Bilbaíno, studied Basque Philology in Vitoria.

Old seminary. We finished the studies in 1987, and we were in this new faculty the following year. I came to Vitoria behind Koldo Mitxelena's schools, but he was always teaching at a higher level. I was never a professor. He retired in the fourth grade and died the year I finished them. I wish I'd been given class. I came here in part for her.

What does “in part” mean?

I lived in Deusto and I could go to college. But Koldo Mitxelena was teaching here and I wanted with him. To begin with, he put the militancy of the Basque Country on the road of doing Basque Philology. However, at the time I wanted to study Ethnography, I worked in the group of dances Bihotz Alai de Deusto, and later I played txistu. In that environment, I wanted to study Ethnography, but for that, the closest thing, I had to go to Paris. I learned French, and I didn't know French.

What was the Bihotz Alai group of Deusto?

Before, 14 years I, in the group of dances Goierri in the neighborhood of San Ignacio. There we were two or three years and went to Deusto, some friends of the Goierri. In Bihotz Alain danced Josu Larrinaga, Edorta Ialdebere and others, and in the Txistularis, for example, Josu Urrutia and Alex Iribar, the second professor at the University of Deusto today. The project of Bihotz Alai was to recover certain dances. Before I entered, for example, they recovered Lakuntza's dances. His intention was a genuine folklore, not current news, to give modern air to an original dance. No, the goal was to collect the dances as the people did and dance them. I don't know if things have changed since then.

You were a dancer, now incapable of dancing. Since when?

Difficulties for dancing forever. My disease is innate and since I was young I have had difficulty climbing the stairs, to run. However, I had to do a few dances and I managed to do it. But then I saw that I couldn't keep up with the other dancers, and then I left the dance and I took the whistle. Ja, ja…

When were you diagnosed with the disease?

Growing up, though I don't know when it was. I know what my parents told me. Apparently, we went to Madrid, to the hospital in La Paz, where we were diagnosed: lumbar dystrophy, dystrophy of the muscles of the legs and arms. It's a progressive disease.

You had been on top of two crutches twenty years ago.

I have never used a crutch. More than one tells me, but you're wrong. I needed the help of people to get here or there, and I would be caught from someone's arm, just in case, so no one would push me and fall involuntarily. But I haven't been mounted on two crutches. Finally, to move more easily, I took my chair.

How do you feel between architectural barriers? From Pamplona, Xanti Begiristain has repeatedly denounced these barriers.

Fortunately, there are fewer and fewer fences, although there are still fences. However, with regard to architectural barriers, Vitoria-Gasteiz is a paradise. I still have problems in some bars and shops, but in the rest, it is easy, in Vitoria-Gasteiz.

Is it easy to teach in college?

No problems. In other times, when I was no more than slate, I wanted to write and I had difficulties. Today, having the screen by hand, I write on my computer and use the screen. I have no problem teaching.

While you were doing the thesis, you weren't singing.

When I finished, yes.

However, the doctoral thesis usually takes a long time.

In my case, during the course of the thesis I decided to change the subject, which extended the deadline even further. I started researching Roncal, my intention was to collect, analyze and edit all of Roncal's texts. I started, but I also had to teach, every year I changed the subject, I always had to prepare a new theme, and in that situation I could not advance the thesis. On the other hand, I started researching the challenge and I met Bonaparte's work. I started studying his linguistic ideas, among other things, and the result was my first, long article. So on the one hand, on the other, I decided to change the theme of the thesis and go to the historiography of the language.

“XIX. Studies on the Basque grammar of the 21st century”, title of his thesis.

I studied how nineteenth-century grampens described Euskera. I am very interested in studying how the old grammar was adapted to describe Basque according to the Latin and the model of the surrounding Indo-European languages. The Basque and the Indo-European languages are so different! The adaptation of this model, among other things, with regard to the case system of the Basque Country or the Basque verb. Also in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries grammatics had problems describing the Basque, but in the nineteenth century there is more salsa, more theory and more authors.

As for linguistic ideas, for example, he studied Astarloa and Juan Mateo Zabala.

Juan Mateo Zabala, especially after the thesis. For example, Zabala knows the work of Astarloa Apologia [of the Bascongada language], but not the philosophical speeches of the same author, which is Astarloa's main work and which really develops his linguistic ideas, because it has been published much later. When Zabala, then, could not act according to Astarloa, he turned to Larramendi.

What does Larramendi have, talking about the new history of the Basque Country and always so present?

