Itsasertzeko zubia

Zorianak zuri Mikel zure mezuarengatik.

Zergatik Keith Johnsoni bidaltzeaz gain ez diozu Wall Street Journaleko zuzendariari idazten ?

Babez dezagun bai gure Euskara maitea.

Eskumuinak,

Todor

Euskaldun jaio nintzen, eta euskaldun hazi, euskara hil ezkero, ez nuke nahi bizi

Kaixo Mikel,

Zure blogaren bitartez nire anai batek WSJ-eko zuzendariari idatzitako mezua zabaldu nahi nuke, ondo idatzita dagoela bait deritzaiot. Hemen doakizu :

Dear Editor,

I would like this article to be published in your journal airing a different view about the issues raised by one of your journalists, Mr K. Johnson, in his article about the Basque Language, Euskara, on November 6th 2007.  For the international opinion to be construed fairly, I think is of upper importance.

The title is pejorative, insulting and inflaming for any Euskalduna (basque speaker) in the world. The article is full of many of the old nasty and erosive attacks against Euskara. In this sense, it is clear that still many continue to class languages in categories according to the number of speakers of that language. As the physical numbers, strength, power -still just the same cave man- gives them any qualitative superiority. Never mind those less numerical languages and the historical and cultural richness they mean to humanity.  This would not be such a surprising statement for anyone coming from a Spanish or English cultural and language heritage! How naive I am hoping that they will ever understand the anthropological truths behind any language ! They could never be universal, cultural, educated or humane enough to understand that the respect and rights they claim for their citizens is what they have in the past, and still nowadays -this article is an example- deny to men and women who speak other languages. The fact about which they are so proud, the hundreds of millions of speakers of their respective latin-visigothic and anglo-saxon languages, is not due to the beauty or cleverness, or the grammatical supremacy or perfection of those languages. Sadly, it is not more than the reflection of the violence, repression and organised social and economic marginalisation inflicted on the people who historically -and nowadays- they come in contact with in their insatiable germanic tribal and genetic characteristic of always expanding, annexing, invading and conquering in the look for wealth. I invite the reader to analyse the history of the raise of the number of speakers of the Spanish and English language through history.

Euskalduna is the contemporary human resisting to be the extinct Incas, Mayas, Aztecs, Guaicaipuros, Sioux, Appalachians, Zulus, Aborigines, etc... If any citizen of the Basque Country really respected and loved those natives of the land of the basques, and if through history justice and fairness was applied in all dealings with those natives of the land of the basques, we would not need to ask anybody born or living in their land to go for lessons to learn their language, Euskara. They would already speak it or they would make a willing effort to learn Euskara of their own accord without any need for positive discrimination.  

Euskara is not more difficult or easier than any other language. All languages are easy when learnt at young age. Even Mandarin and Cantonese. Ask the thousand millions who speak it. Then try you to learn it and tell me how easy or difficult it is. Just because one’s mother tongue is grammatically distant from another language does not make that second language inferior, it makes it just different. All languages borrow words, terms and expressions from other live and dead languages or invent them. This is accepted as part of the dynamics of a living language and their adaptation to a changing world. Why criticise pejoratively  Euskara for doing absolutely the same? 

There is so much malice and bad intention in the article that K. Johnson wrote, that for the first time I am writing a letter to the editor in my third language in defence of the millenary one my parents taught me and still survives perdurably despite of multiple, and not new, attacks against its existence. And if the intention was not at fault, what I doubt, the bias and one sided focus of this article means that Mr K. Johnson needs further information about the real life experience of many Euskalduna-s on their own land and that you, as the |Editor, need not accept in the future partisan articles such as this before further consideration to the further political repercussions and damage caused to the international opinion about the unresolved basque issue. I hope you give the required consideration to this letter. 

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

Dear Mr. Iturbe,

My name is Alvaro and I'm a Spaniard living in New York right now. I read Keith Johnson's article about Basque language last week and today, trying to find more articles by him, I found this website.

First, I'd like to applaud Mikel Iturbe's response in the forms, because it's very polite and written in English (I doubt Mr.Johnson knows Spanish or even Basque). Also, I've decided to write in English since doing it this way maybe Mr.Johnson replies. I understand that Basque is the language of this website but I appologize because I can't speak it or write it more than ongi etorri or ezkerrik azko.

I don't think writing in Spanish would be appropiate and I defend everyone's right of using their own language. 

I have to say that I disagree with Mr.Iturbe's opinion in every of the 5 points that he has stood out. Mr.Johnson's argument is that Basque is a language with an excesive influence according to the number of people that can use it fluently. We don't want Basque to be lost, but we don't think it should be imposed.

1- "it is an ancient language little suited to contemporary life" Well Mr. Johnson, I speak to my relatives, friends, classmates... in Basque. I even study Physics in Basque. Nowadays, scientific articles, newspapers, essays, books... are written in Basque language, and it has nothing to envy to Spanish, French or English versions in terms of accuracy, preciseness and comprehensibility.

