On 24/10/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
On Mon, 2005-10-24 at 16:44 +0100, Abigail Brady wrote:
The Basque history guy is obviously rather shockingly ignorant of Basque history, if he hasn't heard of Acquitanian... And some of his other comments appear to be POV pushing.
I suggest you read his book on Basque history before making comments like this. Mark Kurlansky, A Basque History of the World. He doesnt say he hasnt heard of the Aquitane language, just that he doesnt speak it, and thinks it is unlikely to be related to Euskera. Read more carefully.
No, you read carefully. He says "I am not familiar with the Aquitaine language but would be very surprised if it bore any relation to Euskera, the Basque language." Such a language is recorded (it's now extinct so of course he doesn't speak it), and does indeed appear to bear some relation to Basque, although not much of it is attested. If he was rejecting the proposed connection, that would be fair enough, but instead he is (in admitted ignorance) rejecting any possibility of a link. Anyone who knows anything about Acquitanian knows about the possible link with Basque, he's just dismissing it out of hand.
-- Abi