Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Basques

Starting point is 00:00:00 Located in North Central Spain live one of the most unique people in all of Europe. They have a language that is literally like no other, and even their genetics are unlike the people around them. In addition, they have a unique culture, a mysterious history, and just may have visited the Americas before Columbus. Learn more about the Basque people and the Basque country, and what makes them so unique on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by the Tourist Office of Spain. While any time is a great time to visit Spain, in 2023, Spain will be honoring the 50th anniversary of the death of the great artist Pablo Picasso. While exhibits of the life and works of Pablo Picasso will be taking place in 33 countries, the biggest celebrations will be taking place in his home country of Spain. There will be several events and exhibitions in his hometown of Malaga.

Starting point is 00:01:00 The capital city of Madrid will have eight different exhibitions, including one at the Museo Renia Sophia, where his most famous painting, Gurneka, is on display. Barcelona will have three exhibitions, including one at the Barcelona Picasso Museum, and there will also be an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Museum of Fine Arts in Acaronia. If you're interested in visiting any of the Picasso 2020 events in Spain, just visit spain.in. Or click on the link in the show notes. Once again, that's Spain.info. The Basques are a cultural and linguistic group, which are located in the greater Basque country, which is an area consisting of the Spanish autonomous region of the Basque country, part of the region of Navarre, and a small part of the French Basque country.

Starting point is 00:01:46 Before I get into the history and culture of the Basque people, I should probably start with the biggest thing that the Basque are known for and the most significant thing that defines them, their language. The languages of the world can roughly be broken into language families, where all the languages in the family have a common origin and many words and grammatical structures in common. For example, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian are all romance languages derived from Latin. German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages are all in the Germanic family. Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian are all Slavic languages. All of those languages are further lumped together with languages from northern India and Iran known as Indo-European languages. The Basque language is not related to any of these.

Starting point is 00:02:32 Basque is what's known as a language isolate, which basically means it's by itself in its own language family. The big question is how did a language way over on the western end of the Eurasian landmass surrounded by so many other very dominant languages, backed by very large military empires, managed to survive and remain intact for thousands of years? To understand that, we need to understand the deep history of the Basque people. And here I have to confess that there is a lot we don't know about the history of the boss. However, there is one thing that we do know, and it's yet to be.

Starting point is 00:03:05 another data point which shows just how unique the Basque people are, genetics. The genetic profile of the Basque people is very similar to that of other Europeans, except there are parts of their Y chromosome DNA and mitochondrial DNA, which are unlike anyone else. The current theory is that these genetic markers are the leftover from Neolithic humans. Basically, the Basque people are genetically distinct from their neighbors and may be the closest genetic relatives to chromagnans or Neanderthals. And if true, genetics might then explain the language and vice versa. One theory is that the Basque were living in a backwater of what is today somewhere in the British Isles during the Ice Age, perhaps somewhere that's currently underwater. When the ice

Starting point is 00:03:48 caps melted, they migrated to what is today the north coast of Spain. This is based on similarities to the Y chromosome DNA with the Welsh and Irish. So the reason why the language was kept separate was that the Basque people were separate from the rest of Europe for a very long time. least genetically speaking. This is just one theory of many, but whatever the truth is, there must have been some reason why the Basques were kept linguistically and genetically separate. That being said, the first historical mentions of the Basque people go back to the first century, and the Roman historian Strabo, who spoke of a people called the Vascones, who were, in all probability, the Basques. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Basque managed to roughly keep as a separate ethnic

Starting point is 00:04:29 entity, which was noteworthy as the Iberian Peninsula was attacked by Visigoths, Franks, and Moors. They were part of the general political ebb and flow throughout the centuries. They weren't always one coherent political unit, however. There were various Basque fiefdoms that were established, and some of them were controlled by other kingdoms. I'm lumping together a whole lot of history here, but what I want to get across is that while the Basque were a separate ethnic group, they weren't always isolated during this time. They were part of the political scrum, which was medieval politics in Europe. The boss, given their location on the Atlantic, became exceptional at fishing and whaling. In particular, in the 14th and 15th centuries, they would often sail out to

Starting point is 00:05:08 the deep waters of the Atlantic Ocean for cod and whales. In fact, the European invention of the rudder was probably invented by the boss. In fact, one of the odd things about their fishing is that they would often come back from their expeditions with dried cod. The problem is, you can't dry cod on a ship. that means they had to have landed somewhere to dry the fish. Moreover, very soon after Columbus landed in the Northern Hemisphere, the boss had set up a whaling station in Labrador, not far from the very location where early Vikings had established their first colony in Newfoundland. That has led many people to theorize that the Basque fishermen and whalers may have arrived

Starting point is 00:05:48 in North America before Columbus. If this is true, why didn't they tell everyone about it? And here's the explanation which is usually given. First, they were there to make money from fish. Unlike Columbus, they weren't interested in establishing colonies, planting a flag, or claiming territory. They just needed a place to set up a temporary camp so they could do their business. What they discovered was to them just some land where they could sleep dry fish and store supplies. That's all it was to them. Also, they didn't tell anyone about it because they didn't want to give away their prime fishing spots. They had every incentive to keep it a

