1270: Aizkora Controversy Jun 2, 2018

The Basque language is mysterious in that no one knows its origins, and it has no relatives, but this is true of the genes of the native speakers. Studies of the DNA of Basque people show that they likely predated any other native Europeans, with signs that they mixed heavily with Neanderthal. Where this crosses over linguistically is that it was observed that there is a word family of terms deriving for the word for 'stone' that relate to different tools, leading linguists to theorize that this feature of Basque dates back to the the Stone Age. This is now very contested, but the so-called aizkora controversy which states that words including the following all go back to the word 'haitz' (stone) for prehistoric culture:

(h)aizkora (axe)

(h)aitzur (shears)

(h)aitzur (hoe)

aizto (knife)

(h)aiztur (tongs)

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