INTERVIEW FOR THE SPEECHPOOL NEWSLETTER

1. Is Basque your mother tongue or a B language? How did you learn it?
Yes, Basque is my mother tongue. I am one of those lucky girls who happen to be born
in the heart of the Basque Country, in a region where Basque is widely spoken. Here
education is offered only in Basque, so people whose parents dont know the language
or foreigners have to learn it.
My father has always spoken it and even though my mother was born in the same town
where I currently live, her parents were not Basques and they had moved a year before
she was born. As it was forbidden to speak and learn in Basque, she didnt learn it when
she was a child. My dad, on the contrary, would never speak in another language that it
wasnt Basque among his family and friends, not even Spanish. Education was in
Spanish and thats why he always prefers to read or write in this language. My mother
went to an euskaltegi, a centre for learning the Basque language, when she started
dating my father and she learnt it. However, she doesnt use it. When we are at home at
the table, I speak Spanish to my mother, but Basque to my father and my brother
because I know that my mother understands it too, so were mixing both languages the
whole time. When we mix in the same sentences both languages we call it euskaol
(Euskera + Spanish). Its curious and interesting, right?
2. Tell us about the Basque language. Is it similar to Spanish or French? Is it still
widely spoken (and by whom), taught at school, dying out?
Basque is a unique language. It doesnt have any similarity with any language in Europe
and, probably, in the world. It is classified as an isolate language and it is likely that it
was present in Western Europe before the arrival of the Indo-European languages to the
area. There are many hypotheses about its origins and connections to other languages,
but nothing has been proved so far. When I lived in Germany, many people asked me to
explain how the Basque grammar was and until that moment I hadnt realized how
complicated it is! The ergative-absolutive condition, the polypersonalism, the
declension, the postpositions and its sentence order, among others, make it quite
difficult to learn, but its richness is incomparable.
As in the place where I live Basque is widely spoken, I might have a perception that the
same happens throughout the whole Basque Country, but it doesnt. Sadly, there are
areas where Basque is hardy spoken and the education system is different. I personally
dont think that the language is dying out, there are more people than we think trying to
encourage people to speak it by launching initiatives nonstop.
3. Did you study interpreting? Was Basque in your language combination? What
other languages do you have? How many other students were there and who were
the tutors?
I studied my degree with Spanish as my A language, but in my last year I have had
interpreting classes in Basque. Even if I havent officially studied it at University, I
think I can translate from and to Basque and provide results with quality since I have
been translating web pages to Basque as a volunteer and I have studied its grammar in
detail. My working languages include also Spanish (obviously), English and German. I
study French and Chinese too and I hope to include the latter in my language
combination in the future, but I know that I will have to work extremely hard to make
this happen. I think that in my year class we were around 50 students, half of them with
Basque as their A language and half with Spanish. However, my classmates have been
mainly the people who have learnt the same B and C languages as me.
4. Is there a market for interpreting >EU and <EU? If so, is it mainly public
service work (hospitals, court), or is there any conference interpreting?
There is a market for interpreting, especially the combination EU>ES, but in my
opinion it should me bigger. As all the people who speak Basque are bilingual,
sometimes companies or institutions just dont want to spend money to interpret into a
language when they know that everyone knows Spanish. But as we have the right to
speak in Basque publicly, in those cases sometimes an interpreter is needed. Thats why
during my studies at University we practiced more <EU than >EU. As for the type of
interpreting Im not very sure since I have never worked officially as an interpreter yet,
but my guess is that there is more work with conference interpreting than any other
type.
5. Are there any special challenges interpreting from or into Basque (e.g. structure
of the language, lack of practice, etc.)?
Yes, indeed. When I started interpreting from Basque to Spanish I thought it wasnt
going to be as hard as to interpret from English, since both were my native languages,
but I was completely wrong. The structure of the sentences makes it difficult to
interpret. In fact, usually we would practice sight translation and split sentences in
segments so that we would know what to say first. I wrote an article about that in my
blog, so if you happen to know Spanish you can take a glance at it:
http://www.transolatzion.com/2014/03/interpretacion-simultanea-eu-es.html.
6. Do you think more could/should be done to promote minority language,
including Basque?
My answer to this question is yes and no. I mean, all languages are as valuable and
important as others, but I dont think that minority languages are usually
underestimated; they are simply spoken by less people than other languages. There has
been done a lot of effort to improve the conditions of Basque; for instance, when my
parents were children it was forbidden even to speak it and there wasnt a standard
Basque. This meant that in every region a different dialect was spoken and that
sometimes they couldnt even understand each other. The formerly created Royal
Academy of the Basque language, known as Euskaltzaindia, besides carrying out
research on the language, sought its protection and established standards of use. After
Francos death in 1979, it became an official language in the Basque Country together
with Spanish and it gradually began to be taught in schools. What I really want to say
with this is that even though much more can be accomplished, a lot has been done and
the survival doesnt depend on institutions in our case, but in the people. There is a very
famous quote: Hizkuntza bat ez da galzen ez dakitenek ikasten ez dutelako, dakitenek
hitz egiten ez dutelako baizik (A language doesnt die because the people who dont
know dont learn it, it dies because the people who know dont speak it).
However, I know that minority languages are occasionally marginalized within nations
and that political systems dont provide support and in those cases I think that solutions
ought to be found.
7. Is there a link between people's political convictions and the fact that they speak
Basque?
I dont think so, even though, ironically, that is what worldwide is believed. That the
people in favour of the independence speak more Basque in their daily life than the rest?
Maybe, but, actually, it doesnt have anything to do. The link is not the political
conviction, but rather whether you feel Basque and part of the community or not.