Basque language

Language of Western Europe known to its speakers, the Basques, as Euskara, and apparently unrelated to any other language on Earth. It is spoken by some half a million people in central northern Spain and southwestern France, around the Bay of Biscay, as well as by emigrants in both Europe and the Americas. The language is of central importance to the Basque nationalist movement.

Although previously forbidden in all public places for most of Franco's rule, Basque was permitted in church and primary schools from 1968 and taught in all schools from 1979. The first Basque parliament was elected 1980 and the language officially recognized along with Spanish in the Basque provinces.