Basque Language on Trial

This entry was posted at the Irish Basque Solidarity Committees blog:

Trial against Basque language newspaper Egunkaria begins

On 3rd February 2003, the Spanish police ordered the definitive closure of Euskaldunon Egunkaria, the only daily newspaper published in the Basque language. This was followed by the arrest of ten people. All of them were well known and respected Basque language and culture activists, journalists and writers. One of them is a Jesuit brother.

They were held incommunicado for five days under the anti-terrorist law. Some of them were imprisoned and others later released. One of them, the newspaper’s director, told journalists at the prison gates he had been savagely tortured. His words and his shattered appearance shocked Basque society.

The operation was ordered by the Spanish National Court on the grounds that Egunkaria allegedly formed part of a wider group of businesses and organisations controlled by ETA – the old “all is ETA” motto.

Immediately after the closure hundreds of protests took place across the Basque Country, including what was probably the largest demonstration ever to take place in the country two days after the closure.

Nearly four years later on 15th December 2006, the National Court Prosecutor determined that there were no grounds for the case and requested a stay of proceedings.

Despite this, six months later a court hearing was officially announced.

In the hearing it was concluded that only five of those arrested would finally go to trial: Joan Mari Torrealdai, ex-President of the administrative council of Egunkaria; Iñaki Uria, ex-Managing Director; Txema Auzmendi, former Administrative Council Secretary; Martxelo Otamendi, ex-Director; and Xabier Oleaga, former deputy director.

The trial begun yesterday Tuesday 15th in Madrid, with the accused facing sentences of between 12 and 14 years in prison, in addition to a further 14 to 15-year ban from practicing journalism. For the last months many support events have been organised and the presence of the leaders of the majority of Basque political parties and trade unions and education, culture and language movements’ representatives at the gates of the Spanish National Court yesterday was proof of the broad support they have in Basque society.

The hearing began with the testimonies of the accused who stated the newspaper was created by the Basque language grass roots movement to fill the crucial vacuum of a newspaper written in the national language and without any intervention by ETA.

They also told the court how they had been subjected to torture while detained incommunicado but the judges ordered them not to talk about this.

Aside from the accusations that form the basis of Tuesday's trial, there are further charges of attempting to falsify accounts and defraud the Treasury, of which eight defendants stand accused.

They could face up to between 13 and 26 years in prison and possible fines of between 21 and 33 million euro. The date for this trial is yet to be announced.

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The Boomerang Effect

More information about what is going on in Euskal Herria thanks to our Irish friends, this time at the blog published by the Irish Basque Solidarity Committees.

BOOMERANG EFFECT AGAINST SPANISH ATTACKS

-Forceful response to attack against the Basque pro-independence movement.

On Tuesday 13 October, 10 prominent activists, including Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi and former general secretary of the LAB trade union Rafa Diez, were arrested and accused of trying to "reorganise the leadership" of the Basque pro-independence left movement. Five of the 10 were arrested in a raid on the national headquarters of the LAB union in Donostia.

On Friday Judge Baltasar Garzon sent Otegi, Diez and three others to jail, accused of "membership of a terrorist organisation" and of trying to reconstitute the pro-independence Batasuna party on the "orders of ETA". Batasuna was outlawed in 2003.

Hundreds of people took to the streets and students organised strikes in the aftermath of the arrests.

A massive protest was held on Saturday 17 October in Donostia/San Sebastian to protest against the Spanish government's new wave of arrests against the Basque pro-independence movement.

More than 37,000 Basques protested against the arrests under the slogan "For liberty, all rights for all” in a very significant demonstration of unity among Basque society. The demonstration had been called by the majority of trade unions and supported by all Basque nationalist and progressive political parties.

The demonstration was the largest in the Basque Country in many years and even the pro-Spanish media had to recognise the huge success.

Statements of support also came from across the world like the World Federation of Trade Unions and the European Free Alliance. In Ireland, Sinn Féin MEP Bairbre de Brún and the Irish Basque Solidarity Committees cqalled for an end to such repression and the immediate release of those arrested and told the Spanish government they need to engage in dialogue with those they seek to demonise and criminalise. “This is the only way to reach a lasting settlement in the Basque Country” they concluded.

The Dublin Basque Solidarity Committee organised a protest outside the GPO on Sunday.

Batasuna responded to the arrests by saying: "The aim of these arrests is to stop political initiatives that the Basque pro-independence movement was due to activate - political initiatives to resolve the ongoing conflict and to create a democratic scenario for the Basque Country."

On Monday 19 the Basque pro-independence newspaper Gara published extracts from a 36-page debate document presented for discussion among the grass roots by Batasuna’s leadership. This discussion and its practical conclusions is what the Spanish government seems to fear and what they wanted to prevent with last week’s arrests.

In the document a new effective strategy is suggested. Batasuna’s leadership wants to promote a democratic process without any violence and external interference.

The latest arrests are part of the Spanish government's ongoing campaign of repression against political, social, labour and cultural organisations that are in favour of self-determination for the Basque Country. The central thesis of this criminalisation campaign, as formulated by Judge Garzon, is that “everything that surrounds ETA is ETA” , that is, any group or individual that shares ETA's goal of Basque independence, regardless of what methods they use, is part of ETA.

This process has often been led by politicians and the media but is given a 'democratic' cover and institutionalised by the Spanish courts through a series of judicial rulings initiated by Garzon in 1998.

The repression against all expressions of Basque nationalism has escalated dramatically during the summer, with the Madrid government working in concert with the Spanish chauvinist coalition government that took power in the south-west of the Basque Country in March.

-Another sucessful display of support to the Basque language.

Up to 100,000 people attended the annual day long festival to support the Basque language schools in the province of Navarre. This year’s edition was organised by the local school of Lakuntza with the slogan “Txikiak, handi” (The small ones are big).

Young and old came from across the Basque Country to enjoy lots of different activities like gigs, sport, food, street animation, workshops, cultural displays... 3,000 volunteers worked hard to make sure everything went well.

The money raised will help to build a new building for the Lakuntza Basque medium school.

These massive festivals are organised in each province of the Basque Country every year and become both a great way to fundraise for the vitally necessary Basque medium schools and to promote the Basque language.

Each year a different school organises the festival. It takes around 300 volunteers working for two years to organise it.


-Largest ever demonstration against High Speed Train.

12,000 people demonstrated in Baiona in the north of the Basque Country last Saturday against the construction of a new High Speed Train railway.

Over the last few years different plans to build High Speed Train railways across the Basque Country have been opposed by large sections of Basque society with the pro-independence left movement at the core of the protest campaigns.

ETA has also intervened with small bombs and the killing of a main contractor.

The High Speed Train would put the Basque Country’s future at risk due to the environmental destruction and huge consumption of energy and public funds.

-More political trials and more arrests.

Last Friday seven members of the Pro-Amnesty movement were arrested and taken to prison to fulfil the remaining sentences imposed against them by the Spanish Supreme Court for their political work against repression and in favour of the Basque political prisoners. They had been waiting for the outcome of their appeal.

Another 13 members of the movement were already in jail after all of them were sentenced to between 8 and 10 years in prison. Basque political prisoners do their time to the full.

The hard sentence has been understood within a context of political repression aimed to weaken the pro-independence movement and prevent new political developments that could take the Basque Country to a new scenario of peace and democracy.

Last week the first of a long list of trials began against alleged members of Segi, the pro-independence youth organisation. Over the last two years 16 police operations were launched in different parts of the Basque Country and 123 local youth activists were arrested, of whom 69 reported being tortured and 91 were imprisoned. All of them were well known youth movement activists in their towns involved in cultural, political and social public work.