Starting point is 00:06:21 secret. There are estimates that the Boss might have arrived in Newfoundland as early as 1375 over 100 years before Columbus. Unlike much of Spain, the Boss were never conquered by the Moors and were not part of the Caliphate, which controlled much of the Iberian Peninsula for 700 years. However, the Boss did eventually find themselves between two very powerful empires, France and Spain. When modern Spain was established after the Reconquista under Ferdinand and Isabella, most of the Basque population found themselves under the Spanish crown in exchange for generous autonomy and trade rights. Bosque autonomy began to wane in the late 18th century, when Spain began to restrict their trade rights, and it became even worse after the French Revolution

Starting point is 00:07:03 when the new French Republic tried to nationalize everything and eliminate all ethnic groups into one common French nationality. This period also saw mass Basque immigration to the new world. Large numbers of Basque were responsible for much of the migration to the Spanish colonies. For example, as many as 40% of the Spanish colonists who moved to Chile were Basque, and Basque names can be found in streets and cities all over Latin America. One of the biggest Basque communities in the United States is in Boise, Idaho, and much of the Hispanic population in Texas is of some Basque descent. This period, beginning with the French Revolution, saw increased resistance by the Basque

Starting point is 00:07:41 to both French and Spanish efforts to eliminate Basque culture and language. This eventually came to a head after the Spanish Civil War in the 9th century. 1930s when the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco attempted to ban all non-Spanish languages in the country. This eventually led to decades of violence from extremist independent groups. In particular, there was one group known as the ETA, which stood for Yuskati Ta Askatasuna, which is for Basque Country and Freedom. They engaged in a series of bombings between 1968 and 2010. In 2018, they had announced that they had disbanded after the 2010 ceasefire that ended all operations. Since the end of the Franco regime, the Basque language has seen a resurgence. It's now

Starting point is 00:08:22 taught in schools, is frequently used in signage, and almost a third of the population in the Basque country can speak to language, even if it isn't their primary language. Likewise, the Basque country has also been given a great deal of autonomy by the Spanish government, which was one of the big reasons why Basque independence movements have died out. So, what is the boss country like today? What are the elements of Basque culture that make it so different than the rest of Spain? Well, let's start with food. It is not an exaggeration to say that the boss country might be the best region for food in Spain. In particular, the city of San Sebastian, right on the French border, is in my and many other people's opinion, the best food city in Europe. Tapas is one of the most popular types of food in

Starting point is 00:09:04 Spain. The boss country has their own version of tapas known as pinchos. Pinchos can be found at pretty much every bar in the boss country. What makes pinches different from most tapas is that they're served on a piece of bread, usually a slice of a baguette, and with two other ingredients on top. These could be mean cheese or egg and tomato or whatever. There is a particular Basque wine, which is extremely good, and you can almost never find it anywhere outside the Basque country because they don't export it. It's a white wine called Chocolie, and I can attest it's one of the best wines I've ever had, and I often use Chocalee to test salmeles when I go to a fancy restaurant. Likewise, the Basque region is known for having some of the best ciders in the world.

Starting point is 00:09:46 I've actually found some boss ciders outside of Spain, but they are hard to find. But it's my go-to beverage whenever I'm in Spain, and if you ever find yourself in the boss country, I highly suggest visiting a cedaria if you can. Boss also have their own sports. The most popular boss sport is called polota. It's played with the ball in a curved wicker basket, which is used to catch and throw it against the wall. If this sounds familiar, it's because it's the basis for the game known as High Lye.

Starting point is 00:10:12 High-Lai is the world's fastest game, with the highest speeds ever recorded for a throne ball at 305 kilometers per hour or 190 miles per hour. The most popular professional Basque football team is Athletic Bilbao. They have been in the Spanish Premier League known as La Liga since its inception 93 years ago and have never once been regulated. What makes the team unique is that they only have Basque players that play for them. Despite this huge handicap it gives them in recruiting, they have. have won the Coba del Rey eight times, second only to Barcelona. One of the most popular Basque cultural events is one that you've probably heard of, but maybe didn't know was Basque. The Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. Pamplona is technically in the region of Davar, but it's culturally a Basque city. In fact,

Starting point is 00:10:59 before the running of the Bulls, a song and prayer are always said in the Basque language. There are also a couple attractions I'd be remiss if I didn't mention as well. The first is the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. It's a Frank Gehry design building. and one of the top modern art museums in all of Europe. And the other is the Santa Maria Cathedral in the city of Vittoria. In addition to being a UNESCO World Heritage site, the cathedral was the inspiration for the Ken Follett novel, The Pillars of the Earth,

Starting point is 00:11:25 which is about the construction of a medieval cathedral. And it was also turned into a miniseries in 2010. As you can probably tell, the Basque people in the Basque region are really fascinating. Whether it's language, genetics, history, wine, or football, there is something about the Basque that sets them apart, from everyone else in Europe. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast.

Starting point is 00:11:51 The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thorpe Thompson and Peter Bennett. I just wanted to extend a big thank you to everyone who is supporting the show over at patreon.com. I have show merchandise available there, including hoodies, t-shirts, and stickers. Plus, it really just helps me get this show out every single day, including, of course, weekends and holidays. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it read on the show. Thank you.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Basques

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