Basque people

The Basques (euskaldunak, vascos, basques) as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country (Euskal Herria), a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.

The Basques are known in the local languages as:
 * Euskaldunak ("Basque speakers", also used loosely to describe all ethnic Basques), euskal herritarrak ("natives of the Basque Country") or euskotarrak ("natives of the Basque Country", an often mentioned but rarely used neologism) in Basque
 * Vascos in Spanish
 * Basques in French
 * Bascos in Gascon

Etymology of the word Basque
The English word Basque comes from French Basque (pronounced ), which itself comes from Gascon Basco (pronounced ) and Spanish Vasco (pronounced ). These, in turn, come from Latin Vasco (pronounced ), plural Vascones (see History section below). The Latin labial-velar approximant /w/ generally evolved into the bilabials /b/ and /β̞/ in Gascon and Spanish, probably under the influence of Basque and Aquitanian, a language related to old Basque and spoken in Gascony in Antiquity (similarly the Latin /w/ evolved into /v/ in French, Italian and other languages).

Several coins from the 1st and 2nd centuries BC found in the Basque Country bear the inscription barscunes. The place where they were minted is not certain but is thought to be somewhere near Pamplona in the heartland of the area that historians believe was inhabited by the Vascones. Some scholars have suggested a Celtic etymology based on bhar-s-, meaning "summit", "point" or "leaves", according to which barscunes may have meant "the mountain people", "the tall ones" or "the proud ones", while others have posited a relationship to a proto-Indo-European root *bar- meaning "border", "frontier", "march".

In Basque, Basques call themselves euskaldunak, singular euskaldun, formed from euskal- (i.e. "Basque (language)") and -dun (i.e. "one who has"); euskaldun literally means a Basque speaker. Not all Basques are Basque-speakers, and not all Basque speakers are Basques; foreigners who have learned Basque can also be called euskaldunak. Therefore the neologism euskotar, plural euskotarrak, was coined in the 19th century to mean an ethnically Basque person whether Basque-speaking or not. These Basque words are all derived from euskara, the Basque name for the Basque language.

Alfonso Irigoyen claimed that the word euskara comes from an ancient Basque verb enautsi "to say" (cf. modern Basque esan) and the suffix -(k)ara ("way (of doing something)"). Thus euskara would literally mean "way of saying", "way of speaking". One item of evidence in favour of this hypothesis is found in the Spanish book Compendio Historial, written in 1571 by the Basque writer Esteban de Garibay, who records the name of the Basque language as "enusquera". It may be however a writing mistake.

In the 19th century, the Basque nationalist activist Sabino Arana posited an original root euzko which, he thought, came from eguzkiko ("of the sun" on the assumption of an original solar religion). On the basis of this putative root Arana proposed the name Euzkadi for an independent Basque nation, composed by seven basque historical territories. Arana's neologism Euzkadi, in the regularized spelling Euskadi, is still widely used in both Basque and Spanish, since it is now the official name of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country.

It has also been suggested that the root of eusk- may be linked to the Aquitanian tribe of the Ausci.

History
Since the Basque language is unrelated to Indo-European, it is often thought that they represent the people or culture who occupied Europe before the spread of Indo-European languages there.

It is thought that Basques are a remnant of the early inhabitants of Western Europe, specifically those of the Franco-Cantabrian region. Basque tribes were already mentioned in Roman times by Strabo and Pliny, including the Vascones, the Aquitani, and others. There is enough evidence to support that at that time and later they spoke old varieties of the Basque language (see: Aquitanian language).

In the Early Middle Ages (up to 9–10th centuries) the territory between the Ebro and Garonne rivers was known as Vasconia, a blur ethnic area and polity struggling to fend off the pressure of the Iberian Visigothic kingdom and Muslim rule on the south and the Frankish push on the north. A Basque presence is cited on the southern banks of the Loire river too (7–8th centuries). By the turn of the millennium, after Muslim invasions and Frankish expansion under Charlemagne, the territory of Vasconia (to become Gascony) fragmented into different feudal regions, for example, the viscountcies of Soule and Labourd out of former tribal systems and minor realms (County of Vasconia), while south of the Pyrenees the Kingdom of Castile, Kingdom of Pamplona and the Pyrenean counties of Aragon, Sobrarbe, Ribagorza (later merged into the Kingdom of Aragon), and Pallars arose as the main regional powers with Basque population in the ninth century.

