BASQUE LANGUAGE. The language spoken by the Spaniards in what are called the Basque provinces, as also in Navarre. The people call it Eskuara. For a long time it was supposed to be a dialect of the Celtic; but later researches show that there is good ground for considering it as a distinct ancient language, and as having been once spoken over all the Peninsula. This is proved by the ancient names of mountains, towns, and rivers being decidedly derived from Basque radicals; as is shown in the curious Inquiries of William Von Humboldt, published at Berlin in 1821; and by the dictionary and grammar of this tongue recently published. The structure of the verb is complex—it is considered as having 11 moods and 46 tenses; so as to exhibit all the relations of the agent to the action, and to the object it affects. The substantive has no distinction of gender; the articles are two, a for the singular, and ae for the plural; the cases are marked by affixes or prepositions. In the structure of the sentences the noun occupies the first place; it is followed by the article, then the adjective, next the adverb, the verb, the thing acted upon, and lastly the affix.