Basque is the sole survivor of the very ancient languages of western Europe. Due to its unusual structure and its seeming lack of relatives, the language has long been the object of curiosity and speculation.

More than a century of specialist work has succeeded in shedding a great deal of light on the history and especially the prehistory of Basque, but this work has up until now been almost entirely confined to the specialist literature, and has not been available to general historical linguists. This book, written by an internationally renowned specialist in Basque, finally rectifies the problem.

It provides a comprehensive survey of all that is known about the prehistory of the language, including pronunciation, the grammar and the vocabulary. It also provides a long critical evaluation of the search for relatives, as well as a thumbnail sketch of the language, a summary of its typological features, an external history and an extensive bibliography.

1. This book will be of particular interest to undergraduate and graduate students of Historical Linguistics and to specialists in Romance Languages.