The Kingdom of Pamplona (a central Basque realm), later known as Navarre, experienced feudalization and was subjected to the influences of its vaster Aragonese, Castilian and French neighbours, with Castile annexing key western territories of it in the 11th and the twelfth century, so depriving the kingdom of a direct way out to the ocean. Eventually the bulk of the realm would fall to the thrust of Spanish troops from 1512 to 1521 after a civil war. The Navarrese territory north of the Pyrenees remaining out of Spanish rule would end up being formally absorbed to France in 1620.

Nevertheless the Basque provinces enjoyed a great deal of self-government until the French Revolution in the North and the civil wars named Carlist Wars in the South when the Basques supported heir apparent Carlos and his descendants to the cry of "God, Fatherland, King" (Charters abolished). Since then, despite the current limited self-governing status of the Basque Autonomous Community and Navarre as settled by the Spanish Constitution, a significant part of Basque society is still attempting higher degrees of self-empowerment (see Basque nationalism), sometimes by acts of violence.

Political and administrative divisions
The Basque region is divided into at least three administrative units, namely the Basque Autonomous Community and Navarre in Spain, and the arrondissement of Bayonne and the cantons of Mauléon-Licharre and Tardets-Sorholus in the département of Pyrénées Atlantiques, France.

The autonomous community (a concept established in the Spanish Constitution of 1978) known as Euskal Autonomia Erkidegoa or EAE in Basque and as Comunidad Autónoma Vasca or CAV in Spanish (in English: Basque Autonomous Community or BAC), is made up of the three Spanish provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa. The corresponding Basque names of these territories are Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, and their Spanish names are Álava, Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa.

The BAC only includes three of the seven provinces of the currently called historical territories. It is sometimes referred to simply as "the Basque Country" (or Euskadi) by writers and public agencies only considering those three western provinces, but also on occasions merely as a convenient abbreviation when this does not lead to confusion in the context. Others reject this usage as inaccurate and are careful to specify the BAC (or an equivalent expression such as "the three provinces", up to 1978 referred to as "Provincias Vascongadas" in Spanish) when referring to this entity or region. Likewise, terms such as "the Basque Government" for "the government of the BAC" are commonly though not universally employed. In particular in common usage the French term Pays Basque ("Basque Country"), in the absence of further qualification, refers either to the whole Basque Country ("Euskal Herria" in Basque), or not infrequently to the northern (or "French") Basque Country specifically.

Under Spain's present constitution, Navarre (Nafarroa in present-day Basque, Navarra historically in Spanish) constitutes a separate entity, called in present-day Basque Nafarroako Foru Erkidegoa, in Spanish Comunidad Foral de Navarra (the autonomous community of Navarre). The government of this autonomous community is the Government of Navarre. Note that in historical contexts Navarre may refer to a wider area, and that the present-day northern Basque province of Lower Navarre may also be referred to as (part of) Nafarroa, while the term "High Navarre" (Nafarroa Garaia in Basque, Alta Navarra in Spanish) is also encountered as a way of referring to the territory of the present-day autonomous community.

There are three other historic provinces parts of the Basque Country: Labourd, Lower Navarre and Soule (Lapurdi, Nafarroa Beherea and Zuberoa in Basque; Labourd, Basse-Navarre and Soule in French), devoid of official status within France's present-day political and administrative territorial organization, and only minor political support to the Basque nationalists. A large number of regional and local nationalist and non-nationalist representatives has waged a campaign for years advocating for the creation of a separate Basque département, while these demands have gone unheard by the French administration.

Population, main cities and languages
There are 2,123,000 people living in the Basque Autonomous Community (279,000 in Alava, 1,160,000 in Biscay and 684,000 in Gipuzkoa). The most important cities in this region, which serve as the provinces' administrative centers, are Bilbao (in Biscay), San Sebastián (in Gipuzkoa) and Vitoria-Gasteiz (in Álava). The official languages are Basque and Spanish. Knowledge of Spanish is compulsory according to the Spanish Constitution (article no. 3), and knowledge and usage of Basque is a right according to the Statute of Autonomy (article no. 6), so only knowledge of Spanish is virtually universal. Knowledge of Basque, after declining for many years during Franco's dictatorship owing to official persecution, is again on the rise due to favourable official language policies and popular support. Currently about 33 percent of the BAC's population speaks Basque.

