The
Aquitanians (
Latin:
Aquitani) were a people living in what is now southern
Aquitaine and southwestern
Midi-Pyrenees,
France, called
Aquitania by the Romans, in the region between the
Pyrenees, the
Atlantic ocean, and the
Garonne, present-day southwestern
France. They were an ancient
non-Indo-European,
pre-Celtic population, that lived in the northern slopes of the Pyrenees. They spoke the
Aquitanian language, related to
Basque. Classical authors such as
Julius Caesar and
Strabo clearly distinguish them from the other peoples of Gaul (
Gallia) and Iberia (
Hispania). With the process of
Romanization, in the centuries of
Roman Empire, they adopted the Latin Language (
Vulgar Latin) and
Roman civilization. Their old language, the Aquitanian language, was the substrate of
Gascon language (a
romance language) spoken later by the
Gascons.