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The Sami and Basque language connection
I continue on my adventure of understanding the Saami origin, this article goes abit away from genetics but still highly relevant and exciting
As noted earlier the genetic profile of the saami suggest the majority came from the Iberia refugia during the last ice age. It has been suggested that the people in this refugie spoke a non-indoeuropean language, possible related to the Basque languge still spoken in northern Spain and southern France today. When the saami anchestrors reached scandinavia they met the uralic speakers from the Ukraine refugia who would change their language over time, but did they loose all their traces of their earlier language? Some language scientists suggest that there is still strong substratum of this possible Basque related language in modern Saami today.
"The fans of the population migrations from the Iberian and the Ukrainian refuges as well as in the Lapps area of departure on the North Sea Land towards Scandinavia, partly overlap (see Fig. 3). Therefore Wiik supposes some substratum of the Basque type in the then Lapp language admitting, though, that he cannot concretely show it. Such substratum is still worth looking for in the present-day Lapp languages by way of comparison with a single preserved Basque language type namely Modern Basque. Michel Morvan has shown (Morvan 199?: 36) that already around the middle of the 19th c. Louis-Lucien Bonaparte indicated the possibility of a connection between the Basque and Lapp (and Hungarian) plural marker -k (Bonaparte 1862). The possibility of the connection of the plural marker -k in Basque and Lapp substantives is noted also by Morvan himself, cf. e.g. Basque guk Euskaldunok nous les Basques (Morvan 199?: 192193). However, from the aspect of the Uralic language group I regard the plural marker of the Lapp substantives rather as a detached phenomenon of foreign origin why not as the Basque substratum? than some common-Uralic suffix. Besides Lapp languages the plural marker -k of substantives occurs only in Hungarian but even this is exceptional. Marcantonio notes about the Hungarian plural marker -k (Marcantonio 2002: 234235), Unlike most U[ralic] languages, Hungarian has a different Plural ending, used both for nouns and for verbs: the ending -k. A Plural -k is found also in Lapp, although this is generally considered as deriving from *-t [ ] The origin of -k is disputed. Some researchers believe that it derives from a derivational suffix *-kkV This explanation looks a bit far-fetched. [ ] Aalto considers the possibility of connecting -k with the Samoyed co-affixal element *-k(ø)- , as well with the Tungus, Turkic and Mongolian collective ending -g. [ ] A Plural -k exists also in Dravidian.
Another example of the Basque-type substratum in Lapp languages may be the evidence of the North-Lapp word-initial semi-voiced or voiceless medial plosive stops b-, d-, g-. Namely, Morvan links the Basque word er(h)i doigt and the variant bælge of the Lapp word thumb, considering the word form *ber(e)xī as a proto-Basque reconstruction (Morvan 199?: 242243). Morvans concrete word etymology is erroneous already from the viewpoint of incompatible consonants r l (cf. also Rédei 19861991: 383), but what is interesting here is drawing attention to the Lapp word-initial consonant b- against the Basque language-historical background"
I continue on my adventure of understanding the Saami origin, this article goes abit away from genetics but still highly relevant and exciting
As noted earlier the genetic profile of the saami suggest the majority came from the Iberia refugia during the last ice age. It has been suggested that the people in this refugie spoke a non-indoeuropean language, possible related to the Basque languge still spoken in northern Spain and southern France today. When the saami anchestrors reached scandinavia they met the uralic speakers from the Ukraine refugia who would change their language over time, but did they loose all their traces of their earlier language? Some language scientists suggest that there is still strong substratum of this possible Basque related language in modern Saami today.
"The fans of the population migrations from the Iberian and the Ukrainian refuges as well as in the Lapps area of departure on the North Sea Land towards Scandinavia, partly overlap (see Fig. 3). Therefore Wiik supposes some substratum of the Basque type in the then Lapp language admitting, though, that he cannot concretely show it. Such substratum is still worth looking for in the present-day Lapp languages by way of comparison with a single preserved Basque language type namely Modern Basque. Michel Morvan has shown (Morvan 199?: 36) that already around the middle of the 19th c. Louis-Lucien Bonaparte indicated the possibility of a connection between the Basque and Lapp (and Hungarian) plural marker -k (Bonaparte 1862). The possibility of the connection of the plural marker -k in Basque and Lapp substantives is noted also by Morvan himself, cf. e.g. Basque guk Euskaldunok nous les Basques (Morvan 199?: 192193). However, from the aspect of the Uralic language group I regard the plural marker of the Lapp substantives rather as a detached phenomenon of foreign origin why not as the Basque substratum? than some common-Uralic suffix. Besides Lapp languages the plural marker -k of substantives occurs only in Hungarian but even this is exceptional. Marcantonio notes about the Hungarian plural marker -k (Marcantonio 2002: 234235), Unlike most U[ralic] languages, Hungarian has a different Plural ending, used both for nouns and for verbs: the ending -k. A Plural -k is found also in Lapp, although this is generally considered as deriving from *-t [ ] The origin of -k is disputed. Some researchers believe that it derives from a derivational suffix *-kkV This explanation looks a bit far-fetched. [ ] Aalto considers the possibility of connecting -k with the Samoyed co-affixal element *-k(ø)- , as well with the Tungus, Turkic and Mongolian collective ending -g. [ ] A Plural -k exists also in Dravidian.
Another example of the Basque-type substratum in Lapp languages may be the evidence of the North-Lapp word-initial semi-voiced or voiceless medial plosive stops b-, d-, g-. Namely, Morvan links the Basque word er(h)i doigt and the variant bælge of the Lapp word thumb, considering the word form *ber(e)xī as a proto-Basque reconstruction (Morvan 199?: 242243). Morvans concrete word etymology is erroneous already from the viewpoint of incompatible consonants r l (cf. also Rédei 19861991: 383), but what is interesting here is drawing attention to the Lapp word-initial consonant b- against the Basque language-historical background"
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