Navarre has a population of 601,000; its administrative capital and main city, also regarded by many nationalist Basques as the Basques' historical capital, is Pamplona (Iruñea in modern Basque). Although Spanish and Basque are official languages in this autonomous community, Basque language rights are only recognised by current legislation and language policy in the province's northern region, where most Basque-speaking Navarrese are concentrated.

Approximately a quarter of a million people live in the part of claimed French Basque Country. Basque-speakers refer to this as "Iparralde" ( Basque for North), and therefore to the Spanish provinces as "Hegoalde" (South). Much of this population lives in or near the Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz (BAB) urban belt on the coast (in Basque these are Baiona, Angelu and Miarritze). The Basque language, which was traditionally spoken by most of the region's population outside the BAB urban zone, is today losing ground to French at a fast rate. Associated with the northern Basque Country's lack of self-government within the French state is the absence of official status for the Basque language throughout this region.

The Basque diaspora
Large numbers of Basques have left the Basque Country for other parts of the world in different historical periods, often for economic or political reasons. Basques are often employed in sheepherding and ranching, maritime fisheries and merchants around the world. Millions of Basque descendants (see Basque American) live in North America (the United States and Mexico; Canada mainly in the provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec), Latin America (in all 23 countries), Southern Africa and Australia.

Miguel de Unamuno said: "There are at least two things that clearly can be attributed to Basques: the Society of Jesus and the Republic of Chile. Louis Thayer Ojeda estimates that during the 17th and 18th centuries fully 45% of all immigrants in Chile were Basques. Over 3.5 million Basque descendants live in Chile and were a major influence in the country's cultural and economic development.

A large wave of Basques emigrated to Latin America and substantial numbers settled elsewhere in North (the U.S.) and Latin America, particularly in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Panama, Uruguay and Venezuela, where Basque place names are to be found, such as New Biscay, now Durango (Mexico), Biscayne Bay, Jalapa (Guatemala), Aguerreberry or Aguereberry Point in the United States, and the Nuevo Santander region of Mexico. Nueva Vizcaya was the first province in the north of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Mexico) to be explored and settled by the Spanish. It consisted mostly of the area which is today the states of Chihuahua and Durango.

In Mexico most Basques are concentrated in the cities of Monterrey, Saltillo, Reynosa, Camargo, and the states of Jalisco, Durango, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, and Coahuila. The Basques were important in the mining industry, many were ranchers and vaqueros (cowboys), and the rest opened small shops in major cities like Mexico City, Guadalajara and Puebla. In Guatemala most Basques have been concentrated in Jalapa for six generations now, while some have immigrated to the city of Guatemala.

The largest of several important Basque communities in the United States is in the area around Boise, Idaho, home to the Basque Museum and Cultural Center, host to a Basque festival every year, as well as a festival for the entire Basque diaspora every five years. Reno, Nevada, where the Center for Basque Studies and the Basque Studies Library are located in the University of Nevada, is another significant nucleus of Basque population. In Elko, Nevada there is an annual Basque festival that celebrates the dance, cuisine and cultures of the Basque peoples of Spanish, French and Mexican nationalities arrived to Nevada since the late 19th century.

California has a major concentration of Basques in the United States, most notably in the San Joaquin Valley between Stockton, Fresno and Bakersfield. The city of Bakersfield itself has a large Basque community and the city boasts several Basque restaurants.

There also exists a history of Basque culture in Chino, California. In Chino, there are two annual Basque festivals that celebrate the dance, cuisine, and culture of the peoples, and the surrounding area of San Bernardino County has many Basque descendants. They are mostly descendants of settlers from Spain and Mexico. These Basques in California are grouped in the ethnic group known as Californios.

In South Texas along the Mexican-Texan border of the Rio Grande Valley, many people are of Basque heritage or have Basque surnames. Along this area are many ranches given to colonial Spanish settlers from Basque Country to New Spain which still exist today. They are mostly descendants of settlers from Spain and Mexico, with a number from other parts of Hispanic America. These Basques in south Texas are grouped in the ethnic group known as Tejanos.

Basques of European Spanish-French and Latin American nationalities also settled throughout the western U.S. in states like New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Oregon, and Washington state.



