How come the Basque language is a complete isolate? They're not even indoeuropean.
Nobody gives a shit about the area and mountains are famous for preserving archaic forms of language
There used to be a lot more pre-indo-european languages in Europe but over time they got wiped out, Basque survived, probably due to location. If not for the revival of the language though it would die out soon too.
And it probably will one day, so it's good that we have it all documented.
they are ancient aliens
but more seriously I guess large parts of france and spain spoke languages related to basque before the celtic culture came (and then the roman/latin one)
>>353463
Europe before the IE was far more diverse. I don't know about France, but before the Romans, Iberian Peninsula had Tartessian and Iberian too, both of which are completely unrelated to Basque and to each other either (there are similar words, but they are probably loanwords). Look at Papua or native California to get the probable image.
>>353397
Atlantis
>>353397
The modern indo-european languages, especially Celtic, may contain words of pre-indo-european origin.
it's interesting to speculate about
Sumerian was also a language isolate
I saw this program on Norwegian television were they speculated and theorized about pre-Indo European words, and they mostly looked at names for places and farms, and they thought we in Norway might have spoken a language related to the present-day Finno-Ugric language family
How did the Indo-Europeans kuck Europe and Asia so badly? Their genes are all over the place and the language really took over
>>354094
Here in Finland its theorized that there used to exist a language isolate whom contributed some words which seemingly arent found anywhere else
As for the Indo-europeans dominating, well at least finno-ugrics fot fucked by Russia mostly
>>353397
>they're not even indoeuropean
Neither are finns, estonians and hungarians. Also, there's some distinctly non-indoeuropean vestiges in the albanian language. The reason for that is pretty simple: indoeuropeans aren't the only people who hve ever settled in europe.
>>354094
>How did the Indo-Europeans kuck Europe and Asia so badly?
Horses lad. There's a reason the Hippo- name was so popular among the nobility in Greece, and why we call rich cunts the "equestrian" class.
>>353397
Their language is the only remnant of Neanderthal languages.
>>353397
Euskara is just the last surviving one. Indo-Europeans practically erased west european cultura and languages.
Arguably Iberian culture was the last bastion of non-indoeuropean languages but the romans raped them into non-existence.
>>354094
All languages starts as isolates and then replace others as population grows and civilizations form.
Sumerian got preserved because the culture that assimilated them (akkadians) got infatuated with the language.
>>354510
>all languages start as isolates
That's wrong, though. We have some related languages, and their last common ancestor is called proto-language of that family. It was usually itself a part of some family, but the other branches went extinct before being recorded. This family had some protolanguage, and so on and on and on, until the beginnings of human language itself.
>>353397
Had Basque language being Indo-European it would not be isolate.
>>353397
I´ve read that euskara is somehow related to georgian and armenian
>>354701
It has been argued, but it has not be backed by significant proofs.
More bizarre theories have been proposed, but the language remains clasified as isolate.
