The Basque connection caught me off guard as well! Of all the theories and plausible etymologies, that one of the strongest ones comes from an obscure language-isolate from Western Europe, color me surprised. And as for the size, yeah, the drive between my hometown and my university town is just over five hours. One way. :)
Basque! Of all languages, that's one I didn't expect popping up in Arizona.
And, my god, that kind of trip is what counts as crossing the entire country, here in France. Hard to picture that as one "region" only.
The Basque connection caught me off guard as well! Of all the theories and plausible etymologies, that one of the strongest ones comes from an obscure language-isolate from Western Europe, color me surprised. And as for the size, yeah, the drive between my hometown and my university town is just over five hours. One way. :)