Language
The identifying language of the Basques is called Basque or Euskara, spoken today by 25%-30% of the region's population. An idea of the central place of the ethnic terms in Basque nationalist politicians is given by the fact that, in Basque, Basques identify themselves by the term euskaldun and their country as Euskal Herria, literally "Basque speaker" and "Country of the Basque Language" respectively. The language has been made a political issue by official Spanish and French policies restricting its use either historically or currently; however, this has not stopped the teaching, speaking, writing, and cultivating of this increasingly vibrant minority language. It is important to remember that the sense of Basque identity tied to the local language does not exist in isolation. It is juxtaposed with an equally strong sense of national identity tied with the use of the Spanish and French languages among other Basques. As with many European states, a regional identity, be it linguistically derived or otherwise, is not mutually exclusive with the broader national one.

As a result of state language promotion, school policies, the impact of mass media, and the effects of migration, today virtually all Basques (except for some children below school age) speak the official language of their state (Spanish or French). Therefore, there are extremely few Basque monoglots: essentially all Basque speakers are bilingual on both sides of the border. This reality, coupled with the fact that Spanish or French is also typically the first language of citizens from other regions (that often feel no need to learn Basque), maintains the dominance of the state tongues of both France and Spain. Recent Basque Government policies aim to change this pattern, as they are viewed as potential threats against mainstream usage of the minority tongue.

The Basque language is thought to be a genetic language isolate. Thus Basque contrasts with other European languages, almost all of which belong to the broad Indo-European language family. Another peculiarity of Basque is that it has been spoken continuously in situ, in and around its present territorial location, for longer than other modern European languages, which have all been introduced in historical or prehistorical times through population migrations or other processes of cultural transmission.

However, popular stereotypes characterizing Basque as "the oldest language in Europe" and "unique among the world's languages" may be misunderstood and lead to erroneous assumptions. Over the centuries, Basque has remained in continuous contact with neighboring western European languages with which it has come to share numerous lexical properties and typological features; it is therefore misleading to exaggerate the "outlandish" character of Basque. Basque is also a modern language, and is established as a written and printed one used in present-day forms of publication and communication, as well as a language spoken and used in a very wide range of social and cultural contexts, styles, and registers.

Land and inheritance
Basques have a close attachment to their home (etxe(a) 'house, home'), especially when this consists of the traditional self-sufficient, family-run farm or baserri(a). Home in this context is synonymous with family roots. Old baserri names, themselves typically expressing short-range geographical orientations or other locally meaningful identifying features, have transmuted into modern Basque surnames, thereby providing even Basques whose families may have left the land generations ago with an important link to their rural family origins: Bengoetxea "the house of further down", Goikoetxea "the house above", Landaburu "top of the field", Errekondo "next to the stream", Elizalde "by the church", Mendizabal "wide hill", Usetxe "house of birds" Ibarretxe "house in the valley", Etxeberria "the new house", and so on.

A widespread belief that Basque society was originally matriarchal seems to conflict with the clearly patrilinear character of known family inheritance structures. There have been attempts to reconcile these points by assuming that the latter represents an innovation. In any case, the social position of women in both traditional and modern Basque society is somewhat better than in neighbouring cultures, and women have a substantial influence in decisions about the domestic economy. In the past, some women participated in collective magical ceremonies, and were key participants in a rich folklore, today largely forgotten.

In contrast to surrounding regions, ancient Basque inheritance patterns, recognised in the fueros, favour survival of the unity of inherited land holdings which generally fall to a single male heir, usually the oldest son. This system forced the other siblings to find other sources of sustenance, and before the advent of industrialisation resulted in the emigration of many rural Basques to Spain, France or the Americas. This system, harsh by modern standards, was no doubt responsible for sending out into the world a great many enterprising personalities of Basque origin, from Spanish conquistadors such as Lope de Aguirre, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, to saints of the Catholic Church such as Francis Xavier.

Cuisine
Basque cuisine is at the heart of Basque culture, influenced by the neighboring communities and the excellent produce from the sea and the land. A twentieth-century feature of Basque culture is the phenomenon of gastronomical societies (called txoko in Basque), food clubs where men gather to cook and enjoy their own food. Until recently, women were only allowed one day in the year. Cider houses (Sagardotegiak) are popular restaurants in Gipuzkoa open for a few months while the cider is in season.

