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		VOCABULARY DATABASE > BASQUE > INFORMATION
						Basque is the native language of some 700,000 people, most of which live in Spain, in the Basque Country and the region of Navarre, and in the French département of Pyrénées-Atlantiques. This is the very outsider among European languages. There is no evidence of any linguistic relatives, although some scholars have tried to establish a link between Basque and Caucasian languages like Georgian and Chechen. The oldest evidence of written literature in this language dates back to the XIVth c. With Basque giving more and more ground to Spanish in urban areas with the passing of centuries, literature in this language has long been limited to religious interests. At the end of the 20th c., Basque regional authorities were allowed to sponsor a standard written "unified" Basque ("Euskara Batua"), developed mainly from the dialects spoken in Lapurdi and Gipuzkoa (there are eight Basque dialects in total). It was then when Basque literature started to flourish and diversify. The language is currently in use for college-level instruction. Basque is an agglutinative language. Certain abstract concepts are expressed in this language by way of Latin and Spanish loanwords (e.g. "street", "tree").
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