Demonstrations, fasts, strikes, massive press conferences...have been organised recently to denounce these show trials and support the youth.

Two alleged ETA members were arrested by the French police on Monday 19 in Britanny. The Spanish media portrayed them as members of the ETA’s political office and tried to make conections with last week arrests of 10 prominent pro-independence activists.

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The Reign of Silence

The nightmare goes on. The Spanish Audiencia Nacional has decided to go ahead with the process open against the Basque newspaper "Euskaldunon Egunkaria", despite the request to drop the case by the defendants' defense team and the district attorney's office. As a direct result from this decision, five Basque citizens with professional ties to the Euskara printed newspaper that was shot down on orders by Spanish judge Juan del Olmo will now be forced to seat at the bench, accused of "integration" to ETA. They will have to face the indictments made by the extreme-right groups called Dignidad y Justica and Asociación de Víctimas del Terrorismo, both groups are resorting to a civil lawsuit, since the district attorney will not present any federal charges. The district attorney's office is not pressing any charges due to a powerful reason, after seven years of police investigation and the exhaustive analysis of thousands of documents no one has been able to find one single piece of evidence to sustain the slightest connection between ETA and the newspaper.

Powerful but insufficient reason obviously, given the decision by the judges, for this exception tribunal to declare desert a case that should have never been opened in the first place. A case that started covered by the cloak of secrecy in an obscure Guardia Civil office, that developed as a result of the internal disputes within the Audiencia Nacional, that flourished in full force with the arbitrary and traumatic clamp down on Egunkaria, and that, despite being destined to succumb due to the lack of solid evidence is being kept alive due exclusively to the dark political impulse that moves the Spanish justice system when it comes to the Basque Country.

And when it comes to the Basque Country, there is no boundaries for the Spanish democracy, that even in the XXI century allows itself to shut down Basque media outlets over one single justification: suspicion. They did it with Egin, and satisfied about the result, they did it again with Egunkaria. ¿Solid evidence?¿No room for reasonable doubt? tiny technicalities with no consequence, easily disregarded by the importance of the mission: to silence the dissidence, gag those who dare to expose and denounce the official discourse. And next to the forced silence, the chosen silence, the option by the majority of the media outlets (both Basque and Spanish) that prefer to bow before the official discourse and hide so much injustice from the public.

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Euskaltzaindia's 90th Anniversary

This article was published at EiTB:

Basque Language Academy "Euskaltzaindia" turns 90

E. S.

Euskaltzaindia is celebrating its 90th birthday at the headquarters of the Academy of the Basque language in Bilbao.

Representatives of institutions such as the Spanish Royal Academy, the Royal Academy of the Galician Language or the Philology department of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, will be present at Euskaltzaindia’s 90th anniversary celebration in Bilbao on Friday 17.

The Royal Academy of the Basque Language (1919) is the official academic institution which watches over Euskara, or the Basque language. It carries out research into the language, seeks to protect it and establishes standards of use. The Basque name of this academy of language is Euskaltzaindia.

Basque is a non-Indo-European language whose speakers are largely found in the Basque Country or Euskal Herria, straddling the border between France and Spain, in the bottom right-hand corner of the Bay of Biscay. The territory the language is spoken in is spread over three distinct regions: in the Kingdom of Spain, the two autonomous communities of Euskadi and Navarre and, in the French Republic, the Département des Pyrénées Atlantiques.

Euskaltzaindia enjoys full official recognition as a royal academy in Spain (1976) and as a cultural association of public benefit within the territory of the French Republic (1995). At the same time it also enjoys widespread social recognition among the country's population. All this has brought about an intense normative activity leading to the standardization and modernization of the language in Basque society, especially since 1968.

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Araba Euskaraz '09

This note was published at EiTB:

'Araba Euskaraz' kicks off in Oion

Nora García

The town of Oion celebrates Araba Euskaraz 2009 under the slogan "Hauspoari eraginez". This year San Vicente Ikastola hosts this festival of Euskara (Basque language).

The aim of this festival is to gather funds in order to provide economic needs and an infrastructure for the ikastola that hosts Araba Euskaraz.

This year San Vicente Ikastola will be the host of Araba Euskaraz. This centre started working 30 years ago and nowadays it has around 300 pupils and 29 teachers.

The money collected in this festivity will be used to expand this centre's nursery, to improve the dining hall service and also to create a new meeting hall.

Araba Euskaraz is expected to be attended by the Basque Government Education councillor Isabel Celaa, Basque Government Culture councillor, Blanca Urgell and Alava General Deputy, Xabier Agirre.

The song for Araba Euskaraz 2009 has been composed by the famous Basque clowns Pirritx, Porrotx and Marimototx, who will also perform during this festival. Besides, there will also be concerts offered by groups such as Deabruak Teilatuetan, Nora Ezean, Ohiu e Hiperakusia, among others.

As part of the celebration, there will be several events scheduled in four different areas: Bertsolaris, Basque dances, sports for children, rural sports exhibitions and street animation.

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Ibilaldia 2009

This article was published at EiTB:

Ibilaldia 2009 kicks off in the Basque town of Galdakao

Nora García

Eguzkibegi ikastola in Galdakao organized the 31st edition of Ibilaldia. This year, people will be able to enjoy along seven different areas children workshops, bertsolaris, Basque dances, a hot-hair balloon and concerts.

Ibilaldia is a festival in favour of the Basque language organized each year by a different ikastola (Basque school). It is Bizkaia's version of the pro-Ikastola, pro-Basque language events that take place annually in the Basque Country, normally on a Sunday, in order to raise money for ikastolas.

Ibilaldia was celebrated in 1978 for the first time and it was organized by a Basque school in Getxo. It is similar to Gipuzkoa's "Kilometroak", Araba's "Araba Euskaraz", Nafarroa's "Nafarroa Oinez" and Iparralde's "Herri Urrats".

Ibilaldia 2009 kicks off today at 09:00 and will finish at 19:00, under the slogan "Gerizpetik Eguzkibegi". Eguzkibegi Ikastola was in charge to organize it this year. After having paid a non-compulsory admission at the entrance of any price you deem fit for the event, you walk around a carefully planned circuit of the village or town while enjoying typical Basque traditions. People will be able to enjoy along seven different areas several activities like children workshops, bertsolaritza (Basque Country's "spontaneous poetry"), Basque dances, a hot-hair balloon and concerts (Biok, Sagarroi…), among others.

Eguzkibegi Ikastola was created in 1966 by some parents. It has more than 600 pupils nowadays and they expect to raise enough money to enlarge the school and improve some of the infrastructures.

There will be bus service available from 09:00 to 19:00 from Bilbao to Galdakao round trip.

One issue that we would like to point out is that the head of the Ministry of Education in the Basque Autonomous Community, Isabel Celaá, refused to assist to the Ibilaldia celebration. This ministry is in charge of the Basque language education and her decision is part of the punitive strategy designed in Madrid against the Basque language, an strategy that is being implemented by the Spaniard that was appointed by the central government to rule the province, an individual by the name of Francisco Javier López.

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No Manifesto Against English Requirement?

In this blog we have been reporting about the all out campaign in the Spanish state against the so called "minority languages": Euskara (Basque), Catalan (Catalonian) and Galego (Galizan). Strangely enough, we do not see that extreme right philosopher Fernado Savater leading a campaign against the English language that according to this note published at Finanzas should be the main source of concern for the ultra-nationalists in Spain and therefore the primary target:

27% of jobs require languages

English is required in 75% of job vacancies that require languages, followed by French, with 6.84%, and German, with 6.55%, according to Infoempleo.

