ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Proto-Basque

Proto-Basque is like the mama language that Basque language came from. It’s kind of like when you learn how to talk by listening to your mom and dad talk. Proto-Basque is the language that was spoken a long, long time ago by people who lived in the area where Basque people live now.

It’s hard to know a lot about Proto-Basque because nobody wrote it down or recorded it. But linguists, who are like language detectives, have studied the Basque language and other languages that are related to it. They know that Proto-Basque sounds and words influenced the way we talk now.

Even though we don’t have a lot of information about Proto-Basque, we can still learn a lot from it. It helps us understand where we came from and how language changes over time. It’s pretty cool to think that people a long, long time ago talked in a way that helped shape the Basque language we use today!