Basque <ibili>

[Rick Mc Callister]

	There's the possibility that Lusitanian may have been non-Celtic
and to get from Central Europe to W. Iberia, it presumedly would have been
in contact with Basque, correct?
	True, not too much is known about Lusitanian and it does seem
similar to Celtic and Italic

[snip]
>A problem with all proposed IE loans into Basque which cannot be derived
>from Latin or Romance.

>So far as we know, the first IE languages to reach the Basque-speaking area
>were the Celtic languages, probably in the middle of the first millennium
>BC.  At the time of the Roman conquest, Aquitanian/Basque was apparently
>bordered by Celtic to the north (Gaulish) and to the south (Celtiberian).
>The position to the east, in the Pyrenees, is uncertain, but the neighbor
>there may have been the non-IE language Iberian.  To the west, we have
>clear evidence for IE speech, but of uncertain affiliation.  All I can say
>is that the sparse evidence is seemingly consistent with Celtic speech,
>but does not require Celtic speech.

>Of course, it is conceivable that some unknown branch of IE might have reached
>the area even before Celtic, but, if so, this hypothetical language seemingly
>disappeared without trace -- and I don't much care for positing hypothetical
>languages.
[snip]