Language skills are a requirement in 26.64% of skilled employment vacancies, with English being the most demanded language by companies in our country, according to Infoempleo.

Increased worker mobility, globalization of companies and high migration are the factors that have contributed to the gradual increase in demand for language in job vacancies, according to the Infoempleo report.

In relation to this trend, the president of Infoempleo.com, María Benjumea, appreciates that language skill is "an essential part of any professional profile, it is a key differentiator, adds value to the worker and can be key when a company decides to choose between one candidate or another. "

The study also points out that English is present in a total of 74.57% of job vacancies that require their candidates to have language skills, well ahead of French, with 6.84%, and German with 6.55%. For their part, Italian and Portuguese continue being less valued than the previous languages. They show a decline that leaves them each with a stronghold of less than 0.5% in job vacancies that require languages.

Regional languages

In relation to the requirement for regional languages in job vacancies, the Infoempleo report points out the Basque Country and Catalonia as the regions that value local languages skills the most, with 28.8% and 13.2% respectively.

Furthermore, the report shows that Galicia and Valencia have very similar requirements for their regional languages. Galician and Valencian language requirements are present in approximately 10% of job vacancies for each language.

But for cowards like Savater is way easier to go against anything that may affect the Basque Country.

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The Rise of Txakoli

We present you a fragment of an article called "Basque-ing in Wine" published at the Sonoma Valley Sun:

I generally stick with less potent starters. In an effort to broaden my stubbornly limited horizons, W.S. introduced me to Txakolina, a lower-alcohol, perfect hot-weather aperitif wine with unique characteristics, as well as a fascinating back-story.

Txakolina, pronounced CHAW-koh-LEE-nah, hails from the Basque country, an autonomous region of northern Spain. Txakolina wines include red, white and rose, although the white is by far the most abundant.

Txakolina has proud origins, and a history so obscure that there’s not much easily accessible information. W.S. suggested I contact Andre Tamers, owner of De Maison Selections, the largest U.S. importer of Txakolina. In fact, Andre and his wife Cindy Cuomo are writing a book on the subject, due for release later this year.

First I enquire about the name, variously referred to as Txakoli or Txakolina. “Well, that’s a mystery,” Andre says. “One theory is that Txakoli was the house where the wine was made, and Txakolina was the wine.” What is definite, according to Andre, is that Txakolina “has always been a part of the Basque people.” The word itself is in Euskara, an ancient language. About one million people speak Euskara. The language can differ in villages as little as 10 miles apart – the result of interaction with other languages, although Euskara predates modern dialects. In fact, Euskara is the only language that survived the Roman conquest of Hispania in 218 BC. Although attempts have been made to link it to many different languages, Euskara’s origins still remain unclear.

Over the centuries, Spanish supplanted Euskara. The Spanish dictator Franco, ruler from 1939 to 1975, outlawed Euskara, provoking Basque nationalism. Spain revoked this law at the end of the 20th century, and today, a standardized form called Euskara batua (unified Euskara) is taught in schools. Spaniards say “Chacoli,” but you will rarely see that inscribed on any Basque bottle.

Like Euskara, Basque wines nearly disappeared. Vineyards once covered more than 2500 acres. The 19th century European Phylloxera epidemic wiped out Basque vineyards, too. According to Tamers, sheer isolation helped pockets survive. With the advent of new nationalism, the wine industry revived as the Basque government subsidized winemaking. This attracted new people and technology. Wine expert Jancis Robinson writes that since the 1990s Txakolina has improved “noticeably.” For the first-time, Txakolina, once a little wine made in homes, exploded internationally. Basque country is only about the size of Rhode Island. A little more than 400 acres produce wine. That’s expected to expand exponentially. “They don’t have enough for demand,” says Andre. “This year they’re totally sold out.”

What makes this wine exciting is the fresh acidity, minerality and vibrant fruit, the result of Basque’s cooler climate, sandy soils with clay subsoils, and proximity to the Atlantic. It’s best within the first year of its release because the youthful characteristics diminish over time.

In the last decades, winemakers from the Getaria appellation also added a slight effervescence, and a Txakolina ritual evolved based on Spanish cider-drinking customs. Inserting a pourer called “escanciador” the bottle is held high over a pint glass and poured two to three fingers deep. Drinkers take “shots” of Txakolina. Like most Basques, I’ll take mine in a wine glass, thank you very much.

So, whenever you have a chance, enjoy a refreshing glass of txakoli.

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Language Issues in Euskal Herria II

This is the follow up to an article published at the Portland Cultural Travel Examiner about the Basque language that we posted here a couple of days ago:

Tyler Sprecker

Language, identity and education policy in Spain’s Basque country: Part 2

As I mentioned in Part 1, the language debate taking place in the Basque Country of Spain is more than one about culture versus economy. The status of Basque as a language is tied closely to Basque nationalism and the fight for sovereignty. The Basque Country of Spain enjoys a great degree of autonomy from the rest of Spain, though not enough for Basque Nationalists who want nothing short of absolute sovereignty. While not representative of all Basque Nationalists, the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), a pro-independence terrorist organization, has been the darker face of the independence movement.

Although the separatist movement has lost some steam in recent years, it remains an important force in Spanish politics. Basque separatists have long argued for their right to self-determination as a separate ethnic group with their own language and culture. Surely a sovereign country retains the right to choose and promote its own language? Given the Basque country’s semi-autonomous status and current demographics, that has been a point of frustration for many.

Many native Spanish speakers in the Basque Country feel frustrated with the Basque language requirement for civil service jobs, arguing that some professionals such as doctors should be focusing their time and energy on learning about disease and medicine rather than a second language. Foreign language requirements have aroused public discontent in other regions of Spain as well. Protests were recently held in opposition of a government decision to make knowledge of Catalan mandatory for civil service jobs in the Cataluña region.

While not recognized as such by the federal government, Basque is a co-official language along with Spanish in the Basque Country of Spain. The Basque Country government strongly encourages bilingualism among its citizens. Under current policy all civil servants are required to speak Basque. The government has even taken to encouraging business owners to encourage their employees to learn Basque if they do not already know it. Educational policy is geared toward the same goal as well.

The Basque Country of Spain currently has three educational models from which parents are obliged to choose for their children. In Model A, all classes are taught in Spanish, except for language classes; Basque language classes are required. In Model B, some subjects are taught in Basque while others are taught in Spanish. In Model D, all classes are taught in Basque; Spanish language classes are required. In all three models English language classes are a required part of the curriculum. Some schools have even been testing a new trilingual education model where subjects are taught in Basque, Spanish and English. Over the past several years, the Basque Nationalist led government has been closing Model A schools due to reportedly low demand.

The need for bilingualism appears to be shared by many, though there is disagreement about the languages. Many native Spanish speakers see Basque as a language with marginal utility and would prefer their children to be taught English instead.

Public policy as it relates to language, however, may see some changes in light of recent political developments. After 30 years of governance by the Basque Nationalist Party (or by Basque Nationalist Party-led coalitions), the People’s Party (PP) – Spain’s main right-wing party, and the Socialist Party of the Basque Country (PSE) have formed a governing coalition that is set to begin governing starting mid-May of this year. Exactly what this means for language policy is yet to be seen, although a joint-statement of policy goals agreed to by both governing parties was recently issued.

The joint release clearly states the new government’s support for freedom of choice for parents among educational models. It also states the parties’ support for bilingualism as official government policy whereby all students are to be bilingual, though their parents retain the right to choose their educational path towards that end. Only time will tell if such policies will in effect create a bilingual citizenry. The only other question remaining is: Have they chosen the right languages?

