The engineer Joseba Intxausti was a long-standing author in Basque culture. He died on Friday at 87. An old Franciscan friar, with historical studies in Arantzazu, Olite and Barcelona, dedicated himself to the lexicography and modernization of language in much of his life.

He was director of the journals Jakin and Anaitasuna and exercised the movement created in them together with Joxe Azurmendi, Joan Mari Torrealdai, Paulo Agirrebaltzategi and others. Intxausti participated in the creation meetings of the Euskara batua in Arantzazu in 1968.

It promoted initiatives and associations such as the creation of the UZEI lexicology and terminology center and the Bidegileak collection. He also participated in the Joanes Etxeberri project of Euskaltzaindia and in the Basque Foundation of Culture, which was secretary general. He was appointed a member of the Basque Language Academy in 1961 and an honorary scholar in 2004.

Intxausti has written many works. It is his book Euskal Aditza (Itxaropena, 1960), which directed and coordinated the Euskal Herria encyclopedia. Jakine put all his work on the internet a few years ago.

"I come from the Basque world, and if you prefer, from ethnography, and from a surprising long history," Miel A explained. Elustondo, in an interview with ARGIA in 2005. Surely no better than anyone, but it has happened to me: like my parents, like their brothers and uncles, like the earth, like the time… the natural limitations of human freedom. I do not want to live that as a malign destiny: they are mine and I end. And comfortable! ".

In this broad dialogue Intxausti tells many of his vital ideas and passages.