Cultural production
Despite ETA and the crisis of heavy industries, the Basque economic condition has recovered remarkably in recent years, emerging from the Franco regime with a revitalized language and culture. The Basque language is expanding geographically led by large increases in the major urban centers of Pamplona, Bilbao, and Bayonne, where only a few decades ago the Basque language had all but disappeared.

Religion
Traditionally Basques have been mostly Roman Catholics. In the 19th century and well into the 20th, Basques as a group remained notably devout and churchgoing. In recent years church attendance has fallen off, as in most of Western Europe. The region has been a source of missionaries like Francis Xavier and Michel Garicoïts. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, was a Basque. 17th C. California Franciscan Fermín Lasuén was born in Vitoria. Lasuén was the successor to Franciscan Padre Junipero Serra and founded 9 of the 21 extant California Missions along the coast.

A sprout of Protestantism in the continental Basque Country produced the first translation of the new Testament into Basque by Joanes Leizarraga. After the king of Navarre converted to Catholicism to be king of France, Protestantism almost disappeared.

Bayonne held a Jewish community composed mainly of Sephardi Jews fleeing from the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions. There were also important Jewish and Muslim communities in Navarre before the Castilian invasion of 1512-21.

Nowadays only slightly more than 50% of Basques profess some kind of belief in God, while the rest are either agnostic or atheist. The number of religious skeptics increases noticeably for the younger generations, while the older ones are more religious.

Pre-Christian religion and mythology


Christianisation of the Basque Country has been the topic of some discussion. There are broadly speaking two views. According to one, Christianity arrived in the Basque Country during the 4th and 5th century but according to the other, it did not take place until the 12th and 13th century. The main issue lies in the different interpretations of what is considered Christianisation. Early traces of Christianity can be found in the major urban areas from the 4th century onwards, a bishopric from 589 in Pamplona and three hermit cave concentrations (two in Álava, one in Navarre) were in use from the 6th century onwards. In this sense, Christianity arrived "early".

Pre-Christian belief seems to have focused on a goddess called Mari. A number of place-names contain her name and would suggest these places were related to worship of her such as Anbotoko Mari who appears to have been related to the weather. According to one tradition, she traveled every seven years between a cave on Mount Anboto and one on another mountain (the stories vary); the weather would be wet when she was in Anboto, dry when she was in Aloña, or Supelegor, or Gorbea. One of her names, Mari Urraca possibly ties here to a historical Navarrese princess of the 11th and 12th century, with other legends giving her a brother or cousin who was a Roman Catholic priest. So far the discussions about whether the name Mari is original and just happened to coincide closely with the Christian name María or if Mari is an early Basque attempt to give a Christian veneer to pagan worship have remained speculative.

Mari's consort is Sugaar. This chthonic couple seem to bear the superior ethical power and also the power of creation and destruction. It's said that when they gathered in the high caves of the sacred peaks, they engendered the storms. These meetings typically happened on Friday nights, the day of historical akelarre or coven. Mari was said to reside in Mount Anboto; periodically she crossed the skies as a bright light to reach her other home at mount Txindoki.

Legends also speak of many and abundant genies, like jentilak (equivalent to giants), lamiak (equivalent to nymphs), mairuak (builders of the cromlechs or stone circles, literally Moors), iratxoak (imps), sorginak (witches, priestess of Mari), and so on. Basajaun is a Basque version of the Woodwose. There is a trickster named San Martin Txiki ("St Martin the Lesser").

It has been shown that some of these stories have entered Basque culture in recent centuries or as part of Roman superstition. It is unclear whether neolithic stone structures called dolmens have a religious significance or were built to house animals or resting shepherds. Some of the dolmens and cromlechs are burial sites serving as well as border markers.

The jentilak ('Giants'), on the other hand, are a legendary people which explains the disappearance of a people of Stone Age culture that used to live in the high lands and with no knowledge of the iron. Many legends about them tell that they were bigger and taller, with a great force, but were displaced by the ferrons, or workers of ironworks foundries, until their total fade-out. They were pagans, but one of them, Olentzero, accepted Christianity and became a sort of Basque Santa Claus. They gave name to several toponyms, as Jentilbaratza.

Society
Historically, Basque society can be described as being somewhat at odds with Roman and later Western European societal norms.

Strabo's account of the north of Spain in his Geographica makes a mention of "a sort of woman-rule—not at all a mark of civilization" (Hadington 1992), a first mention of the—for the period—unusual position of women. "Women could inherit and control property as well as officiate in churches. Combined with the issue of lingering pagan beliefs, this enraged the leaders of the Spanish Inquisition, perhaps leading to one of the largest witch hunt in the Basque town of Logroño in 1610".

