The origin and uniqueness of Basque genetics revealed

[DFW]

2. As they say in Bilbao, "neuk pixkat euskera aitxutendot!" (I understand a little Basque)

VERY pixkat (little), in fact. I know a few phrases I learned from Basque friends I met while living in Spain, but the language is so intricate, learning it from scratch is a full-time scholarly undertaking. As it is, the Bilbao dialect is distinct from the Donostia (San Sebastian) version, though they are apparently quite mutually intelligible. I wouldn't know, as beyond the few phrases I remember from my Bilbao friends from 50 years ago, I'm a complete ignorant. Their number system is so complicated, even the French would scratch their heads. It's on a par with Danish, which for some reason is completely off the wall once you get past 49. In Danish, 56 is expressed as "six and half a twenty back from three times twenty." Basque gets complicated already at 30 ("twenty-ten" ).