Basque is divided into several dialects, of which the chief are those of Guipflzeoa. Biscay, Labourdin, and Lower Navarre, all of which adopt the Roman alphabet, conforming their orthography to either the Spanish or the French, according to their position south or north of the Pyrenees. Basque words are accented, as a rule, on the final syllable, which ends in a vowel, or in s, r, I, II, and once in t. It possesses nouns, adjectives (which have no radical affinity with the nouns), pronouns, and verbs. Grammatical gender is lacking, while the verb, like the Ger- )nanic, has, properly speaking, but two tenses, present and past. The noun has two numbers and seven cases, nominative - accusative, instru- mental, genitive, dative, locative, sociative (gison-are-kin, with the man), and caritive (gison-a-yabe, without the man). The article, originally, as in Indo-Germauie, a demonstra- tive, stands between the noun-stem and the flee- tional ending {gison-a, the man; genitive, gison- ar-en; dative, gison-ar-i). Similarly, the ad- jective, which follows the noun, alone receives inflection (Mr gnrbi, pure water; genitive, ur garhi-ar-en ) . The Basque verb is either transi- tive, in which case the object can never be omitted, or intransitive, and both classes are strong or weak, according to the absence or pres- ence of the auxiliary verb. In the intransitive verb the subject precedes, while the order of the transitive is object, verb, subject (h-a-bil, thou goest; but h-a-har-t, thee bear I). The substan- tial agent of a transitive verb is denoted by the instrumental (gison-a-k yan du, the man has eaten it; literally, by the man was its eating), forming a curious partial analogy to the usage in many modern Indo-Iranian languages, as well as in the Australian dialect of Encounter Bay. In addition to the indicative mood, the verb has an optative and an imperative. The rather meagre tense-system of the Basque is supplemented by a future and a future perfect, nearer and re- moter perfect, as well as pluperfect by analogical influence from the Romance languages, as ibili- ho n-ais, which is almost exactly equivalent to the English / have to be a-going, or the French irai, I have to go, from Latin ire habeo. The numerical system, as in the Central American languages, is primarily vigesimal. Basqvie lit- erature is not extensive, and is mostly of a popu- lar character, poems, quasi-dramatic composi- tions somewluit resembling the mystery-plays of the Middle Ages, and the like, together with translations of religious literature. Although it has adopted numerous loan-words from French and Spanish, it has maintained its own remark- ably against its Romance neighbors.
Consult: Miiller. Gnindriss der Sprachwissen- schaft, Vol. III. (Vienna, 1887), where an ex- cellent summary of Basque granunar is given; Gerland, "Die Basken und die Iberer," in Grii- her, Grtindriss der roinanischen Philologie, Vol. I. (Strassburg, 1892-98) ; Mahn, Denkmdler der baskischen Sprache, mit einer Einleitung Uber das Studium derselben (Berlin, 1857) ; de Azcue, Euskal Izkendea; Gramdtica enskara formadu y traducida (Bilbao, 1891), Basque and Spanish; Van Eys, Dictioiinaire iasque-franaais (Paris, 1873) ; Van Eys, Grammaire comparce des dia- lectcs basfjiies (Paris, 1879) ; Van Eys, Outlines of Basgiie Grammar (London, 1883) ; Vinson, Essai sitr la langue basque par Francois Uibary, iraduit du liongrois (Paris, 1877); Essai d'une bibliographie de la langue basque (Paris, 1891) ; Campion, Gramdtica de los cuatro dialectes de la lengua euskara (Toulouse, 1884) ; Aizquibel, Diccionario basco-espanol (Toulouse, 1882-85) ; Larramendi, Diccionario trilingue del Castellano, Bascuence y Latin (2 vols., San Sebastian, 1853) ; Michel, Le pays basque, sa population, sa langue, ses moiurs, sa Utteratuie et sa niusique (Paris, 1857) ; Linsehmann and Sehuehardt, Lei- garraga's Baskische Biicher von 1371, Neues Testament, Kalender, und Abo, im genauen Ab- durck (Strassburg, 1900).
BASQUE PROVINCES. A district in the
northern jiart of Spain, comprising the prov-
inces of Vizcaya (Biscay), Guipiizcoa, Alava,
and a portion of Navarre, which constituted the
ancient Cantabria. The total area of the dis-
trict is al)Out 7000 square miles. The surface
is very mountainous, particularly in the Prov-
ince of Alava, which is everywhere cut up into
deep, narrow vallej's by ofl'sets from the main
chain of mountains. The rivers of Vizcaya
and Guipi'izcoa empty, after a short course, into
the Bay of Biscay; those of Alava flow down
the opposite slopes into the Ebro, which car-
ries their waters to the Mediterranean. The
climate is, on the whole, mild and salubrious.
The general aspect of the country is very pic-
turesque, the hills in most cases being covered
to the summit with forests of oak, beech, and
chestnut. The soil in the valleys and plains,
while not very rich, has been rendered pro-
ductive by the energy of the people, although
agricultural methods in the heart of the Basque
provinces are of the most primitive kind. The
farms are small, usually onl.y about four or five
acres, and rarely more than can be managed by
the farmer and his family. The products are
barley, maize, flax, hemp, and some wheat. Iron
is found in abundance ; also copper and tin,
marble, porphyry, and jasper. The fisheries on
the coast are pr<xluetive. The population of
the district, including the entire Province of
Navarre, was 879,644 in 1897. About one-half of
this number, however, belong to the Basque race.
Consult : Whiteway. "Customs of the Western
Pyrenees." in English Historical Rcrieiv (Lon-
don, 1800) ; Fabie, Estudio sobre la organiza-
cion y costumbres del pais vascongado (Madrid,
1897).
BASQUE RACE. The Basque race is not confined to the Basque Provinces or to the southern side of the Pyrenees. On the French side of the Pyrenees three cantons of the Department of Basses Pyntmees, i.e. Labourd, Basse-Navarre, and Soule, are inhabited by Basques, who, though they retain their own tongue, have
not so fully preserved the characteristics of the race as their Spanish brethren, but are, anthropologically, midway in skull measurement and other tests of racial affinities between the Auvergnats on their north and the Spanish Basques. The Spanish Basques are a simple, brave, and independent people, willing to undergo any hard-ships rather than surrender their mountain freedom. No invader was ever able effectually to subdue or to expel them. The Basque Provinces retained, until 1876, a separate constitution guaranteeing them many political and fiscal privileges not possessed by the rest of Spain. ( See FuERO.) But on the suppression of the Carlist insurrection, which had its stronghold in the Basque Provinces and in Navarre, the old im-
