>Would you claim that Basque and Spanish are equally old? If by Spanish you mean the modern history of the language, since its branching off from the other Rom

>Would you claim that Basque and Spanish are equally old? If by Spanish you mean the modern history of the language, since its branching off from the other Romance languages, then you could say it's younger, but this is just an accident of naming, caused by the extrinsic fact that there are other surviving dialects of Latin with their own nation states. If Latin had only survived in the form of Spanish, we would probably either call it Latin, or see Latin as Old Spanish. Either way we wouldn't see it as less old than Basque. And from a linguistic point of view, unless you think Basque and IE languages derive from separate innovations of language (sort of like wings have evolved separately in birds and bats - analogy rather than homology), the language that is today called Spanish is of course just as old as the language called Basque.