The Basque language (called Euskara by the Basques themselves) is the oldest language in Europe, the only non Indo-European language that survived after the administration of the Roman Empire spread throughout our continent. It is spoken by about one million people in the seven provinces of the Basque Country, that is, in North East Spain and South West France.

No relationship between Basque and any other language has been established with certainty. The alphabet used for Basque employs Roman letters. The first printed book in Basque appeared in the 16th century. Basque is both agglutinative and polysynthetic.
For more than 30 years I have worked in the mountains of the seven Basque provinces collecting proverbs. It is just in the mountains, among peasants, where the Basque language is most used and best preserved. These 14,458 proverbs are the fruit of this work.