Mr.Iturbe, nobody is saying that Basque is not a good language. It's a very good language, but not the langue of choice of many speakers, who in a vast majority prefer Spanish. Mr.Johnson says that nobody chose to take the driving test in San Sebastian/Donosti in Basque, only in Spanish. 

2-"Airport, science, Renaissance, democracy, government, and independence, for example, are all newly minted words with no roots in traditional Euskera: aireportu, zientzia, errenazimentu, demokrazia, gobernu, independentzia." Asuming that all the words you have put have never existed before in Basque (which is a wrong assumtion) In all languages new words are created as the society grows and develops and so does the register or vocabulary. So does in English, as Shakespeare never wrote in Hamlet words as nanotechnology, internet or football.

Well, if those words are in Basque, I'd like to know it. In all languages new words are created, sure, but those words were created thousands of years ago, like democracy, government or independence, as opposed to internet or football.

3-"Euskera use has also allowed separatists to control the curriculum" The Basque languages is an heritage for -and of- ALL the Basque people, it has nothing to do with politics.

It do has to do with politics, as it is often used as a landmark of Basque nationalism. I agree it's a heritage of the Basque people, but this same people use it with political purposes. Also, Mr.Johnson is saying here that the subjects taught in school are being taught different when they are in Basque.

4-" Many Basque speakers still feel discriminated against because of the pervasiveness of Spanish." Well, I still feel discriminated, because every time I have to go to the doctor or having any other conversation with a civil servant (who is a civil servant for ALL of the Basque people, Basque speakers and non-Basque speakers) I have to switch to Spanish, a language that maybe I do not speak as well as Basque, that is why we feel discriminated, because we can not speak in Basque in much of everyday situations. Thus, that discrimination exists.

That discrimination that you are talking about is not a choice, it's a matter of skills. These people have to use Spanish because it's the only way for them to have a normal conversation. Would you keep trying to speak in Basque if the other person can't understand you, and it's better for both to speak in Spanish? They don't use Basque because they don't want but because they can't. That's not discrimination. In this case, maybe you'd prefer to have only doctors who can speak Basque, risking to run out of doctors.

5- "But back in the classroom, most of the frustration seems to be with the dense grammar, forthcoming exams, and the difficulty of finding quality shows on Basque TV." All language grammar is dense to deal with. Basque is as difficult to learn for adults as Spanish, English or Swahili, there are no difficult or easy languages, they are just different.

Your point Mr.Iturbe is right, but for someone who doesn't speak any language in the Earth, for example someone just born or someone from another planet. Because when a person has embraced a language, there are languages easier to learn than others. That's why for a Spaniard, Italian will always be easier to learn than German, and for a Croatian it will be always easier to learn Serbian than Russian. In this case, Basque is a very hard language for everyone to learn. It's so difficult, than even many people from the Basque country can't speak it.

I hope I have been able to express my opinion in a clear way, trying to be understanding and respectful. I'm looking forward to hearing your opinion.

Regards

Alvaro,

Let me give a short answer to your message which whom I can only disagree.

Let me explain my view step by step : 

1. We don't want Basque to be lost, but we don't think it should be imposed.

No one seems outraged though about imposing Spanish in Euskadi (Basque country). In all countries the national language is compulsory, and so should be Basque in the Basque country.  

2. It's a very good language, but not the langue of choice of many speakers, who in a vast majority prefer Spanish.

Prefering a language over another means that first of all there is a choice, which implies knowing many of them. The speakers you mention who in a vast majority prefer Spanish do not speak Basque, so they do not make any choice, they just speak the language they know, thus imposing it to the Basque locals.

3. I agree it's a heritage of the Basque people, but this same people use it with political purposes.

I really do not understand why the usage of my mother tongue, Basque, in my own country could be considered as a political act. It just means that I am able to speak Basque, but I do not see where the problem is… maybe because people who do not speak it in the Basque country would like me to speak to them in their own language, which happens often to be Spanish?

4. They don't use Basque because they don't want but because they can't.

I agree with you, and that is the problem. I imagine that if you were to speak in Russian to a doctor in a hospital in Madrid you would feel quite surprised, maybe even shocked. It is pretty much accepted everywhere, it is as much a matter of respect as a sign of integration, that when you go to live to a new location you learn the local language in order to be able to communicate with the locals. Well, it is funny how in the Basque country Spaniards do not care about this and keep on speaking only Spanish just because the majority of Basques speak fluently Spanish, a language that I remind you has been imposed to them.

5. In this case, Basque is a very hard language for everyone to learn. It's so difficult, than even many people from the Basque country can't speak it.

It is only a matter of willingness. Euskara is not more difficult or easier than any other language. All languages are easy when learnt at young age. Even Mandarin and Cantonese. Ask the thousand millions who speak it. I am sure if you went to Pekin you would find a way to learn their language, even if it is not related to neither English, Spanish or any other language that you might speak. I even know a Colombian woman who married a Basque in Venezuela, not a very Basque environment, and who learnt there his husband's mother tongue Basque. She still speaks it today fluently with no accent at all. Maybe is a matter of loving a Basque or the Basque culture... which might not be the case of the Spaniards living in the Basque country...

Hope this might help you see things from our perspective.