How did Latin contribute words to the Basque vocabulary?

The Basque language has incorporated a substantial number of loanwords from Latin over its long history, despite remaining a language isolate that predates the Romanization of southwestern Europe.12

These borrowings often retain the distinct characteristics of their archaic Latin ancestry. Examples of this influence include:

• bake (peace), derived from the Latin pax, pacis
• bike (pitch), derived from the Latin pix, picis
• errege (king), derived from the Latin rex, regis

While Basque has been subjected to significant pressure from neighboring languages for at least 2,000 years, it has maintained its unique structure while integrating these Latin-rooted terms into its vocabulary. Conversely, Indo-European loanwords that do not originate from Latin are extremely rare in the language.1