<\/a>. Some linguists consider it a dialect of Occitan while others classify it as its own language. Regardless, the two languages are clearly related: both Romance languages derived from Latin. One way they differ is in the underlying linguistic substrate.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>While Occitan has influences from the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gauls\">Gauls<\/a>, Gascon is influenced by Euskara. There are a few ways this influence manifests itself in the language:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Words that in Latin would begin with \/f\/ instead begin with \/h\/. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Words cannot start with \/r\/. Instead, such words have to have a vowel added to their beginning.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There are some words in Gascon that don&#8217;t appear in other Romance languages. One example is <em>sarri<\/em>, meaning chamois, which in Basque is <em>sarrio<\/em>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Some of these features are actually something Gascon has in common with Spanish and Portuguese, implying a Basque influence on those languages as well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Finally, the word Gascon comes from same Latin root <em>vasco<\/em>\/<em>vasconem<\/em> that gives us the word Basque. Gascon is primarily spoken in southwest France, in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gascony\">Gascony<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/B%C3%A9arn\">B\u00e9arn<\/a>. At one time, the region was part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Duchy_of_Gascony\">Duchy of Gascony<\/a> or, alternatively, the Duchy of Vasconia. There are dialects of Gascon, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Aranese_dialect\">Aranese<\/a> which is a co-official language of Catalunya.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Similarly, Gascon has influenced Basque. One clear example is the word for glass, which in Basque is <em>beira<\/em>. Further, Gascon was widely spoken in Basque cities such as <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2023\/02\/05\/basque-fact-of-the-week-donostia-the-capital-of-gipuzkoa-part-1-the-city\/\">Donostia<\/a> at least until the 18th century. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Some historians suggest that Gascons are <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2024\/04\/07\/basque-fact-of-the-week-proto-basque-the-basque-of-2000-years-ago\/\">Proto-Basques<\/a> that became Romanized.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\">A full list of all of Buber&#8217;s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/basque-fact-of-the-week-archive\/\">Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Primary sources: <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gascon_dialect\"><em>Gascon dialect<\/em><\/a>, Wikipedia; <a href=\"https:\/\/es.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gasc\u00f3n_(occitano)\"><em>Gasc\u00f3n (occitano)<\/em><\/a>, Wikipedia; Cierbide Martinena, Ricardo.&nbsp;<em>Gasc\u00f3n<\/em>. Au\u00f1amendi Encyclopedia. Available at: <a href=\"https:\/\/aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus\/en\/gascon\/ar-149610\/\">https:\/\/aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus\/en\/gascon\/ar-149610\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week I wrote about the Valley of Aran, which has historical and linguistic connections to the Basque Country. In the Valley of Aran, the local language is Occitan, which is related to Gascon, which has its own connections to Euskara. In fact, the words Gascon and Basque come from the same Latin root. A [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[836,14,13],"tags":[4300,2589,38,2946,1778,4305,4303],"class_list":["post-7356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basque-fact-of-the-week","category-euskara","category-history","tag-aranese","tag-bearn","tag-euskara","tag-gascon","tag-gascony","tag-gauls","tag-occitan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1UE","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Vasconie_1030_Shepherd.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7874,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7356\/revisions\/7874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}