I insist, seems like the author took many of his cues from that infamous article by Keith Johnson although it does a better job at keeping a more objective view on the issue.

And I insist, how dare any US citizen label any group as "terrorist" after all the crimes committed by the US military in Afghanistan, Irak and Pakistan?

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Language Issues in Euskal Herria I

I've got to tell you, ever since that infamous article about the Basque language by Basque-phobe Keith Johnson I cringe each time I find an article about this issue in an US media outlet. Here I present you one published at Examiner:

Tyler Sprecker

Language, identity and education policy in Spain’s Basque country: Part 1

Governing has never been so complicated. Political scientists the world over have been scratching their heads over the simultaneous integration and devolution of governments. The European Union has expanded to include 27 member countries and Asia has discussed development of a European Union-like structure while separatist movements from Quebec, Canada to the Tibet, China fight on for sovereignty. All the while, political and economic commentators from Benjamin Barber to Thomas Friedman have reflected on the effects of globalization and what it means for people around the world.

For many, it has meant having to balance economic and cultural survival. That struggle is evident in the Basque Country of Spain, where the regional government is feudally trying to weave a trilingual web of Basque, Spanish and English among its citizens, making education policy a hotly debated issue. This two part series will explore language in Spain’s Basque Country, education policy and the current debate.

Spain’s Basque Country is a semi-autonomous region on the northern coast of Spain near the French border and longtime home to the indigenous Basque people. In fact, Basque is believed to be the last remaining pre-Indo European language in Europe. Communities in the Basque region had enjoyed a great degree of autonomy until the late 18th-19th centuries. Spain’s dictator Francisco Franco (1892-1975) even went so far as to outlaw the Basque language, nullifying all legal documents recorded in the language and punishing those that dared speak it in public. Since the ratification of Spain’s 1978 Constitution, the Basque Country has been named a “historical region” and has been afforded a great degree of autonomy.

Unfortunately for many non-Basque speakers, the Basque government seems to have concluded that the best way to protect the Basque language is to force it onto others, and that may not be such a bad assessment. Language displacement has occurred in many parts of the world as dominant languages such as English, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and Arabic have spread. As a necessity for survival, speakers of the marginal languages are often forced to learn the dominant language of their respective regions, creating a generation (or several) of bilingual speakers that function as a bridge between their cultural past and the future of their children. Faced with economic marginalization, parents will often times raise their children in the dominant language but will not teach them their mother language, or if they do, the marginal utility of that language will not be sufficient so as to warrant its use by the younger generation who often times will abandon it completely. Left to evolutionary forces alone, many marginal languages will simply disappear as they are replaced by dominant ones. Simply permitting a given population to speak their native tongue does not guarantee that language’s survival. But is this a matter of survival for Basque speakers?

Perhaps not; there are an estimated 632,000 native Basque speakers (roughly double the number of Icelandic speakers). Aggregate numbers alone, however, do not tell the whole story. While the Basque people are largely confined to one geographic location, only an estimated one quarter of Basque region inhabitants speak Basque as a native language, and the region’s main center of commerce, Bilbao, is largely populated by native Spanish speakers, with native Basque speakers largely confined to the outskirts and surrounding areas.

But to frame the debate exclusively in terms of culture versus economy is to distort it. In Part 2, I will explore in further detail Basque Country politics and the identity debate.

Just one little detail, Euskara is not forced "onto others", the government of the Basque Autonomous Community can do nothing about having someone in Andalucia or the Canary Islands learning the language. The language policy is implemented only in the three Basque provinces it rules and all the inhabitants minus the inmigrants of these three provinces are supposed to be Basques.

If they don't feel Basque and they refuse to speak Basque they can always go to Spain and live their happy lives in a Spanish speaking environment, in the end, Spain is not awefully far from the Basque Country.

We'll wait and see what Tyler tells us in the second installment of the series.

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Eusko Flickr : 16. Korrika Zarratun (Basauri)

16. Korrika Zarratun (Basauri)
Originally uploaded by Txadonak2

Language Education in the Spanish State

The article by the Guardian Weekly that you're about to read is quite a departure from the one written by Basque-phobe Keith Johnson a couple of years ago. Here you have it:

Spain's lessons in multilingual teaching

Spain offers some valuable lessons in Clil policy argues María Jesús Frigols Martín. She explains how the the promotion of Spain's regional languages in schools along side Spanish has helped to establish the teaching of content subjects through students' and teachers' second and third languages.

"There has been no single blueprint, yet Clil is now firmly entrenching itself as an innovative educational approach," states Hugo Baetens Beardsmore, one of the international figures in this field. This is very true of Spain, where Clil is now starting to go mainstream after a decade of pilot and experimental projects.

The Spanish experience of Clil continues to be eclectic. There is no single Clil model taking root across the country. There are as many models as regions, different in application but following the same core fundamentals. Spain could be viewed as a "microcosm" of Clil worldwide. This one country is developing different models which share the same main objective: upgrading education and competence in languages throughout the population.

The twin drivers that have powered the uptake of Clil in the last decades are regional and global citizenship. The energy has come from both the general public and, increasingly, political decision makers.

To understand Clil in Spain you first have to understand how the nation functions as a "state of autonomies", a unitary country with 19 autonomous communities (17 regions, plus the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla). Each of these has its own laws, and the power to administer certain aspects of the education system within its own territory. The Organic Act of Education (Ley Orgánica de Educación, LOE) establishes the general frame for the whole country.

This structure is very significant in terms of languages. Whereas Spanish is the official language of the country as a whole, certain communities (the Basque Country, Navarre, Catalonia, Balearic Islands, Galicia, and Valencia) also have their own regional languages, namely Basque, Catalan, Galician, and Valencian. In these communities, both the regional language and Spanish are mandatory in education at the non-university level.

The stage was set for Clil when regional languages were granted official status in the 1980s. From this point onwards regional languages started making their way through the mainstream education systems as medium of instruction. This would become an invaluable experience, for the expertise acquired after years of practice could be easily transferred from bilingual to monolingual communities, and proved to be an excellent starting point for the design and implementation of programmes aiming to produce young people speaking two languages in addition to their monther tongue (MT+2).

Stepping from regional to foreign languages was a natural way for Clil to evolve at a time when increasing priority has been given to global citizenship. This meant generalising the use of more than one medium of instruction. That in turn meant that educators needed to adapt their teaching to suit this context and focussed interest on Clil as the best way to achieve their goals.

There was a transfer of know-how within the regions and across the country that allowed monolingual areas to keep pace with the bilingual regions.

This resulted in scenarios where education was:

* partly in Spanish, and partly in one or two foreign languages
* partly in Spanish, partly in a joint official language other than Spanish (Basque, Catalan, Galician, or Valencian), and partly in one or two foreign languages.

This has given the Spanish Clil spectrum a leading place in Europe. Clil programmes have been implemented in mainstream schools with direct support from educational authorities. The different models vary significantly from one region to another, but can be summarised as following one of these objectives:

* Promoting bilingualism in a monolingual community
* Fostering multilingualism in an already bilingual community


Even though Spain's regional Clil models are diverse, there are certain issues which have been addressed by central government. For example the teachers’ level of language competence has been given special attention. It has been set at B2 on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages for vocational, secondary education, and the Baccalaureate; and B1 for pre-primary and primary. In addition, vocational education is required to have at least two subjects taught through a foreign language. Meanwhile, the communities decide on questions such as subject choice, teaching time invested, and other operational factors.

