Basque Language Translation Services

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Translation Services USA offers professional translation services for English to Basque and Basque to English language pairs. We also translate Basque to and from any other world language. We can translate into over 100 different languages. In fact, Translation Services USA is the only agency in the market which can fully translate Basque to literally any language in the world!

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Basque Language Facts:

Spoken in: Spain and France

Region: Basque Country

Total speakers: 1,033,900 (first language: 700,000)

Basque (in Basque: Euskara) is the language spoken by the Basque people who inhabit the Pyrenees in North-Central Spain and the adjoining region of South-Western France. More specifically, the Basques occupy a Spanish autonomous community known as the Basque Country (Euskadi), which has significant cultural and political autonomy. Basques also make up sizable parts of the population in what is known as the Northern Basque Country in France and the autonomous community of Navarre in Spain. The Standard Basque name for the language is euskara; other dialectal forms are euskera, eskuara and uskara. Although geographically surrounded by Indo-European languages, Basque is believed to be a language isolate. It is not an Indo-European language.

The ancestors of the Basques are among the oldest inhabitants of Europe, and their origins are still unknown, as are the origins of their language itself. Most scholars see Basque as a language isolate.

Latin inscriptions in Aquitania preserve a number of words with cognates in proto-Basque, for instance the personal name Nescato (neskato means "young girl" in modern Basque). This proposed language is called "Aquitanian" and was presumably spoken before the Romans brought Latin to the western Pyrenees. Roman neglect of this hinterland allowed Aquitanian Basque to survive while the Iberian and Tartessian languages died out. Basque did come to acquire some Latin vocabulary, both before and after the Latin of the area developed into Gascon (a branch of Occitan) and Navarrese Romance.

Given that the border between Basque and Gascon country is more diffuse than that of Basque and Castilian country, it is commonly assumed that the Basques' origin was in Aquitaine and that they migrated southward.

In June 2006, archaeologists at the site of Iruna-Veleia discovered an epigraphic set with a series of 270 Basque inscriptions and drawings from the third century. Some of the words and phrases found were "urdin" (blue), "zuri" (white), "gorri" (red), "edan" (drink) "ian" (eat), "lo" (sleep), "Iesus, Ioshse ata ta Miriam ama" (Jesus, the father Joseph and the mother Mary), and "Geure ata zutan" (May the Father be with you).