h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hungarian and Finnish were the two best-known anomalies like this (in European circles). Where do they stand?

It is also extremely interesting that the Basque language is used by the descendants of the Neanderthal race who were driven West by the Cro-Magnons who, due to their social structures, language and intelligence, could hold their own better. As the Cro-Magnons took over the rest of Europe, the Basque area can boast not only an isolated language but also the remains of the first true Europeans.

I think you're right - Hungarian and Finnish are supposed be part of the Finsk-Urajic language family.

Although I'm not sure if they're separate from the Indo-European lot or just very different from the rest of the languages within the Indo-European family.

I'm not an expect (suprise!) but i seem to remember hearing that finnish and hungarian aren't Indo-European languages

A useful site which gives information on languages and their roots:
http://www.worldlanguage.com/Languages/

Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon? Shurely shome mishtake?

These creatures were not the same SPECIES as us and died out eons ago! Therefore, they are irrelevant to any debate on the evolution of languages.

It has been suggested that the Basque language has its origins in that, spoken by HUMANS, who settled in Western Europe before 10 000 BC. Remember that "modern" humans have existed for (and have not evolved for) tens of thousands of years.

Perhaps the ancestor of Basque was a cousin of the Pre-Indo-European tongue, spoken by the first post-Ice Age humans in Northern France and the British Isles. By the way, "Pre-Indo-European" does not mean "pre-human", as some people tend to think.

Some have speculated that the languages, which existed in Europe, before Latin, Greek and Celtic dialects took hold, were related to the Semitic family. Carthaginian, for example, certainly was but Phoenician "colonies" tended to be very small and were connected to the "Motherland" by commerce and culture, not government. It's hard to see how they could have spread their influence over a wide area.

The conquerors [e.g. the Romans and the Gaels] tend to write history anyway and the vanquished, of those times, were often peoples, who had not developed advanced forms of written record (in contrast to the "superior" civilisations coming in their wake). It's quite hard to gather reliable information on the subject.