Bla bla bla

[nooj]

Given the demographic weight of the area where Central Catalan is spoken, I think this criticism is a bit unfair.

Given the demographic weight of Spanish in Barcelona, if we wanted to be perfectly descriptive, there would need to be a lot more Spanish represented on TV3. But that is unacceptable. TV3 has the vocation to spearhead the recuperation and use and promotion of Catalan, and it's a matter of social justice and education to promote the use of all kinds of Catalan dialects, especially if they're spoken by fewer people, because they're going to have a rougher time representing themselves on a national stage.

Getting equal representation is not something I believe in, because all things being equal, certain varieties of Catalan/Spanish/English/Russian etc are unfortunately privileged today and more widely spoken/understood/represented. And that's just a fact.

I believe in affirmative action with regards to linguistic varieties in media, that is, actively promoting something that otherwise would not have a presence there due to socioeconomic or demographic reasons, or due to prejudices or biases.

For example, the idea that it's okay to use a certain linguistic variety to present the weather or comment on sport, but this variety shouldn't be used in a political debate because it doesn't sound 'serious'. To combat such an ideology, in my ideal world, the television would not disqualify journalists who speak this 'unserious' variety to moderate such a debate...

[tractor]

For example, the idea that it's okay to use a certain linguistic variety to present the weather or comment on sport, but this variety shouldn't be used in a political debate because it doesn't sound 'serious'. To combat such an ideology, in my ideal world, the television would not disqualify journalists who speak this 'unserious' variety to moderate such a debate...

I agree, but do they disqualify journalists from western Catalonia in this manner?

[nooj]

A song by the Asturian band La Col.lá Propinde from their album A teyavana (2009). According to the Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana a teyavana means in the open air, for example sleeping under the night sky. And it also means going commando (without underwear), although that probably wasn't the sense that the band had when choosing the name.

I'm not sure what the song is about specifically but the title 'ascu de vida' is quite appropriate for the last few months we've been living.

una selmana
ye too una vida
futuru tan negru
como la mina

tantos collacios
toos espardíos
aqueḷḷos planes
salieron torcíos

pa un mundu qu'hai
dos vides nun ḷḷeguen
ataime na cai
d'equí nun me mueven

A week
Is an entire life
A future as black
As the mine

So many workmates
All lost
Those plans
Went sideways

For a world
Two lives wouldn't be enough
Tie me to the street
They won't move me from here.

ascu de vida
cais ensin xente
naguando por ti
morriendo por vete

Shitty life
Streets without people
Longing for you
Dying to see you

dende les hosties
de fai unos años
dannos pol culu
y nun nos faen dañu

na mesa d'un chigre
borrachos perdíos
toos yeren currantes
agora vendíos

nueches en vela
suaños en verde
díes de llucha
naide lo entiende

Ever since getting our arses kicked
A few years ago
They've been screwing us over
And they don't hurt us

At the table of a cidery
Lost drunkards
All used to have a job
Now they're sell outs

Nights without sleeping
Green dreams
Days of struggle
No one understands it

[nooj]

A couple of days ago I passed through the town of Amaiur, a rural town of 275 people in the north of Nafarroa Garaia.



It is popular with tourists. In fact when I was walking through that part of Nafarroa, it was full of French people due to the proximity of the town to the border.

For example, I met close to there a group of Breton teenagers who were hiking very far from home. After a brutal climb out of Urdazubi, an interesting town in the South Basque Country, I stopped at the summit because I was busting to go to the loo. The hikers were there taking photos. They asked me how to return to Urdazubi where they had parked their car, apart from going back downhill. So they were looking for a circular route.

I told them I didn't know, but that I was going to Amaiur and that, "I think it's only two or three kilometres". Well while I was in the loo, they went off, and I checked the map and actually it was 4.5 km. So I tried to catch up with them to give them the right information but finally found them at Amaiur, at the ruins of the castle that overlooks the town.



