Baskisch

Basque, referred to in German as Baskisch, is the Basque language, or Euskara, and, by extension, a key component of Basque linguistic and cultural heritage. It is spoken in the Basque Country, an area spanning parts of northern Spain—primarily the Basque Autonomous Community and parts of Navarre—and the French Basque Country. Basque is a language isolate, meaning it is not demonstrably related to the surrounding Indo-European languages, though it has absorbed loanwords from Spanish and French over time. Estimates of speakers vary, but Basque is spoken by hundreds of thousands of people and benefits from ongoing revitalization in education, media, and public life.

In Spain, Basque enjoys official status alongside Spanish in the Basque Autonomous Community and certain areas of Navarre. In France, Basque has no official status, though it is taught and used in local and cultural contexts. To support education and media, the standardized form Batua was developed in the mid-20th century by Euskaltzaindia (the Basque Language Academy). This standard is used in schools, broadcasting, and publishing, while several regional dialects—such as Gipuzkoan, Biscayan, and Upper Navarrese—continue to exist and influence everyday speech.

Linguistically, Basque exhibits features that distinguish it from neighboring languages, including ergative–absolutive alignment in many verbal forms, agglutinative morphology, and a system of postpositions. It has five vowel phonemes and a relatively rich consonant inventory, with pronunciation patterns that vary across dialects but are generally mutually intelligible to educated speakers of Batua.

Basque culture, literature, and media reinforce regional identity and ongoing efforts to promote bilingualism and linguistic diversity in both Spain and France, as part of broader regional and national policies.