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Are Gascons ethnic French?
Are Gascons ethnic French or a separate ethnic group. I thought all Langue d'oc people are French, but the French language wikipedia describes them as an ethnic group.
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They are Romance-speaking Basques.
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More like Romanized Aquitanians mixed with Basques.Originally Posted by Ajeje Brazorf
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Well they are Occitan speakers and they are Southern French, so I answered my own question.
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The language spoken in Gascony before Roman rule was part of the Basque dialectal continuum; the fact that the word "Gascon" comes from the Latin root vasco/vasconem, which is the same root that gives us "Basque", implies that the speakers identified themselves at some point as Basque. There is a proven Basque substrate in the development of Gascon. The lack of initial /r/ in Gascon could arguably be due to a Basque influence but this issue is under-researched, a typically Gascon feature that may arise from this substrate is the change from "f" to "h". Where a word originally began with [f] in Latin, such as festa 'party/feast', this sound was weakened to aspirated [h] and then, in some areas, lost altogether; according to the substrate theory, this is due to the Basque dialects' lack of an equivalent /f/ phoneme. At the time of the Roman conquest, Julius Caesar, who defeated them in his campaign in Gaul, describes them as making up a distinct part of Gaul: "the river Garonne separates the Gauls from the Aquitani".
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The Basque-speaking area was far more extended when Julius Caesar conquered the Gauls, and covered all Gascony...and much of Spain, since ancient Iberian was probably closely related to Basque.
Basco-Iberian toponyms include: Auch (Elimberrum, Eliberris, Gers), Lombez (Ilumberris, Gers), Irunberri / Lumbier (Navarra), Lombers (Tarn), Elna / Elne (Illiberri), Elvira (Iliberri), Granada (Illiberis; Andalusia)…
Illiberri means "new town" in Basque.
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Some pictures:
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Basques expanded in Gascony during Early Middle Ages and were later assimilated by the indigenous Romanized Aquitanians.
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They were probably the indigenous inhabitants of those areas, and they gradually retreated on the Pyrenees after the barbarian invasions
(The language situation in Europe around 5500BC. IE = Indo-European languages, Bs = Basque languages, SU = Ugric languages)
Basque Toponyms
Basque Tribes during Roman age
Non Auro, Sed Ferro, Recuperanda Est Patria (Not by Gold, But by Iron, Is the Nation to be Recovered) - Marcus Furius Camillus (Roman General)
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I just googled for more info, because I know Gascons just as characters from literature:
d'Artagnan and Cyrano de Bergerac
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