Robert Delfs wrote:

> Yes, it's Basque - though the language spoken by the Basque people is
> actually called Euskara. The origin is unknown.  Euskara certainly is
> not an Indo-European language, which could either mean that its
> speakers predated the arrival of Indo-European speakers in Europe or
> that they migrated en masse from somewhere else.  Placenames in other
> parts of France suggest a clear  relationship to a language  once
> spoken in parts of Gaul and the Iberian Peninsula which the Romans knew
> as Aquitanian.   Present-day Euskara speakers probably moved into the
> areas they now inhabit after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Just to confirm what Robert just wrote. To my knowledge, Basque is the
only European language for which no family can be identified. Known in
the middle ages as "Vascons" (in French), they were the ones and not the
Sarrasins who defeated Roland at the "Col de Roncevaux".
As a side note, I would disagree with Christian in so far as French is
very clearly par of the "Langues Romanes" family for which the main
source is Latin.

Jean-Marc