This preference for female dominance existed well into the twentieth century: "...matrilineal inheritance laws, and agricultural work performed by women continued in Basque country until the early twentieth century. For more than a century, scholars have widely discussed the high status of Basque women in law codes, as well as their positions as judges, inheritors, and arbitrators through ante-Roman, medieval, and modern times. The system of laws governing succession in the French Basque region reflected total equality between the sexes. Up until the eve of the French Revolution, the Basque woman was truly ‘the mistress of the house,’ hereditary guardian, and head of the lineage".

Although the kingdom of Navarre did adopt feudalism, most Basques also possessed unusual social institutions different from those of feudal Europe. Some aspects of this include the elizate tradition where local house-owners met in front of the church to elect a representative to send to the juntas and Juntas Generales (such as the Juntas Generales de Vizcaya or Guipúzcoa) which administered much larger areas. Another example was the fact that in the medieval period most land was owned by the farmers, not the Church or a king.

Pilota
The great family of ball games has its unique offspring among Basque ball games, known generically as pilota (Spanish: pelota). Some variants have been exported to the United States and Macau under the name of Jai Alai.

Rural sports


There are several sports derived by Basques from everyday chores. Heavy workers were challenged and bets placed upon them. Examples are:
 * estropadak rowing regattas: from fishermen activities.
 * sokatira: tug-of-war.
 * harri jasoketa: stone-lifting, from quarry works.
 * aizkolaritza and trontzalaritza: wood-chopping and log sawing.
 * sega jokoa: cutting grass with a scythe.
 * Giza-abere probak: stone block pulling, from construction works:
 * idi probak with teams of oxen.
 * asto probak with donkeys.
 * zaldi probak with horses.
 * gizon probak with human teams.
 * txinga eramatea: carrying of weights, one in each hand, representing milk canisters.
 * ''aharai topaketa: ram fights.
 * harri zulaketa competitions: drilling stone blocks with a metal bar, only in the former mining areas of West Biscay.
 * Basque sheepdog trials competitions.

Bull runs and bullock games
The encierro (bull run) in Pamplona's fiestas Sanfermines started as a transport of bulls to the ring. These encierros, as well as other bull and bullock related activities are not exclusive to Pamplona but are traditional in many towns and villages of the Basque country.

Football
The largest symbol of Basque identity in football is Athletic Bilbao. While there are other clubs within the Spanish Basque country, such as Real Sociedad, Bilbao's cantera policy has meant the club refuses to sign any non-Basque players. CA Osasuna, from the neighbouring autonomous community of Navarre, is the only club in La Liga that has a Basque name (osasuna means "health").

Rugby Union
Rugby union is a popular sport among French Basques, with major clubs Biarritz Olympique and Aviron Bayonnais traditional powerhouses in the premier division of French Rugby (the Top 14). Biarritz regularly play Heineken Cup matches, especially knockout matches, at Estadio Anoeta in San Sebastian. Games between the Basque clubs and Catalan club USA Perpignan are always hard fought.

Professional cycling
Cycling is popular and the Euskaltel-Euskadi professional cycling team participates in the UCI World Tour division. Known for their orange tops and hill-climbing ability, their fans are famous for lining the most famous Pyrenean climbs in the Tour de France, in support of their compatriots.

Each April the week-long Tour of the Basque Country showcases the beautiful rolling Basque countryside.

Politics
While there is no independent Basque state, Spain's autonomous community of the Basque Country, made up of the provinces of Álava (Araba), Vizcaya (Bizkaia) and Guipúzcoa (Gipuzkoa), is primarily a historical consequence and an answer to the wide autonomy claim of the residents.

Navarre has a separate statute of autonomy, also based on the historical medieval charters. Until recently, Basque only survived in the Northern part of Navarre in the areas designated as Basque speaking or mixed in Navarrese law. Questions of political, linguistic and ethnic allegiance and identity are highly complex in Navarre. Politically some Basque nationalists would like to integrate with the Autonomous Basque Community but this currently is not the view of the majority of the people of Navarre.

The Northern Basque Country today does not exist as a formal political entity and is officially simply part of the French department of Pyrénées Atlantiques, centered in Béarn. In recent years the number of mayors of the region supporting the creation of a separate Basque department has grown to 63,87%. So far, their attempts have been unsuccessful.

