Basque Studies
Basque studies is a complex of humanities that studies the language, literature, history, ethnography, archeology, and culture of the Basques.
The prehistoric Basque language is the only non-Indo-European language in Western Europe. The issue of the origin of Basques has always been veiled in mystery. Wilhelm Humboldt started the scientific study of the Basque language (he assumed that the Basques originated from the east). Louis Lucien Bonaparte, Hugo Schuchardt, Pierre Lafitte, Christianus Cornelis Uhlenbeck, Friedrich Schlegel and others made significant contributions to Basque studies. The problem of Basque studies is researched by modern European and American scholars.
Connecting the Basque language with Georgian and Caucasian languages is of special interest. This hypothesis (“Euscaro-Caucasian”) has a long history and a lot of attention is paid to it in the scientific literature. The hypothesis originated in the 2nd-1st centuries BC: Greek and Roman authors indicated the kinship of Western Iberians and Eastern Iberians (Varro, Apollodorus of Athens, Pliny, Strabo, Appian, Megasthenes, Maximus the Confessor, Michael Attaleiates and others); In medieval Georgia, European Iberians were referred to as: “Georgians of the West”, Georgians of Spain, (8th-11th centuries). According to George the Hagiorite, John the Iberian intended (10th century) to travel with his disciples to Spain in order to visit the Georgians there. Many Western European scientists touched on the “Euscaro-Caucasian” hypothesis. Hugo Schuchardt raised the issue of the “original inner kinship” of Georgian with Basque. C. C. Uhlenbeck was the first to give us a systematic comparison of verbal material.
In the search for parallels of the Basque-Georgian languages, the contribution of René Lafon is important. Jan Braun also worked productively in this field. He established Georgian-Basque phonetic equivalences and identified lexical encounters.
Marr created a new stage in the history of connecting Basque language with Georgian-Caucasian languages. In the early 1920s, the Council of Professors of TSU founded the chair of “Japhetic Linguistics” on the basis of a special appeal by N. Marr (Comparative Grammar of Georgian Languages). Arnold Chikobava singled out the complex of common structural signs by which Basque and Caucasian languages respond to each other. The results of the history of the comparative study of the Basque and Georgian languages are summarized in Sh. Dzidziguri's book “Basques and Georgians”. I. Zitsar used the method of internal reconstruction in researching the relationship between the Basque-Georgian languages.
In 1976, the Society of Basque Language and Culture was founded, works were published in Georgia and abroad (S. Gabunia, I. Zitsar, I. Machavariani, K. Megreli, N. Sturua, M. Ghlonti, G. Shalamberidze, R. Chanturia, G. Chantladze , Sh. Dzidziguri and others). Basque-Georgian parallels are explored in ethnography, musical folklore and other fields.
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Sh. Dzidziguri
M. Ghlonti
