The History of Basque

by R.L. Trask

Basque is the sole survivor of the very ancient languages of Western Europe. This book, written by an internationally renowned specialist in Basque, provides a comprehensive survey of all that is known about the prehistory of the language, including pronunciation, the grammar and the vocabulary. It also provides a long critical evaluation of the search for its relatives, as well as a thumbnail sketch of the language, a summary of its typological features, an external history and an extensive bibliography.

Genres: Linguistics, History, Nonfiction

480 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Robert Lawrence "Larry" Trask was Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sussex in England. He was an authority on the Basque language: his book The History of Basque (1997) is an essential reference on diachronic Basque linguistics and probably the best introduction to Basque linguistics as a whole. He was also an authority on historical linguistics, and had written about the problem of the origin of language. He also published two introductory books to linguistics: Language: The basics (1995) and Introducing Linguistics (coauthored with Bill Mayblin) (2000), and several dictionaries on different topics of this science: A dictionary of grammatical terms in linguistics (1993), A dictionary of phonetics and phonology (1996), A student's dictionary of language and linguistics (1997), Key concepts in language and linguistics (1999), The dictionary of historical and comparative linguistics (2000) and The Penguin dictionary of English grammar (2000).

He was at work compiling an etymological dictionary of Basque when he died, posthumously published by Max W. Wheeler (Etymological Dictionary of Basque, 2008).

Reviews

[Mikhael Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trask makes academic writing funny; this wasn’t a slog. Very informative

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was organized and written well, and provided more information than I could have hoped for about the history of the Basque language. I was impressed by the author's clear expertise on the subject. There are some witty comments throughout the book, and the last chapter (about connections with other languages) is exceedingly amusing. And although the author clearly has little patience for the many dubious claims of connections between Basque and other languages, he takes the time to show, point by point, examples of why these theories are misguided (at best). Expect to be amused by the final chapter.

[Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book primarily for access to the final chapter, on the relationship of Basque for other languages. What I found was perhaps one of the most clear-written linguistics books, and a full detailed history of Basque. The book covers both the "external" history, that of the Basque people and sociolinguistics throughout the ages, gives a short sketch of the grammar of the modern language, then delves deeper into the language itself and how it has changed, focusing on phonology, grammar, and the lexicon in consecutive chapters.

Overall it was a very well written and very informative book. It is only a shame that Dr. Trask passed away at a relatively young age and couldn't have given us more.

[Marc Adler · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books ever. I've read it several times. Engagingly (if somewhat provocatively) written, hella informative.