The Basques (Basque:euskaldunak; Spanish:vascos; French:basques, English: /bɑːskz/ or /bæskz/) are an indigenous ethnic group characterized by the Basque language. Basques primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country (Basque:Euskal Herria), a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.
The Basques are known as:
Euskaldunak in Basque (this ethnonym means "the speakers of the Basque language"; to refer to all the inhabitants of the Basque Country, the name euskal herritarrak is preferred)
The English word Basque may be pronounced /bɑːsk/ or /bæsk/ and derives from the French Basque (pronounced French pronunciation:[bask]), which is derived from GasconBasco (pronounced /ˈbasku/), cognate with Spanish Vasco (pronounced /ˈbasko/). These, in turn, come from LatinVasco (pronounced /wasko/), plural Vascones (see History section below). The Latin labial-velar approximant /w/ generally evolved into the bilabials /b/ and /β̞/ in Gascon and Spanish, probably under the influence of Basque and Aquitanian, a language related to old Basque and spoken in Gascony in Antiquity (similarly the Latin /w/ evolved into /v/ in French, Italian and other languages).