Language
Both Spanish and French governments have, at times, tried to suppress Basque linguistic and cultural identity. The French Republics, the epitome of the nation-state, have a long history of attempting the complete cultural absorption of ethnic minority groups. Spain has, at most points in its history, granted some degree of linguistic, cultural, and even political autonomy to its Basques, but under the regime of Francisco Franco, the Spanish government reversed the advances of Basque nationalism, as it had fought in the opposite side of the Spanish Civil War: cultural activity in Basque was limited to folkloric issues and the Roman Catholic Church.

Today, the Basque Country within Spain enjoys an extensive cultural and political autonomy. The majority of schools under the jurisdiction of the Basque education system use Basque as the primary medium of teaching. However, the situation is more delicate in the North, where lack of autonomy and monolingual public schooling in French exert great pressure on the Basque language.

However, in Navarre, Basque has been declared an endangered language, since the conservative government of Unión del Pueblo Navarro opposes Basque nationalism and symbols of Basqueness, highlighting Navarre's own autonomy.

Basque is also spoken by immigrants in the major cities of Spain and France, in Australia, in many parts of Latin America, and in the United States, especially in Nevada, Idaho and California.

Political status and violence
Since its articulation by Sabino Arana in the late 19th century, the more radical currents of Basque nationalism have demanded the right of self-determination and even independence. Within the Basque country, that this element of Basque politics is often in balance with the conception of the Basque Country as just another part of the Spanish state, a view more commonly espoused on the right of the political spectrum. In contrast, the desire for greater autonomy and/or independence is particularly common among leftist Basque nationalists. The right of self-determination was asserted by the Basque Parliament in 2002 and 2006. Since self-determination is not recognized in the Spanish Constitution of 1978, a wide majority of Basques abstained (55%) and some even voted against it (23.5%) in the referendum of December 6 of that year. However, it was approved by clear majority at the Spanish level (87%). The derived autonomous regimes for the (Western) Basque Country was approved in a later referendum but the autonomy of Navarre (amejoramiento del fuero: "improvement of the charter") was never subject to a referendum but only approved by the Navarrese Cortes (parliament).

Classification
As with their language, the Basques are clearly a distinct ethnic group in their region. They notably regard themselves as culturally and especially linguistically distinct from their surrounding neighbours. Some Basques, especially in Spain, are strongly nationalist, identifying far more firmly as Basques than as citizens of any existing state. Others are not, feeling as much Basque as Spanish. Many Basques regard designation as an "ethnic minority" as incomplete, favouring instead the definition as a nation.

In modern times, as a European people living in a highly industrialized area, cultural differences from the rest of Europe are inevitably blurred, although a conscious cultural identity as a people or nation remains very strong, as does an identification with their homeland, even among many Basques who have emigrated to other parts of Spain or France, or to other parts of the world.

The strongest distinction between the Basques and their traditional neighbours is linguistic. Surrounded by Romance-language speakers, the Basques traditionally spoke (and many still speak) a language that was not only non-Romance but non-Indo-European. Although the evidence is open to question, the prevailing belief among Basques, and forming part of their national identity, is that their language has continuity with the people who were in this region not merely in pre-Roman times, but in pre-Celtic times, quite possibly before the great invasions of Europe by Asian tribes.

Genetics
Although they are genetically distinctive in some ways, the Basques are still very typically West European in terms of their Y-DNA and mtDNA sequences, and in terms of some other genetic loci. These same sequences are widespread throughout the western half of Europe, especially along the western fringe of the continent.

Studies of the Y-chromosome found that on their direct male lineages modern Basques have a common ancestry with other Western Europeans. The similarity includes the predominance in their male populations of Y-chromosome Haplogroup R1b, now considered to have been spread through Europe from southwest Asia in the Neolithic period or later, between 4,000 to 8,000 years ago.

