From November to the following summer, for eight months, eight Euskaltzales met each week under the Euskal Cultural Association Secretariat Culture, in the room that was prepared by the newly created Enbata, in the street of Las Cordelias, 14, on the upper floor of the Printing Office des Cordeliers.
Who we were? From the PNV Jesús Solaun and Telesforo Monzón, from ETA Eneko Irigarai and Txillardegi, from Enbata I, in addition to the three free priests who worked in the Basque liturgy: Andiazabal de Urruña, Jean Hiriart de Urruty and Roger Idiart de Azkaine.
In general, four Euskaltzales from Hegoalde and four others from Iparralde, perhaps thanks to the main place that the Labortano has occupied for a long time in the Basque literature.
For this, Txillardegi took the initiative. It was he who gathered us, based on two pillars: on the one hand, the Basque parties, on the other, the young Labortans priests who spoke of the line opened by the Vatican Council 2.
All the work had been undertaken by him, because he had already begun to think about the issue, and he was also the one who had the most skills among us.
As a corresponding member of the Basque Language Academy, he tried to push Euskaltzaindia, at least twice per letter, but in vain: for that there was no majority, because many of the older pigeons were not willing to move.
Discouraged, therefore, by the official route, Campanilla took a path, as weak as audacious, that would have to be unexpected success. He probably had solid arguments and fundamentals.
To carry out the work of these eight months, we held the Baiona Congress on 29 and 30 August 1964, Saturday and Sunday morning, always at the headquarters of the Basque Secretariat, on the first floor of 14 Cordelia, and the agreements were as follows: 1- Writing, Writing 2- Declination 3- Two assistants of Aditza (I am and I have) in the four main times 4- A small dictionary of words that had to take the letter or the letter H.
Later, in the summer of 1968, Koldo Mitxelena assumed the dose of Baiona as baptized and, in principle, made Txillardegi accept the work of Euskaltzaindia. If Hots Txillardegi is the father of the unified Basque, Mitxelena is the godfather and pastry chef of the Basque Country batua: if this interlocutor was necessary to be recognized especially among the viveros nationalists, at least to reassure him a little more than otherwise; he achieved it thanks to his prestige, which inspired him a great appreciation, on the one hand as an ex-combatant, To each of you, yours.
Obviously, Euskaltzaindia has not stopped at that: he has worked continuously and always in the same line, with all his assistants in the committees, in the different sections of the language: grammar, onomastic, atlas, vocabulary…
The dictionary of Batua collects the literary words of all the dialects: more than forty thousand has already appeared, and thus offers us an extensive, open Basque, especially to the writers. We talk about Euskera written, because that is the path we take for unity, and we have always followed. There is a lot to do, but if we start out there, where we would be today, as Leizarraga said, with differences from one town to another, and almost from one house to another…
This news was posted by Enbata and we brought it to ARGIA thanks to the CC-by-sa license.