Born in Madrid in 1968, Azurmendi was director of the Lyceum of Beasain. He later taught at the EUTG of the University of Deusto in Donostia-San Sebastián. In 1983 he was admitted to the Faculty of Psychology at the UPV/EHU, where he remained until his retirement in 2011. He has pioneered the directors of the ikastola, the vice-deans of Euskera, the professors and the psycholinguistics. Tribute to the Association of Euskera Bagera of San Sebastian.

Being a woman, a barrier

"Eusko Ikaskuntza-Sociedad de Estudios Vascos has praised her leadership because, among other things, you are one of the first women to become a professor at the university," said Miel A. Journalist Elustondo, at the end of the interview: "Did you help being a woman?"

- I've had an obstacle! "Azurmendi replied. "At my time, they were all men, most of them in college. Everything was more difficult for us. You say that I am a professor, and that is true, but at that time men were given priority, even to be appointed as professors. In our faculty, I was the third professor. The first two were men. The third was also a man. I was the first female professor in the Faculty of Psychology. I had the support of being a professor, but not of most men. However, I had the largest and best resume. I have also experienced this situation.

Bilingualism / multilingualism

In Azurmendi's words, "we can be bilingual or plurilingual, individual, but society is not." In 1980, I was in Quebec, at the University of Laval, with William MacKey, [the most prestigious person in international sociolinguistics] and that's what he said. In the event that social bilingualism is possible, each language must have its own territorial scope and be the only official language in that territorial sphere. (...) MacKey was surprised, despite being so crushed, by the force the Basque had among us. He said he hadn't seen anything like that in the world. (...) MacKey said clearly, we have never known a balanced social bilingualism, a language needs its own territory. People can know one language, and two, and three, and a lot, but a particular territory needs a particular language. Society will work with one, not two.

In Basque, less and less

"There was a time when we had a campaign in San Sebastian, 'the first word in Basque'. Now we should also start it," says the sociolingua: "Go to the store and in Spanish. Why? The merchant in front of us may well be able to speak in Basque. A few years ago I did it, I went to the Old Party, I entered the bar and I asked for Euskera. If you didn't answer in Euskera, goodbye! I was going to another one. (...) There are fewer and fewer Euskaldunes in the bars of the Old Part of Donostia. Back then, we went to the Old Party and we ate, we drank, we talked, we sang -- we did everything. Now, no. The first word we have to do in Euskera, everywhere you have to put someone who knows how to speak in Euskera, at least one."

Complete interview: "I had the support of being a professor, but not of most men," he added.