[Sca-cooks] Basque Food

[Huette von Ahrens]

--- Robin <rcmann4 at earthlink.net> wrote:

> otsisto wrote:
> 
> >I do not believe that Basque and Catalan are the same thing.
> >Lyse
> >
> They are not the same thing.  I have not come across any period recipes 
> -- though that may be a language issue.  Basque is not an Indo-European 
> language, and is completely unlike, French, Spanish, and Catalan.

Here is what the Encyclopedia Britannica says:

Basque remains an isolated language with no known linguistic relatives. The hypothesis of the
German philologist Hugo Schuchardt (1842–1927), which once had wide currency, posited an 
intimate genetic connection between Basque and Iberian and the Hamito-Semitic (Afro-Asiatic)
language group. This theory was superseded by attempts to establish a more or less close link
between Basque and Caucasian, the language group indigenous to the Caucasus region. A lack of
common linguistic characteristics between the Basque and Hamito-Semitic languages makes
Schuchardt's hypothesis extremely dubious. There are, however, some common features that 
favour the relationship between Basque and Caucasian. Still, proof of a genetic relationship 
beyond reasonable doubt appears remote. Perhaps the most promising theory involves the 
comparison of Basque with the long-extinct Iberian, the language of the ancient inscriptions of
eastern Spain and of the Mediterranean coast of France. But, despite amazing phonological
coincidences, Basque has so far contributed next to nothing to the understanding of the
now-readable Iberian texts. Therefore, it is possible that the similarity may have resulted 
from close contact between Basques and Iberians and not from a genetic linguistic relationship.



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