The lost obstruents of modern Basque and proto-vasconic remodeling

Abstract

The Basque language, or Euskara, is known for a typology that differs markedly from that of its Romance neighbors. Distinctive diachronic processes of the Pre-Proto-Vasconic language have deleted, or reduced by lenition, three classes of ancient obstruents and nasals. Remodeling on such a scale has imposed a broad imprint across the lexica and morphologies of both Proto-Basque and its descendent dialects. Despite the monumental successes of internal reconstruction, the consequent inability to identify related languages outside of Basque for comparison persists and has obscured a more extensive knowledge of earlier stages of the Vasconic (Euskaran) language. With no external comparanda, the Euskaran language continues to be deemed an ‘isolate’. This investigation purports to mitigate the problem by following a solution originally proposed by the renowned philologist, Luis Koldo Mitxelena, ‘father’ of Euskaran historical phonology. In order to identify the ‘missing’ obstruents, select phonologic clues left within root morphemes of the diverse Vasconic dialects allow tentative reconstructions. These may then be compared with reconstructed analogs from other typologically similar and possibly related protolanguages. This study evaluated Proto-Nakh-Dagestanian for that purpose. The final analysis concludes that a comparison of higher-order protolanguages remains an optimal method for clarifying putative relationships, whether genetic or areal, between distant language groupings such as that alleged between the Vasconic and Nakh-Dagestanian families.