Many attempts by scholars have been made to try to properly place the Basque language among the languages of Europe. In general, these attempts have failed. Indeed, it has been suggested that the Basques represent a direct lineage to the ancient Cro-Magnon man who roamed the area thirty thousand years ago.
In their book "The Veneti, Our Ancient Forefathers", Savli, Bor and Tomazic suggest that there also appears to be a Basque linguistic connection to the Veneti, our Slavic ancestors. They give a few cursory examples of similar words in the two languages, but do not carry the argument further. The unyielding belief by historians (without sufficient proof) that Slavs migrated into Europe only in the 6th century A.D., has precluded a scholarly investigation of such a Basque-Slavic connection.
Based on this suggestion we have looked further into the linguistic relationships between the two peoples and discovered an interesting fact. While globally there appears to be only a minor (almost accidental) connection between the two languages, if one confines himself to words that might have existed in antiquity (e.g., body parts, land features, hunting and animals), the similarities in words become numerous. Not only are there similarities in words, but also in word structures. For example, just as in Slavic so also in Basque, new words are made by a combination with a root word (example: cresnja = cer jesnja = food with a rock).
In a different vein, the Basque diminutive ending -ska is similar to Slovenian. We will present many examples, as well as connections to other languages. We are inclined to agree with the suggestion of Savli, Bor and Tomazic that Basque and Venetic languages share similarities traceable to antiquity.
Page Created: October 21, 2001
Page Updated: October 21, 2001
©Copyright 2001 Gary L. Gorsha
