EITb's Reaction to WSJ's Article

Keith Johnson is gonna be catching some flak for his openly difamatory article against Euskera, the Basque language.

This is what EITb reports:

Controversial article

Basque, is backward language, according to 'Wall Street Journal'

11/07/2007

The article entitled Basque inquisition: How do you say shepherd in Euskera? says that Basque Government forces thousands of people to return to school and spend millions of euros in "reviving a rural language".

On Monday, the American edition of the Wall Street Journal published in the front page the article “Basque Inquisition: How Do You Say Shepherd in Euskera?” in which they say that the Basque language “doesn’t fit with nowadays’ life”.

The author, Keith Johnson, accuses Basque Government of forcing thousands of people to return to school and spend millions of euros in “reviving a rural language”.

Among the testimonies collected by the journalist there are, the testimony of the Culture councillor of the Basque Government Joseba Arregi who says “that Basque language is not good for an everyday conversation. When a language is imposed, people use it less and creates an evil circle between imposition a and reaction. This language has been forced too much”, or the parliamentary of the Popular Party PP Leopoldo Barreda who says that “Basque language is not used in real life”.

The article published by Wall Street Journal in its American edition, not in Europe, talks about the “marginalization of the Spanish in the Basque Country”, and a Basque inquisition that practices a kind of linguistic cleaning.

Moreover, the journalist signing the article try to convince the readers that Basque is a “backward” language, with no possibility of adapting to society. For that he says there are 10 different ways of saying “shepherd”, however they have to invent words such as "airport" "independence", "democracy" and so on.

Johnson assures there are several “Basque separatists that replaced weapons for grammar” and they “dream with imposing Basque language in everyday life”.

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