The learning curve for teachers and administrators has been steep. For years, teacher training has been a major challenge for both central and regional governments. To provide teaching professionals with the necessary linguistic and methodological skills, a specific Clil training programme (Pale, Plan de apoyo al Aprendizaje de Lenguas Extranjeras), comprising improvement of communicative competence, methodology and periods of study abroad, has been designed and implemented. It is funded jointly by the central government and the autonomous boards of education.

Lack of teaching materials and resources is one of the major difficulties Clil teachers have to face. This is common to all the regions. As a general rule teachers develop their own materials by using realia from a target language country, translating and adapting first-language course books, or downloading resources from the internet. Exchanges through seminars, networking, creating data banks, collaborating over the internet, and using blogs have become common means of support.

It is too early to make definitive statements about the impact of Clil across the country. One reason is because some of the separate Boards of Education have not yet carried out extensive evaluation of their Clil programmes. But preliminary research indicators appearing from different communities point to the fact that content acquisition is similar when compared to education through the mother tongue, that learning in Clil substantially improves students’ linguistic and communicative competence, and that it would also appear to assist their cognitive development.

Clil is now consolidating as a trend at all stages of the Spanish educational system, including higher education. It’s a leitmotiv for profound change in the autonomous education systems which are rapidly attempting to adapt to the demands of the knowledge society.

As Rosa Aliaga, a Clil expert at the Basque Board of Education says: "It is fascinating to observe how four- and five-year-old children play, create and have fun in different languages. Their motivation is very high, and they are prepared to take risks in communicating with others with no fear or embarrassment of using the wrong words."

Contrary to common belief, Spaniards have long been keen to learn foreign languages, especially English. The barrier has not been lack of interest so much as lack of response to often outdated language teaching methodologies, and availability of curricular time. The Spanish Clil scenario is one which can serve as a dynamic and realistic model for other countries wanting to reduce barriers to language learning.

María Jesús Frigols Martín works for the Programa Plurilingüe at the Conselleria de Educación de la Generalitat Valenciana, Valencia

One thing we would like to point out is that the advances in education when it comes to Basque and Catalonian are taking place DESPITE Spain and not thanks to its language policies. If it was up to Madrid, the only language spoken in the Spanish state would be Castillian. Just wait and see what will happen to Basque education programs when Spaniard Patxi Lopez takes the presidency of the Basque autonomous community.

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Basque Language Revival

The article that you're about to read was posted at McClatchy's page:

As the world's languages disappear, Basque revives

By Julie Sell | McClatchy Newspapers

ST. JEAN DE LUZ, France — The world is losing languages at an alarming rate, a United Nations agency reported Thursday, with thousands of tongues expected to disappear by the end of this century.

Yet amid the losses, one community — the Basque people, who live in the mountainous region of southern France and northern Spain — is reviving a language that many once feared would die out.

In St. Jean de Luz, a seaside town near the Spanish border at the western edge of the Pyrenees, efforts are under way to revitalize the Basque language, which 30 years ago was rarely heard outside mountain villages. Among a population of about 3 million in the Basque region, which comprises seven provinces in Spain and France, an estimated 700,000 people speak Basque today.

Bilingual signs dot the roads and mark storefronts, and an annual festival celebrates the Basque language, music and culture. Public and private schools full of children and adults learn Basque.

Every Sunday, a mass is celebrated entirely in Basque — complete with Basque music — at the local church, Eglise Saint Jean Baptiste.

At the week's major food market here, Bixente, a 32-year-old man in jeans, tennis shoes and a tight wool cap, was selling such regional specialties as ewe's milk cheese, black cherry jam and spicy pimento powder from his stand to a steady stream of customers in the early morning chill.

"I grew up speaking Basque, and did all my baccalaureate exams, even biology and philosophy, in Basque," said Bixente, who hails from Bayonne and declined to identify himself further. "My parents' generation built private Basque schools in the 1980s. They gave their money, their energy, their efforts to make it happen."

In contrast, he said, when his mother was young, she "was punished at school for speaking Basque."

Fabienne Perrin, a 37-year-old woman employed by the local tourism office, grew up speaking Basque in a small mountain town a half-hour's drive from St. Jean de Luz. She recalled that her grandfather spoke only Basque, never French. Now, though, "the generation that spoke only Basque is gone," she said. "To work, you have to speak French."

France recognizes Basque as a distinct regional language — the departmental government has an office dedicated to the Basque language — but Basque doesn't have official status in France, meaning that it can't be used in a court of law, for instance. On the Spanish side of the border, Basque has been one of two official languages in the Basque autonomous region since 1979.

Many locals acknowledge that foreigners mistakenly associate all Basques with the extremist group ETA, whose members are known to slip back and forth across the rugged mountain border.

"There are lots of cliches," Perrin said. "But when people get here, they find we're really interested in something authentic. This isn't just folklore."

As successful as this region has been in preserving its unique language, however, others aren't as lucky.

The language report, released by UNESCO, the U.N. agency based in Paris, provides vivid detail of the linguistic diversity that still exists in the world — more than 6,000 languages are spoken on the planet — and the threats that it faces.

India, the United States, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico have the greatest linguistic diversity, it says, but also the greatest number of languages at risk.

Among 2,500 endangered languages in the agency's online atlas, 538 are classified as "critically endangered." Seventy-five of these are in the United States, many of them obscure American Indian tongues found in the Western states. They include Tubatulabal, spoken by just three elders in California's Kern River Valley in the southern Sierra Nevada, and Lushootseed, spoken by fewer than five people on reservations in Washington state.

Beyond Basque, which UNESCO labeled "unsafe," the agency notes that some endangered languages can be saved through a combination of government intervention and community will.

Welsh, for instance, has made a comeback in the past few decades after nearly dying out when Wales was exclusively under English rule.

UNESCO's most recent estimate of Welsh speakers: 750,000.

(Sell is a McClatchy special correspondent.)

ON THE WEB
UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

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Bilingual Education in Navarre

This essay was published at Basque Research:

Study on attitudes of students at the Public University of Navarre to bilingual education

The Public University of Navarre (UPNA) has presented the book, “Attitudes and beliefs of students of the UPNA to bilingualism and bilingual education”, a report on the research work undertaken by the University teachers Mr Pablo Sotés, Ms Nekane Oroz and Mr Carlos Vilches. The work, 1,000 copies of which have been published at a selling price of 12 euros, was financed by the Government of Navarre.

In order to gather information, the authors carried out interviews with 2,048 students - out of a total of 7,410 – over the 2005-2006 academic year and, moreover, used the technique of group discussion. The level of reliability of the study is 95.5%.

The principal aim of the work was to find out the linguistic skills of the student body at the Public University of Navarre and analyse the attitudes to bilingualism and bilingual education in the educational system of the Autonomous Community of Navarre. The results provide a linguistic map of the student body which should contribute to the task of linguistic planning within the various strategic plans of the University.

Linguistic profile of student body

According to the research results, 84% of students interviewed have Castilian (Spanish) as their mother tongue while 14% have Euskara (the Basque language) or both simultaneously, and the remaining 2% have a mother tongue other than Basque or Spanish. As regards linguistic skills, nearly 40% state that they have knowledge of Basque to a greater or lesser extent, comprehension skills being rated higher than those of oral and written expression. A similar percentage of students (40%) have knowledge of French, although here the percentage of those stating they have difficulties is greater than with Basque.

Linguistic skills in English present special characteristics, according to the study. In general, it can be said that the immense majority of students at the UPNA has a high or intermediate knowledge of the English language, scoring over 90% in each of the four linguistic skills (aural comprehension, reading writing and speaking). The highest scoring, nevertheless, is in written and oral comprehension and the lowest in oral expression. Of the five modern European languages, German is, on the other hand, the language with the least presence amongst the students (less than 10%).

