Catalunians and Basques ?

[LeftEyeNine]

Question is quite clear: Who are Catalunians and Basques ? Are they more of French or Spanish culture or a totally different one ? Any connection with the Aragonese (or any other local historical factions that I've not heard of) ?

Thanks in advance

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

Basques are different in culture to mainstream French and Spanish society, and are very different in language (Basque language is not even Indo-European).

Catalans are more like the mainstream Spanish/French culture and have a language that is closely related to Castilian.

Edit: Catalonia and Aragon are a successor to Aragon (and Aragonese is still spoken in some areas and is very similar to Catalan and Castilian) whilst the Basques are descended from the kingdom of Navarre.

Edit: just in case you don't know, Castilian is what people generally call Spanish.

[LeftEyeNine]

Well there are a couple of villages in Turkey where there are only black people -that is a heritage from Ottoman times. Is the Basques' history something like that ? Sail there a long time ago from some other place somehow and settle there ? Maybe some different story -I just imagined ?

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

The Basques were there before the Latins. The culture used to be spread over a larger area of North Eastern Iberia.

[LeftEyeNine]

Is their current population level normal or was lessened significantly by migrating tribes or Latin expansion ? I just thought that if they were there before anyone else they should have been greater in numbers.

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

LEN, many populations undergo cultural change. I imagine that there are many people of Basque descent who are no longer culturally Basque.
The rest of Iberia was not entirely wiped out and replaced by Romans but they speak a Latin based language (Castilian, Catalan, Aragonese, Galician and Portugese) rather than a Celtic based language.

Edited because I wrote Castilian twice and Catalan not at all.
Edited again because I wrote Spain when I meant to write Iberia, I'd be expecting a slap from my Portugese friends if they ever found out.

[Leet Eriksson]

Can you explain the Basques in-depth please (or if anyone is capable to do it) i'll appreciate it(links help too!).

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

for a brief bit of info try:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Basque

I'll try to find you something better when I have time.

[Del Arroyo]

The Basques are a people that are found on both sides of the Spain-France border who speak a language which predates Latin influence. Hemingway writes something of them in his novel The Sun Also Rises. From what I understand the current ETA movement and violence related to the Basque issue has its origins mainly in the Franco era, when the fascist dictatorship attempted to erase such cultural and linguistic variety and turn everyone into good Castilian Spaniards. Many people view the continuation of the conflict in the present day to be unjustified and illegitimate, hence the very dim view that almost everyone takes of ETA terrorists.

Coincidentally another of the languages that Franco tried to eliminate was Catalan, so that if you had visited Barcelona 30 or 40 years ago all the signs and newspapers would actually have been in Spanish (Castilian). Parents were not even allowed to give their children Catalan names, so that in families who had children born both before and after the end of Franco's rule, it is common to have some children with Spanish (Castilian) names (Marcos, for instance, instead of Marc), and others with Catalan names (Lluis, for instance, instead of Luis).

Catalan compared to Spanish (Castilian), at least according to the impression I have, is closer than French but farther than Portuguese. I don't understand it, anyway. Basque, as has been said, is pre-Latin-- basically Celtic or something like that. But I would be willing to bet that it is Indo-European.

The theory as to the origin of the Basques is, I believe, that they simply hunkered down in the mountains as the Romans and whoever else expanded and conquered around them, doggedly resisting assimilation and outside influence, and so Basque today is a relic of pre-Roman tribal language.

(Someone please correct me if I have stated anything wrong here.)

DA

[Incongruous]

The Basques pre_date the Celtic revolution and are none-indo European (that is culturally and linguistically as there is not enough evidence to substantiate an ethnical takeover), they fought constantly with celtic tribes and were one of Roma's fearcest enemies. They are quite possibly the most ancient people (culturally) in Europe.

[Leet Eriksson]

They related in anyway to Celt-iberians?

Also how come they are related by blood to the welsh and irish?

Or are the welsh and irish not indo-european?

[LeftEyeNine]

Well, correct me if I'm wrong but, weren't they the Vandals that were pushed down and so they had even landed in North Africa ? The most possible and rational route for a Roman era emmigrant tribe to reach N. Africa should be through Iberian peninsula and over Gibraltar, me thinks. Maybe any connection with Basques stand or come into those lands -if they were not the natives ?

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
AFAICT the Basques remained at where they started, though losing much territory through centuries of overlapping invasions and colonizations. They might be related to Iberians, if at all, not Celtiberians or afterwards.

Vandal and Visigoth invasions are pretty modern stages in the history of Iberia, so to speak.
.

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

I don't think I'll have time to go in depth for you but I'd recommend Mark Kurlansky's "Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation", it's an entertaining and easy read, good as an introduction to the subject.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014...books&v=glance

I can't remember if it's got a decent bibliography or not. If it does then you should be pointed in the right direction to find the more heavy duty, dry historical works.

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

This is worth a read too (more academic than the previous suggestion but not a vast weighty tome):
"The Basques: Their Struggle for Independence"
Ned Thomas (Foreword), Luis Nunez Astrain, Meic Stephens (Translator)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...895663-5009261