Basque has been compared to Berber. These comparisons are limited to a few words such as iker (Berber) and aker (Basque), "male goat"; aa and anai , "brother"; ezte and asto , "donkey", etc. In any case, the comparative vocabulary table that has recently been used is the following:
I. Southern Basque-Berber neither : nekk(i), nekki:n : I and/or : kiyin, kiy : t gu : nekni f.nk wenti : us k/au : Yuad : this hoist : ytri :star emakume : tam art : women gizon : arg z : man k)ori : aurag : yellow legor : yar : dry izen : isem : name au : arrau : neither or to zagar : asser : old loves: yimmi : mother soka : iziker, syun : rope2. Basque-Berber rife or neither : nes, nis : I k)au : wa : this and so on : Zen lie hoist : izri : star emakume : tamyart, tamettut, tisedent : women gizon : argaz : man beltz : abersan :black k)ori : awerey : yellow izen : isem : name i-tzuli-i : emyulli : to return, to turn around deny egin : seyoi : cry to zagar : awessar : oldThe lists of similarities, reduced to numerical indices according to the glottochronological method, much criticized today, would be, according to Tovar, for the comparison of Basque with the Berber of the South, 10.86 and 7.38, and with the Rifeo of 9.67 and 6, of similarities, which would mean that their proximity or contact with Basque would date from the end of the Magdalenian, which, in fact, could have occurred due to the Basque expansion through the Spanish Levant to Africa. Tovar notes this valuable observation: "The comparison of the common elements with Basque on the one hand and with Egyptian (and Arabic) on the other, perhaps allows us to recognize two layers in the Berber dialects: one western and the other Hamito-Semitic. However, we must note the general diffusion from Basque to Arabic of the Basque word "nome." Tovar refers to izen. Always within the distance, the Basque-Berber kinship, if a very few borrowings of words can be called kinship, is presented as a millennium closer than any contact with the closest Caucasian languages. Always, according to Tovar, the separation with Berber would take us to a hypothetical distance of at least 8,000 years, which "if there were a common origin would take us to the dawn of the Neolithic." It is strange to this statement of Tovar, since the Neolithic in Euskalerria is precisely dated 4,000 years B.C. On the contrary, the figure proposed as a minimum would correspond to the beginning of the Mesolithic and the end of the Upper Paleolithic, which is very different. In this case, the common elements with the Berber languages could belong to a Western European background. The central position of "Paleolithic Basque" (Vasquitanian) with significant indices both in the direction of the Caucasians and the Berbers, then located more easterly, places it very well as a possible center of dispersion, not only culturally (Vasquitanian painting) but linguistically and above all lexis. Ref. Tovar, A.: The lexical-statistical method and its application to the relations of Basque , "Bulletin of the Royal Basque Society of Friends of the Country", no. 3, 1961; Tovar, A.: The Basque language ; Estorns Lasa, B.: Origins of the Basques , vol. I, 247-250; vol. 3, pp. 317 et seq., 437 and 440; vol. 4, Berbers and Basques , pp. 111-119; Berber language and Basque , 170, 149, 163, 172, 176, 180; conclusions , 180, 362, 364, 382. San Sebastian, 1966. Bernardo ESTORN S LASA