About 20% of students have an elementary or higher qualification in Basque and more than 40% have a certificate in English. About 15% of students have qualifications in French and less than 2% in German.

Taking different languages into account

English is the language deemed by most students as the most appropriate for scientific and educational communication, followed by Spanish, German, French and Basque in that order of importance. This order changes when sociocultural transmission is involved (Spanish, English, Basque, French and German) or which are considered socially the best (Spanish, English, Basque, German and French).

Also, more than 90% of those surveyed consider that the knowledge of a second language facilitates the learning of a third. And to the question as to what linguistic model (in the Basque-Spanish bilingual educational system) they would choose for their primary/secondary school studies if they were making the choice now, women opt primarily for model D (Basque), followed by A (Spanish with Basque as a subject) and G (Spanish) and models in English or in French, in that order. In the case of men, however, the order varies, being model G the most popular choice, followed by D, A and then models in English or in French.

As regards legal aspects there exists a great lacuna in knowledge about linguistic zoning, established by the Navarre Autonomous Community Law on the Basque language. Nevertheless, 43% consider that Basque should have a new deal for the future regulated by Law, which would enable greater rights in the use and the teaching of this language. 14%, however, defend the validity of zoning.

Languages in the educational system

The study also reveals the opinions of students about the treatment of languages in the educational system. 60% of those surveyed consider that Basque is still not normalised nor has it been spread throughout the educational system as it should. More than 35% believe, however, that this language does not need any treatment differentiated from the other languages, given that they believe it to be fully normalised.

With respect to the linguistic models (see above) in the educational system, the majority of those surveyed who come from model A believe this model does not guarantee the achievement of obtaining the linguistic skills sufficient for undertaking university studies in Basque. In the case of model D, the majority who have been through this educational linguistic model hold that this immersion model in Basque enables them to carry out their university studies in either Spanish or Basque. However, ex-model G students believe this model does not guarantee a sufficient level in Spanish.

Regarding the EC languages, students justify the predominance of English as a majority foreign language in the non-university educational system of Navarre, linking fluency in this language with access to high socio-economic status.

As regards French, almost 50% of those surveyed believe it will continue to be taught as up to now, although 25% do not augur a good future for the tongue and consider that its teaching will gradually disappear. On the other hand, most students state that German will grow in the educational system of Navarre.

Languages in the University

The research revealed that students consider knowledge of English fundamental to starting their university studies (88%), followed at a distance by Basque (36%). French and German score significantly low in this respect.

At the time of undertaking the survey, the professional teaching qualifications in Basque included the Teaching Certificate in Infant Education and the Teaching Certificate in Primary Education and certain subjects in other qualifications. Students enrolled in subjects in the Basque language came to 10% of the total, most of which are women who study at the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, have Basque as their mother tongue and have been through model D schooling and this, to a great extent, in the Basque Autonomous Community (Euskadi).

Students not enrolled for subjects through this language state the reasons as being the lack of opportunity to learn the language or lack of linguistic skills therein, incompatibility with timetables, misleading information, preference for Spanish, etcetera. The percentage of ex-model A students opting for subjects through Basque does not come to 4%.

The study indicates that the provision of subjects/courses in Basque is classified as “insufficient” by more than half of the students. In this sense, 76.5% are in favour of including some subjects in Basque within a degree course; 30% prefer the provision of a complete degree course in Basque, together with the existing provision in Spanish and 15.7% would not offer any subject in Basque on a degree course.

Regarding EC languages, the University prioritises the linguistic training of the students - in the academic year in which the survey was undertaken, subjects were offered in English and in French, above all in the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences.

Given this situation, the survey indicates that English is the foreign language most required by students as a language of instruction. 79.2% of those surveyed believe it a good thing to provide subjects in this language, compared to 13.8% who opt for French and 12% for German. Nevertheless, only 19.40% would offer a whole degree course through English. The majority prefer this language to be offered in the following: a selection of subjects; optional subjects; certain core and obligatory subjects, free choice subjects - in that order. The demand for French and German in this respect is much less significant.

Finally, the research measured the level of satisfaction expressed by students at UPNA with how the University treats languages: poorly in the case of Basque and very poorly in the cases of French and German; and medium-high with respect to English.

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Journalism Prize Discriminates Against Nationless Languages

Oh poor Europe, always trying to portray itself as the flagship of democracy, liberty and progress only to find itself making the same all mistakes again and again and again. The main problem being that the Europe of the nations has a bad case of stunted development do to the meddling of a few former colonialist powers, name it Spain, France, Great Britain and Italy.

Those countries impose their borders, their flags, their anthems, their homogenized culture, their law, all what they are upon the nations trapped in an out of context concept of statehood, including of course, imposing their language.

This is why time and again we learn about issues like the one published at EurActiv:

Parliament journalism prize 'illegal', say MEPs

Six MEPs have accused the EU assembly of "illegally" discriminating against particular journalists by only admitting submissions for a prestigious EU prize if they are produced in one of the bloc's 23 official languages.

'The European Parliament Prize for Journalism' is awarded to journalists "who have displayed excellence in covering major European issues and/or promoted better understanding of the EU institutions and/or policies," according to a statement on the institution's website.

"We're fully supportive of this prize, but as things stand it excludes the first-rate journalism produced in many languages that don't have official status in the EU," said a spokesman for the group of European Free Alliance (EFA) MEPs.

Prizes are awarded across four categories - print media, radio, television and the Internet – and are open to either individuals or teams of up to five. The winner in each category receives €5,000. But the eligibility criteria clearly state that "contributions eligible for the award of the European Parliament Prize for Journalism shall be in one of the official languages of the European Union".

This prevents works from "major publications in the many languages that do not have official status at EU level" from entering, lament the EFA members, citing Catalan, Russian, Welsh and Basque among others.

In a letter, MEPs from Scotland (Ian Hudghton and Alyn Smith), Wales (Jill Evans), Latvia (Tatjana Ždanoka), Romania (László Tőkés) and the Basque country (Mikel Irujo) call on the Parliament's president, Hans-Gert Pöttering, to amend the rules because "they may in breach of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights".

"If we are to encourage honest and open reporting of the EU and its work then it makes no sense at all to discriminate against certain journalists or publications based on language," the EFA spokesman added, highlighting the "important contribution" of works in unofficial languages to furthering European debate.

The letter to Pöttering is not the first time EFA members have sought to draw attention to minority languages at EU level. Last September (EurActiv 25/09/08), Irujo, Evans and Tőkés complained that the European Commission was not "courageous" enough to set out concrete initiatives to promote minority languages in its new multilingualism strategy, launched earlier that month (EurActiv 19/09/08).

The Parliament has been accepting submissions for the 2009 journalism competition, now in its second year, since 15 January. The deadline for applications is 31 March. To be eligible, works must have been published or broadcast between 1 May 2008 and the closing date.

Now, let us remember that not too long ago Hans-Gert Pöttering earned the title of Basque-phobe of the week for denying the Basques their political right to self determination, so something tells me that the initiative put forwards by the MEPs will crash against a wall of intolerance.

.... ... .

A Thief Among Thieves

This note comes to us via the New Haven Advocate, it tells us about a wine label you can find at a wine store in town, as it happens, the new wine has a Basque name.

Here you have it:

The Wine Thief's Lapartu

By Kathleen Cei

Following the popular Viña Ladrón (in both red and white varieties), a new private label red has just been released at The Wine Thief (378 Whitney Ave., New Haven; 203-865-4845 and 181 Crown St., New Haven; 203-772-1944, thewinethief.com).

