Euskaldunak | |
---|---|
See the list.
|
|
Total population | |
c. 13 million worldwide | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Spain (people living in the Basque Provinces of Spain, including some areas where most people don't identify themselves as Basque) |
2,410,000 |
France (people living in the Basque Provinces of France, not all of whom identify as Basque) |
239,000 |
United States (self-identifying as having Basque ancestry) |
57,793 |
Basque diaspora | c. 10,000,000 |
Languages | |
Basque, Spanish, French |
The Basques (Basque: euskaldunak; Spanish: vascos; French: basques, English: /bɑːsks/ or /bæsks/) are an indigenous ethnic group characterised by the Basque language, a common Basque culture and shared ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. Basques are indigenous to and primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country (Basque: Euskal Herria), a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.
The Basques are known as:
The English word Basque may be pronounced /bɑːsk/ or /bæsk/ and derives from the French Basque (pronounced French pronunciation: [bask]), which is derived from Gascon Basco (pronounced /ˈbasku/), cognate with Spanish Vasco (pronounced /ˈbasko/). These, in turn, come from Latin Vasco (pronounced /wasko/), plural Vascones (see History section below). The Latin labial-velar approximant /w/ generally evolved into the bilabials /b/ and /β̞/ in Gascon and Spanish, probably under the influence of Basque and Aquitanian, a language related to old Basque and spoken in Gascony in Antiquity (similarly the Latin /w/ evolved into /v/ in French, Italian and other languages).