Because it made a great revolution. Larramendi brought Basque culture. There were some jobs in the North, but this South was quite desert, because, if you can say so, there was something. Larramendi wanted to turn the Basque language into a cultural language, and for that he did his work - apology, grammar, dictionary and others - and people listened to him, the writers listened to him, followed him and influenced him. Hence came the literary Gipuzkoan and, to some extent, the literary Biscayan, followed by Añibarro, Mogel and the others. Larramendi revolutionized the situation.

He has invented some words that we use in the word and in the mouth. “Relevance”, for example.

Larramendi had few words left, because then came the flood of Sabino Arana. Larramendi is an enemy to Arana, because he is Spanish. Arana’s is not a purely linguistic struggle – she also has her own grammatical ideas – but she wants to erase Larramendi’s words. They mix the two things together. Some cards, covers, etc. They have lasted until today, but most of them were thrown into the river by the Arana and the Arana.

This struggle seems interesting.

Students don't care very much. Jajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajaj They have come to university and have not read any classical Basque literature. Once the course begins, they will read nothing except the passages that the faculty instructs them. Most don't even know who they've been.

Why that lack of motivation?

I am dedicated to Basque Philology, which is now called Basque Studies, and I can say what I know. In our students, many have a different choice than philology. These studies have become impossible and have begun in philology. Some of them are not letters, but science. In spite of everything, they like Bertsolarism, or write, or they are Basque, and despite having a third or a fourth option, they visit us in philology.

Do your students speak Basque?

Yes, no doubt. In the corridors, among them, they will hardly be able to speak Spanish. I've met a case, a student case, an exception.

Just to speak, the motivation of the young students of now, and yours when you were young… Euskaldunberri – old – we have you. In what environment did your vasquism take place?

I don't know how that came about, maybe in 1978. The mother was from the PNV and some friends from her parents as well. At the age of 14, a parent's friend taught us something. We were in the students, my mother, that friend's wife from my parents, me, and I don't know if there was another one there. The colleague from the house who was a teacher was a good Basque but not a trained teacher. We had a lot of will, yes, and we did it as we could. After this, I immediately entered San Ignacio Night School. There I had Iñaki Antiquity as a professor. I learned a lot from him. When I was two years old and 16 years old, in summer, Juanjo Larrea gave me an intensive course. I soon started teaching at San Ignacio Night School. But things changed when I came to Vitoria to study Philology, because the classes were in the afternoon. So I went to teach at night school in Santutxu, at Karmelo.

In the morning she teaches at the night school in Santutxu de Bilbao, after eating in Vitoria-Gasteiz.

It was very exhausting. Go from San Ignacio to Santutxu, give school, go back, run and eat in a hurry, take the bus to go to Vitoria, the university… A year and a lot. In 1984, in the third grade, I came here, and I started teaching at AEK. Then it was IKA.

He completed his studies in Basque Philology and completed his doctoral thesis directed by Beñat Oihartzabal. Now, for the first time, he's led the other guy's thesis. “Archaic and Old Altonavarro” by Urtzi Reguero.

I have directed the first thesis, yes, and it has gone well. The jury gladly read it, made curious, non-superficial observations, and all right. The work has been done by the PhD student, I have helped him to organize some things, to complete the bibliography and to direct the writing, because we are all predisposed to knowingly giving many things, but not always so. As usual, congratulations to the two on the part of the jury! Ja, ja…

What is the help of the Archaic Basque Country, to bring to the day phrases, matrimonial beliefs and others that appear in Artajona?

You mean to save the Basque? Ha, ha… Not for that. But to satisfy the intellectual interest in language, yes, and also to better know the Basque of today. It is done in all other languages: to analyze the history and evolution of the language, to analyze the ancient texts… To save the Basque language, the analysis of the Archaic language does not serve, but, in fact, to save a language there is no automatic or immediate way.

If someone talks about saving nothing, it means…

It's in danger.

Is the Basque Country in danger of extinction?

It still has a danger point. Sometimes we're too optimistic. To verify the degree of knowledge and use of the young person. The surveys are there and the results are always, at least, worrying. The Basque is not going to die immediately, either, but I do not see the future fully secured, saved once and for all. The surrounding languages are very strong. Here we know Spanish, but in Iparralde, the weight of French is impressive.

In the meantime, what do the Basque tests consist of?

They're doing interesting things, moving forward. In the field of diachrony that I know, the theses that have been presented lately show: Céline Mounole, Julen Manterola, Koldo Ulibarri, Jabier Etxagibel, Manu Padilla, Urtzi Reguero… they study, publish… they all work in the Monumint Linguae Vasconum group, doing a good job, or very good.