Greetings Robert,
Very interesting stuff, indeed. As it turns out, my mother's maternal Santelices and paternal Onate sides are both Basque. Santelices being Basque was a recent discovery, whereas Onate is well known. About 20 years ago I visited Onate in the Basque region of Spain and was blown away as to the total separation they feel with Spain. They don't claim to be Spanish, they told my mother and myself on various occasions that we were not Spanish, but of the "pais Vasco". In the town of Onate, all public signs, announcements, TV, and radio are in Basque. Basque is totally different and not at all understandable from Spanish. Many words were extremely long and appeared like German! Though all the Basque spoke Spanish, they chose not to speak it amongst themselves, but were kind enough to converse with us in Spanish. The occasional Spanish words used in their conversation were those referring to the government or products from central Spain. I keep a Basque radio station on my c