# Monegasque and Basque **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 12, 2019, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monegasque-and-basque/838536 "2019-08-12T03:22:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monegasque-and-basque/838536/1 "2019-08-12T03:22:01Z")
Why do these nationalities, and these two alone, have the suffix “asque”? Is it due to grammatical rules of French word construction? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monegasque-and-basque/838536/2 "2019-08-12T07:34:20Z")
_Basque_ comes from the Latin _vasco_, an inhabitant of Vasconia, which is the Latin name of the region we now know as the Basque Country. However it’s likely that the Romans called Vasconia after the people who lived in it, rather than the other way around. The etymology of _vasco_ is uncertain, but it may be derived from a Celtic word meaning top or summit, so it may be that it meant “the people who live up in the mountains” or something of that kind, and it may have been the name applied to the Basques by their Celtic-speaking neighbours. I think the common ending with \*Monégasque[/] is probably coincidental. The French word is a borrowing from Italian, _Monegasco_. In Ligurian and Piedmontese dialects of Italian. _-asco_ is a not uncommon suffix to indicate origin in or connection with a particular place. So, _Monegasco_, person connected with Monaco. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monegasque-and-basque/838536/3 "2019-08-12T07:44:37Z")
The Basque root for Basque is _eusk… euskaldun_, person who speaks Basque; _euskera_ or _euskara_, the Basque language; etc. So at a guess, the Romans just did the usual transcription. Pronunciations have shifted in the intervening 2000 years and change; in Basque, both pronunciations and declensions change by dialect; the Basque spellings are themselves recent, as Basque stayed a largely-unwritten language until the late 19th-early 20th century. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monegasque-and-basque/838536/4 "2019-08-12T08:03:54Z")
The two aren’t related. Basque is just a frenchifying of the Latin ethnonym _Vascones_ via Vasco, whereas Monegasque uses the -asque variant of -esque, and while not applied to any other countries, it is applied to a lot of other _towns_ (which, let’s face it, is all that Monaco is). Those towns are all either in Italy or Alpes-Maritimes, and derive from the Ligurian and Lombard languages, rather than Italian (which would be most of the the -esque ones): Bergamasque Brigasque Cômasque Crémasque Ezasque Mentonasque Peillasque Pignasque Roquebrunasque Royasque Sanrémasque Tendasque Triorasque Turbiasque ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monegasque-and-basque/838536/5 "2019-08-12T08:08:51Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > In Ligurian and Piedmontese dialects of Italian. I would quibble with this - only the Italians considers these dialects, most everyone else considers them languages - they have a distinct enough history and cultural identity, with enough internal dialectal variation, to more than qualify as such . ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monegasque-and-basque/838536/6 "2019-08-13T01:27:39Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > The Basque root for Basque is _eusk… euskaldun_, person who speaks Basque; _euskera_ or _euskara_, the Basque language; etc. > > So at a guess, the Romans just did the usual transcription. Pronunciations have shifted in the intervening 2000 years and change; in Basque, both pronunciations and declensions change by dialect; the Basque spellings are themselves recent, as Basque stayed a largely-unwritten language until the late 19th-early 20th century. It it generally accepted that _basque_ comes from _euskera_? As pointed out above, some authorities suggest a Celtic derivation; that we get the word not from the Basques themselves, but from their neighbours. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monegasque-and-basque/838536/7 "2019-08-13T08:31:30Z")
I said “at a guess”. RAE doesn’t get into that, but the notion of getting the word from “Celtic neighbors” the way some names of Native American nations were obtained from their own neighbors and that this Celtic word has no relationship with the Basque word which sounds very close to the Latinate word assumes one, a lot less mixing of ethnolinguistic groups than existed in the Peninsula at the time the Romans decided they’d rather conquer it than set up colonies (the way previous foreigners had); two, that those other neighbors were encountered before the Basques themselves were (Hannibal’s troops included both Basque and Balearic mercenaries, chronicles of his exploits being the first time the Basque are mentioned in writing; Greek and Carthaginian merchants sailed up-Ebro until almost current-day Logroño); three, that somehow those neighbors had come up with a similar-sounding word to the Basque one with no relationship to the Basque word. And as for “the people on the mountains”, it just doesn’t make sense unless “the mountains” is used to apply to a whole chunk of mountains, flatlands, hills and rocky seaside north of the Ebro. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monegasque-and-basque/838536/8 "2019-08-13T08:42:15Z")
I also didn’t say “from Euskera”, I said “from eusk…” The root, not the nominative of the language. “Eusko” is the possessive in most dialects and can be used as an independent word or as part of a word, for example in the name of the political party Eusko Alkartasuna, “Basque Union/Solidarity” (Elhuyar gives the second word as Elkartasuna).