30 EEADB ON BASQUES 



Basques or Biscayans. (Maiiaria de Reb. Hispau, lib. I, cap. 5. Brietius in Hispan. Veter., 

 p. 249). Joseph Scaliger characterizes this tongue as neither barbarous nor difficult, but 

 smooth and pleasant in enunciation. He considers it extremely ancient and believes that 

 it was in use in the country where it is spoken before the time of the Eomans. The same 

 Scaliger, in a letter to Paul Merula, which appears in the ' Cosmographie' of the latter, 

 reckons the Cantabriau or Basque among the seven minor mother tongues of Europe. He 

 recognizes only four great families of speech." Pelloutier wrote before the " discovery of 

 Sanscrit " (Farrar, Language and Languages p. 292) ; but, without intending it, he antici- 

 pated M. Pictet in proving the right of Celtic to a place in the Aryan household. 



One of the earliest treatises which sets forth the claims of the Basque to consideration, 

 is a volume of dialogues, in which la Lengua Cantabra Bascongada is introduced in the 

 character of a venerable matron, who complains that her own children have forgotten her 

 and bestowed upon rival strangers the attentions due to her as Spain's ancient mother 

 tongue. It is not unworthy of note that this early fruit of Basque patriotism ripened in 

 the soil of the New World, the book having been written and published in Mexico in 

 1607, just a year before the foundation of Quebec. In 1808 an essay on the Basque lan- 

 guage was printed at Bayonne, the author of which. Abbé Diharec de Bidassouet, was, 

 according to the title page, sauvage d'origine. 



A uev\' era in the study of Basque was inaugurated by the publication (181Y-1821) of 

 the inquiries of W. von Humboldt into the aifiuities of the Basque language. He spent 

 a considerable time among the different communities where it was spoken and mastered 

 the several dialects. He was the first to apply the test of topographical nomenclature to 

 the Iberian theory ; and the result of his investigations was the conviction that Basque 

 was the ancient speech, not only of the peninsula, but of the adjoining islands. One of 

 the most earnest of modern students of Basque is Prince L. L. Bonaparte, who has publish- 

 ed a series of works bearing on the whole range of Basque philology and grammar. 



Other scholars who merit special mention for their contributions to the literature of 

 the subject are Abbé Darrigol, Dr. Mahn, M. Antoine d'Abbadie, M. Ribary, M. Grallatin, 

 M. H. de Charency and M. Julien Vinson. The three last gentlemen are among the com- 

 paratively few who have investigated the relations between Basque and the languages 

 of America. Mr. Grallatin's paper on the analogies between Basque and the languages of 

 America and of the Congo appeared among the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge 

 for 1856. In 1867 appeared a short treatise, from M. de Chareucy's pen, entitled " Des 

 J^ifinités de la Langue Basque avec les Idiomes du Nouveau-Monde." M. Vinson's ex- 

 tremely interesting and carefully reasoned essay, "Les Basques et les Langues Améri- 

 caines," was printed in the Compte-Rendu of the first meeting of the Congrès International 

 des Américanistes at Nancy, in 1875. Two years later, M. Vinson gave to Western Europe 

 a French version of the essay on the Basque language written in Hungarian by Professor 

 Francis Ribary, of the University of Pesth, with an introduction and notes by the trans- 

 lator. To this admirable work (Paris : T. Vieweg) I am indebted for a great deal of wel- 

 come information. From the Preface I learn that a sort of Basque Eisteddfodd has been 

 been instituted at Sare, in the very heart of the Basque country, through the generosity 

 of Messrs. Antoine d'Abbadie and Amédée de Laborde-Noguez, who offer prizes for poetry. 

 According to Strabo (p. C. 139) the art was diligently cultivated by the fathers of the race, 

 some of whom had poems and versified laws of great age (or of great length, according to 