Lapartu ($10) is a blend of 2007 carménère (80 percent) and syrah (20 percent) from Curicó Valley, Chile. Thief chief Karl Ronne met with winemakers at the Korta family vineyard a year ago to come up with the signature blend among tank and barrel samples.

Ronne describes carménère as similar to a cabernet/merlot blend, while syrah's known for its spicy fruit character. The result is fuller in body, texture and structure than you might expect from a wine in this price range. Since the Korta family hails from the Basque region of Spain, the wine is named Lapartu, the Basque word for "thief."

But I bet you may be wondering why such a strange name for a wine store, well, the provide the answer at the FAQ's section of their web page:

Q: What is a Wine Thief?

A: A long glass or metal tube used for drawing samples of wine from barrels during the aging process.

Wikipedia's version:

A wine thief is a glass or food-grade plastic pipette used in the process of wine making. It may be anywhere from 12 to 24 inches (30 to 60 centimetres) in length and may have a bend near one end. The wine thief is used to remove a small amount of wine from a cask, carboy, or other fermentation device for testing.

Home winemakers may also use a wine thief in connection with a length of tubing to syphon wine from one container to the other (a process called racking) or to transfer the wine to bottles.

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Spain's New Attack on Language Diversity

Spain is plotting against the Basque, Catalan and Galician languages at the European Parliament, this is why they sent an envoy (a Portuguese by the name of Vasco!) to present the overtly racist "language manifest" put forward by Fernando Savater and a few other Spanish extreme right supporters.

This issue has been reported at Eurolang:

New European Parliament Report on Multilingualism

Brussel - Bruxelles, Thursday, 22 January 2009 by Davyth Hicks

The Culture Committee met on Tuesday, 20th January, to discuss the Commission's Communication on Multilingualism with Mr Graca Moura's (EPP) report.

While the Communication has already been voted on at the EU Council rendering the 'own initiative' report somewhat redundant, some MEPs suggested in the Committee’s December meeting that non-official languages be excluded from Commission multilingualism policies. The report “insists on the need for recognition of parity between the EU's official languages”, thereby excluding all European unofficial languages.

Mr Graca Moura also backs the arguments of the pro-Spanish language lobby 'Manifiesto en Defensa de la Lengua Común', which sees Spanish as being “endangered” by Basque, Catalan, and Galician. To this end, Mr Moura has inserted the clause stressing the “vital importance of preserving the possibility for parents and guardians of choosing the official language in which their children are to be educated in countries with more than one official or regional language”. However, it fails to consider that, in the Basque Country for example, it is the lack of parental demand for the Spanish-medium only model which has led to it almost disappearing from schools.

Mr Csaba Sogor MEP (EPP) has drafted the Employment Committee’s contribution to the Report. It strongly counters Graca Moura’s proposals in favour of constitutional and regional languages and calls on all member states to ratify the ECRML.

EBLUL will be tabling amendments with Culture Committee MEPs, the deadline is Tuesday 27th January. (Eurolang 2009)

EBLUL is the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages and it is a democratically governed NGO promoting languages and linguistic diversity. It is based on a network of Member State Committees (MSCs) in all the ‘old' 15 EU Member States and many of the new Member States that joined the EU in May 2004. In several occasions EBLUL has issued documents in which it reports Spain's lack of commitment towards the implementation on policies that will strenghten the use of Euskara, Catalan and Galician.

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One Basque Word At a Time

Thanks to The Atlantic we had the chance to learn about an outsider's experience about learning Euskara (the Basque language) in Euskal Herria, in Navarre to be more specific.

Here you have it:

The Basques reclaim their cultural identity, one word at a time

by Lisa Abend

Found in Translation

By the time I pull up to the farmhouse in the Spanish region of Navarre, the other students have already arrived. Waiting for lunch, we nervously pretend that we understand what’s going on. A blond woman whose name I can’t pronounce points to a bottle as she pours each student a glass and says, with exaggerated clarity, “Ardoa” (“wine”).

It’s the first word I learn at this barne­tegi, or Basque-language immersion school, and its ordinariness comes as a relief. Until now, as an American living in Spain, the only Basque words I’d managed to glean have to do with violence and power: ertzaintza (“police”), kale borroka (“street violence”), etarra (“terrorist” or “freedom fighter,” depending on your point of view). The media use the words every time an arrest, a demonstration, or an assassination—there was one in September—takes place. Indeed, most of what anyone in or outside Spain hears about Basques has to do with ETA, the radical group that has killed more than 800 people in the past 40 years in its quest for an independent Basque homeland.

“In the rest of Spain, they only talk about us as a problem—the Basque problem,” says Amaia Marin, who is attending an intermediate course at the barnetegi. She is Basque but doesn’t know Euskera, the Basque language, because it was not taught in schools when she was growing up. She doesn’t see herself as particularly political and thinks of independence as little more than “a pretty dream.” But she was driven to learn Euskera, she says, because “being Basque is the thing I’m most proud of in my life.”

Thousands of years old, Euskera has no links to any other known tongue, living or dead. That alone makes it the clearest sign of Basque identity. Franco sought to suppress the language during his dictatorship. In Spain today, when Basques enjoy greater autonomy than at any time since the 19th century, and when Spanish conservatives see that autonomy as a threat to national unity, the language remains a political issue. In some parts of Basque country, a town meeting held in Spanish is reason for protest, even vandalism; meanwhile, new laws that require 2,000 large businesses to offer their services in both Euskera and Spanish have triggered strong opposition outside Basque country. But for people like Amaia, Euskera is a way out of the Basque problem, a way to be Basque regardless of politics.

The number of Euskera speakers has risen in recent years, from 657,000 in 2001 to 775,000 (out of a total Basque population of about 3 million) in 2006. This growth can be attributed largely to schools—parents can choose how much Euskera training their children get, and the majority favor some education in their ancestral tongue. Yet 100,000 of those speakers have learned the language as adults. In my group, Celia and Maite are here because their employer—Microsoft—is expanding into Basque country, while Italian-born Nicoletta, Chilean Paula, and Spanish Dani are married to Basques and have signed up because their children are learning Euskera in school.

In class, we struggle through intro­ductions and learn to count to 10. (Actually, we learn to count to 100, but I’m so flustered by the compound words that I falter at the double digits.) We learn directions and body parts, including zakila (“penis”) and alua (“vagina”)—the Basques are nothing if not frank. In between lessons, we go for coffee in Bakaiku, a pretty mountain village west of Pamplona, where the stone houses are adorned with fat geraniums. It’s an idyllic place if you ignore the pro-independence graffiti and posters that spring up every night—one of which gives me my first thrill of comprehension: Euskal Herria Aurrera, “Forward With the Basque Country.”

No one teaches politics at the barne­tegi, but subtle messages slip in among the vocabulary words heavy with x’s and z’s. A geography lesson shows the Basque provinces without any boundary delineating the three in France from the four in Spain. And we get an explanation of the ancient fueros, laws that granted the Basques certain rights and privileges in exchange for loyalty to the kingdom of Castile.

But the rise in Euskera has not necessarily fed secessionist impulses. “The fact that you learn the language doesn’t mean that you’ll vote for a nationalist party,” says Xabier Monasterio, the director of pedagogy at the Gabriel Aresti school, which runs this barnetegi. Support for the conservative Basque Nationalist Party has stayed relatively constant over the past 10 years. So has the percentage of Basques who want independence from Spain (35 percent) over the past two decades.

“I love teaching Euskera, because it is the language of our people,” Monasterio says. “It’s who we are. It’s not better or worse than any other language—it’s just ours.” I think about his words during the last class, which we spend singing Basque songs. There are hymns to innocent love and odes to sailors, but the most moving song consists of just the words gueria da—“it’s ours”—repeated over and over. To the tune of “Hava Nagila.”

