![\"\"](\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-3.png\")
<\/a>- \n
- The English word\u00a0Basque<\/em>\u00a0comes from the French, which in turn comes from the Gascon word\u00a0Basco<\/em>. In fact, both\u00a0Basque<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Gascon<\/em>come from the Latin word for one of the tribes that inhabited what is the modern day Basque Country, the Vascones<\/a>. In Latin, the word was originally\u00a0uasco<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- There was a theory that the Latin word for the Basques evolved from the Latin word for forest \u2013\u00a0boscus<\/strong>\u00a0o\u00a0buscus<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 but that has been discarded as that word itself is of relatively modern origin (the Middle Ages) and maybe comes from German.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Another theory is that\u00a0uasco<\/em>\u00a0came from what the Basques and Aquitainians called themselves, from an early form of the modern Basque\u00a0eusk<\/em>-. The Romans called another tribe in the region the\u00a0Auscii<\/a>, which is theorized to have a similar origin.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Yet another theory links the word\u00a0Basque<\/em>\u00a0to an inscription found on an old Roman-era coin that read\u00a0barscunes<\/a><\/em>. This has been interpreted as a Celtic word possibly meaning \u201cthe mountain people.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Strabo<\/a>, the Greek chronicler of the Roman Empire, called what was possibly (likely?) that same tribe as the Vascones the Ouaskonous<\/em>\u00a0or the\u00a0Ou\u00e1skones<\/em>. This is what the Greeks called them, the \u039f\u1f50\u03ac\u03c3\u03ba\u03c9\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2.\u00a0Ouaskonous<\/em>\u00a0means the \u201cgoat people\u201d as these people were known to sacrifice rams to their gods.\u00a0Ouaskonous<\/em>\u00a0is typically\u00a0rendered in English<\/a>\u00a0as Vasconians.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- At least\u00a0two<\/a>\u00a0references<\/a>\u00a0link the Latin\u00a0uasco<\/em>\u00a0with the Greek\u00a0Ouaskonous<\/em>, but the vast majority don\u2019t \u2013 even the Oxford Dictionary doesn\u2019t make this connection.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Just like the theory that\u00a0uasco<\/em>\u00a0comes from eusk-, there is speculation that so does\u00a0Ouaskonous<\/em>.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- It is surprisingly hard to find serious discussion of these relationships. For example, while multiple sources say that\u00a0Ouaskonous<\/em>means something like \u201cthe goat people,\u201d I can\u2019t find conclusive evidence of this.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Primary sources: Vascones<\/a><\/em>, Wikipedia;\u00a0Basques<\/a><\/em>, Wikipedia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why are the Basques called the Basques? Baskijski, Baskick\u00fd, Baskisk, Vasco, Baskilainen, Baskisch, \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03ba\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2, Vasco, Baskijski, Bass, \u0431\u0430\u0441\u043a\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0439. All of the names for the Basques are similar and seemingly have nothing to do with what the Basques actually call themselves, Euskaldunak. Where does the word Basque even come from? A full list of all of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_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":[836,8,14],"tags":[2946,4111,4112,860,1908,4113,2206],"class_list":["post-7571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basque-fact-of-the-week","category-euskadi","category-euskara","tag-gascon","tag-goat-people","tag-greek","tag-romans","tag-strabo","tag-uasco","tag-vascones"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-3.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1Y7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7571","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=7571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7573,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7571\/revisions\/7573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- There was a theory that the Latin word for the Basques evolved from the Latin word for forest \u2013\u00a0boscus<\/strong>\u00a0o\u00a0buscus<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 but that has been discarded as that word itself is of relatively modern origin (the Middle Ages) and maybe comes from German.<\/li>\n\n\n\n