The Basques are a people that are found on both sides of the Spain-France border who speak a language which predates Latin influence. Hemingway writes something of them in his novel The Sun Also Rises. From what I understand the current ETA movement and violence related to the Basque issue has its origins mainly in the Franco era, when the fascist dictatorship attempted to erase such cultural and linguistic variety and turn everyone into good Castilian Spaniards. Many people view the continuation of the conflict in the present day to be unjustified and illegitimate, hence the very dim view that almost everyone takes of ETA terrorists.

Coincidentally another of the languages that Franco tried to eliminate was Catalan, so that if you had visited Barcelona 30 or 40 years ago all the signs and newspapers would actually have been in Spanish (Castilian). Parents were not even allowed to give their children Catalan names, so that in families who had children born both before and after the end of Franco's rule, it is common to have some children with Spanish (Castilian) names (Marcos, for instance, instead of Marc), and others with Catalan names (Lluis, for instance, instead of Luis).

Catalan compared to Spanish (Castilian), at least according to the impression I have, is closer than French but farther than Portuguese. I don't understand it, anyway. Basque, as has been said, is pre-Latin-- basically Celtic or something like that. But I would be willing to bet that it is Indo-European.

The theory as to the origin of the Basques is, I believe, that they simply hunkered down in the mountains as the Romans and whoever else expanded and conquered around them, doggedly resisting assimilation and outside influence, and so Basque today is a relic of pre-Roman tribal language.

(Someone please correct me if I have stated anything wrong here.)

DA