Lisa Abend is a writer living in Spain.

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Boise's Ikastola

This comes to us thanks to EITb:

Boise

Boiseko Ikastola, a dream come true

Igor Lansorena

Boiseko Ikastola, the only Basque preschool outside of the Basque Country, opened its doors in 1998 thanks to some parents' hard work. Ten years later, it is a dream come true.

One would never expect to find a Basque language school in the United States. However, Boiseko Ikastola, a Basque language immersion preschool in the capital city of Idaho, serves as an example of how Boise's Basque community grows stronger every day and remains devoted to keeping its links to the Basque culture alive.

Started ten years ago by a group of parents who wanted for their kids to have a chance to learn the Basque language, Boiseko Ikastola started with eight kids and some parents as teachers. Nowadays, they have two Basque native teachers, Irune and Goiuri, and sixteen kids split between two classes, including some who do not have any Basque heritage behind them. "A lot of people are interested in having their kids speak a second language", Mara Davis, director of Boiseko Ikastola, says.

Currently, Boiseko ikastola is fully settled and already planning a special celebration for its tenth anniversary. "We want to do something special for all the alumni and the kids that have been here for ten years, do something in the Basque block in springtime, do something for everybody to get together, see how they have grown, see people and the kids that were here before", Mara recounts.

According to Mara, routine and everyday problems in Boiseko Ikastola are the same as in other Basque schools, "common problems, behavior problems and discipline problems, the same as in any preschool, anywhere".

"Everyday, the morning classes are routine: colors, numbers, what is the weather like, and in the afternoons it is more arts and crafts, or we might watch a movie, or go for a walk. In the afternoon, it is more out of routine", the director recounts.

Other types of issues, such as funding or finding the teaching staff, have different solutions from a school in the Basque Country. Boiseko Ikastola receives a grant from the Basque Government, which Mara Davis is really thankful for.

"If we did not have those funds, we might not be able to function separately as an Ikastola for very long. We are so grateful for the money that comes from the Basque Government. We just do not have the enrolment that we would need to stand on our own substantially", she says.

The school also gets a grant from the Cenarrusa Foundation for Basque Culture, which, according to Mara, helps people who need financial help, about a couple of families every semester.

As for the task of finding teachers, Mara recognizes that it is the toughest part. "A lot of teachers that come over are young, they finish school and they only want to travel for a year, they want to experience something for a year, which is great, but on the other hand, the kids here, at the age they are, they need that consistency here, they need to see a friendly face every time they came to school, so it is harder on them, on the kids, because they see somebody new every year", Mara explains.

Expansion process

The Ikastola uses Saint Paul's Catholic Newman Center's building to carry out its activities because building safety regulations and health regulations prevented the Ikastola from starting at the Basque block ten years ago. However, moving there should not be ruled out in the future, if the expansion process of the Basque Center and the Basque museum ends up taking place and the same amount of space for the children can be provided.

"I would love it to be there, I would love to be part of the block. It would be nice to be down there, but we are happy with the space we have", Mara confesses. "We started here ten years ago and we have just have not found the space that we have here. We have two classes, a courtyard, a gym, a full kitchen, two offices, the computer room. So, it is really hard to find any space downtown that is as big as this or that is worth the money", she adds.

Boiseko Ikastola does not have any kind of communication with any other ikastolas in the Basque Country at the moment, but Mara admits that is one of the things she wants to start doing this year.

"I would love to be able to do it through Skype, or the webcam, or something like that but I would also like to put something together in videotape or cd-rom that we could send to them so that they could see what we do everyday and then possibly, get something back, so they know more about us and we know more about them. Maybe we are using the same curriculum, maybe we are doing the same things, so it would be nice to start communication", she says.

Hopefully this will act as inspiration for the Basque communities in Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay to come up with similar projects.

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Welsh and Basque

This article published by Welsh OnLine tells us about how the Basque initiatives to rescue and strengthen Euskara (the Basque language) are an inspiration to other peoples defending their own languages, in this case, Welsh.

Here you have it:

Spanish example holds the key to the future of Welsh

Nov 19 2008 by Our Correspondent, Western Mail

Wales must learn lessons from the Basque country when it comes to ensuring the survival of Welsh, argues Catrin Dafydd of language campaign group Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg

THERE is no doubt that the next few months will have a far-reaching effect on the future of the Welsh language. Of course, there is no use discussing the Welsh language as a stand-alone figure in the corner of the pub. When we talk about languages, we talk about people and communities.

The One Wales Assembly Government is about to publish a draft Legislative Competency Order (LCO) that will show us possible legislative scenarios Welsh could face over the coming years.

And while legislation alone cannot change the situation, it can help ensure the future of a minority language in a globalised world.

A delegation from Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg recently visited the Basque country to see what people there are doing to keep their language alive.

Of all minority languages, the Basque language – or Euskara – has most in common with Welsh. There are about 600,000 Euskara-speakers in a country with a population of about three million.

From the moment you land in Bilbao, you notice a stark linguistic contrast to our own situation, with visual examples of stronger language legislation – bilingual signs are the norm and the co-operative supermarket chain Eroski provides own-brand packaging with instructions in up to five languages.

You are quickly made aware of the fact that in Euskadi – the autonomous community of the Basque country – citizens have a legal right to use the language in the public and (more recently) private and voluntary sectors. Because of this, companies such as EMUN have been set up to assist all kinds of private companies as they develop effective responses to language rights.

Companies are awarded certificates to show customers that staff are able to provide services in Euskara.

Moreover, the Observatory of Linguistic Rights provides a free phone service allowing people to log complaints when these rights are infringed. The complaints are then catalogued and presented to the government.

Lawyers working on behalf of Euskara Kultur Eskargoa are also responsible for representing Basque-speakers in courts of law. A system of defending peoples’ linguistic rights is an alien concept for us in Wales – currently we can only use Welsh in the courts under fairly limited circumstances.

Kontseilua is an umbrella group of 45 societies and institutions which campaign on linguistic matters. Most of these groups are indirectly funded by public money, yet they are happy to challenge and criticise government policy where necessary in order to promote the normalisation of the Basque language.

The government acts as a champion, not only passing legislation, but also taking responsibility to ensure it is implemented. There is a dialogue between institutions and government, in a country where the fact that independent bodies are ready to offer a critique of the linguistic legislative system is welcomed.

Back in Wales, we seem to be lagging behind other European nations in terms of language legislation. It is high time we redressed the balance between voluntary efforts to promote Welsh and the need for statutory guidance. The length and breadth of the LCO will show us just what the One Wales Government has in store. Will it create the necessary legislative conditions for Welsh language to thrive or will its growth be stunted once more?

The people of Wales should scrutinise the LCO for three things: that the Order allows Welsh to be recognised as an official language; that a commissioner is established to defend linguistic rights; and, most importantly, that it grants specific rights for anyone who chooses to use Welsh on a daily basis at work, at home, at school, at the shops or wherever.

Legislation isn’t a quick fix but positive changes can result. All eyes are on the One Wales Government as it unveils its vision for the Welsh language. Of course, we all have a role to play in ensuring Welsh is used in our communities. But for now, we should examine the exact details of the One Wales Government’s vision for a truly bilingual Wales.

Catrin Dafydd heads Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg’s campaign for a new Welsh Language Act

Now, it seems like the Western mail correspondent misses the whole point of the article by entitling his/her article "Spanish example".... is like if I would write an article about the defense of Welsh culture to go on and title it "English culture". This tells you just how deep the disinformation campaign set in place by Madrid against the Basques runs.

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