However that study done by Balaresque and others.(2009) had many biases and more recent studies have proven that Subclades of R1b1b2 might have originated on Western Europe during the Holocene before the Neolithic Expansion. According to Myres and others.(2010): "The coalescent estimate for the Y-STR network tree of 245 M269*+L23(xM412) chromosomes is 10 270±1680 years Before Present (BP)" Clearly predating the Neolithic Expansion from Anatolia. Another study done by Cruciani and others. (2010) has also confirmed that there is a clear dichotomy between the Western-Eastern branches of R1b1b2, and many scientist now consider that R1b1b2 might have in fact originated in southeastern Europe in the Upper Paleolithic time, expanding from there to Western Europe and Anatolia. According to Cruciani and others. (2010):"The overall frequency pattern of theR1b1b2 sub-haplogroups here analyzed is compatible with several scenarios, including mutation surfing on the wave of advance of an expanding population and/or local bottlenecks and re-expansion from refuge areas. Preliminary time expansion estimates for haplogroups R1b1b2g (8.3ky; 95%CIs 5.8–10.9ky) and R1b1b2h (7.4ky; 95%CIs 5.3–10.2ky), based on 7STRs analyzed on 24 and 27 males respectively, are compatible with both Neolithic and post-glacial expansion/s within Europe. The majority (58.7%) of R1b1b2 chromosomes from Europe were found to be ancestral for both U106 and U152 (paragroup R1b1b2*) and showed a frequency cline from western to eastern Europe. Further studies are needed to refine the R1b1b2 phylogeny and fully disclose the micro-evolutionary events underlying the present frequency distribution of R1b1b2 sub-haplogroups."

In regards to the presence of R1b1b2(R-M269) in Basque and other Western Europeans a more recent study states:"A recent network analysis of the R-M269 Y chromosome lineage has purportedly corroborated Neolithic expansion from Anatolia, the site of diffusion of agriculture. However, the data are still controversial and the analyses so far performed are prone to a number of biases. In the present study we show that the addition of a single marker, DYSA7.2, dramatically changes the shape of the R-M269 network into a topology showing a clear Western-Eastern dichotomy not consistent with a radial diffusion of people from the Middle East. We have also assessed other Y-chromosome haplogroups proposed to be markers of the Neolithic diffusion of farmers and compared their intra-lineage variation—defined by short tandem repeats (STRs)—in Anatolia and in Sardinia, the only Western population where these lineages are present at appreciable frequencies and where there is substantial archaeological and genetic evidence of pre-Neolithic human occupation. The data indicate that Sardinia does not contain a subset of the variability present in Anatolia and that the shared variability between these populations is best explained by an earlier, pre-Neolithic dispersal of haplogroups from a common ancestral gene pool. Overall, these results are consistent with the cultural diffusion and do not support the demic model of agriculture diffusion."

Autosomal genetic studies confirm that Basques have a very close relationship with other Europeans, especially with Spaniards, who have a common genetic identity of over 70% with Basques.

In fact, according to a Europe-wide study, the main components in the European genomes appear to derive from ancestors whose features were similar to those of modern Basques and Near Easterners, with average values greater than 35% for both these parental populations, regardless of whether molecular information is taken into account or not. The smallest degree of both Basque and Near Eastern admixture is found in Finland, whereas the highest values are, respectively, 80% "Basque" in Spain and roughly 70% "Near Eastern" in the Balkans.

Before the development of modern genetics based on DNA sequencing, Basques were noted as having the highest global apportion of the Rh blood type (35% phenotypically, 60% genetically). Additionally, the Basque population has virtually no B blood type, nor the related AB type. These differences are thought to reflect their long history of isolation, as well as times during which the Basque population contracted, allowing genetic drift to dramatically influence genetic makeup. The history of isolation reflected in gene frequencies has presumably also been key to the retention of the distinctive Basque language. In fact, in accordance with other genetic studies, a recent genetic piece of research from 2007 claims: "The Spanish and Basque groups are the furthest away from other continental groups (with more diversity within the same genetic groups) which is consistent with the suggestions that the Iberian peninsula holds the most ancient West European genetic ancestry."

Since the Basques speak a non-Indo-European language and have the highest proportion of the Rh negative blood type of all the peoples of the world, they were widely considered to be a genetically isolated population, preserving the genes of European Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, until recent genetic studies found that modern Basques have a common ancestry with other Western Europeans.

A study done in May, 2010 has shown homogeneity of Spanish and French Basques, and confirmed their genomic distinctiveness from other European populations.

Notables
Among the most notable Basque people are Juan Sebastián Elcano (led the first successful expedition to circumnavigate the globe after Ferdinand Magellan died mid-journey); Sancho III of Navarre; and Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, founders of the Society of Jesus.