Amaiur is famous among Basque nationalists and popular among tourists for two very different reasons.

Among tourists it's popular because it's a pretty town in an idyllic setting.

Among Basque nationalists it is famous for the last ditch defense of the castle (now in ruins) that took place there in 1522 by the Navarran defenders of Henry II of Navarra, who was trying to regain the lands he had lost against the Castillian invasion, starting with the conquests of Ferdinand II. But it was not to be.

The kingdom of Navarra would be conquered almost completely, only a small part, Nafarroa Beherea, today in the French state, maintaining its independence for a while longer before the French Revolution and Republic stripped away all pretense of autonomy.

In 1922 on the hill where the castle once stood, a monument was erected to commemorate that loss of independence.

In 1931, the monument was destroyed by dynamite in a terrorist attack. At the time, the Navarran government was debating the Statutes of Lizarra, which would have unified the provinces of Araba, Gipuzkoa, Bizkaia and Nafarroa into one single Basque state within the then Spanish Republic, a near recreation of the geographical reach of the medieval kingdom of Navarra.

And fervent desire of Basque nationalists. Unfortunately this political project never came to pass, and the South Basque Country today is still split between different autonomous communities. The Basque Country of today, is a shared cultural and social area, rather than a unified political entity which ceased to exist 500 years ago.

In 1982, so after the fall of the Franco dictatorship, the townsfolk of Amaiur recreated the monument, using the stones from the previous monument. And ever since then it has become a centre of pilgrimage for Basque nationalists as well as a site of active interest for archaeologists.



In this photo, a commemorative event. The text on the monument says:

Napar askatasunaren alde Amayurko echarrian borroka egin zuten gizonai. Betiko argia. 1522.

To the men who fought at the castle of Amaiur for Navarran liberty. Eternal light. 1522.

Further down, in the town itself, there was a sculpture entitled Lore iraunkorrak 'eternal flowers' and also an accompanying text.

This plaque has no translation. All the other informative signs in Amaiur have a Spanish/French/English translation.

This plaque was meant for Basque speakers and only for Basque speakers. Spanish, French, English speakers will pass by without having any idea of what it means. I'm certain that for the group of Breton teenagers for example, Amaiur castle was just a beautiful spot to take a picture from.

I took a picture of the plaque but my phone memory was full so I later called and asked the Amaiur tourist office to send me a photo.





Here is the text:

Madarikatuak eta ohoragarriak

Madarikatuak, madarikatuak...

Zuek, Nafarroako erresumaren independentzia lapurtu zenigutenak
Izan zaitetzte madarikatuak
Zuek, Amaiurko gazteluaren harresiak suntsitu zenigutenak
Izan zaitetzte madarikatuak
Zuek, gure kultura, gure euskara desagerrarazten saiatu zinetenak eta zaretenak
Izan zaitetzte madarikatuak
Eta zuentzat, Amaiurko gazteluan Nafarroako independentziaren, euskal kulturaren eta gure euskararen alde egin zenuten, nafar gudarientzat
Zuentzat gure ohore eta gure lore gure "Lore iraunkorrak"

Josu Goiak asmatu du eta Sebastian Odriosolak gauzaztu ninduten. 2006

The Damned and the Honoured

Damned, damned...

You who have stolen from us the independence of the Navarran kingdom
Damn you
You who tore down the walls of Amaiur castle,
Damn you
You who tried and still try to destroy our culture, our Basque language
Damn you

And for you, who defended our Basque language, our Basque culture, and the independence of the Navarran kingdom at the castle of Amaiur, to all Navarran warriors

For you, our Honour and our flowers, our "eternal flowers".

Josu Goia thought me up and Sebastian Odriosola constructed me.

[Dagane]

I find it quite sad and misleading when the Basque politicians of both regions try to appropriate themselves of the history of other Navarre, especially since they accuse others to do the same with theirs. They aren't the only ones making that mistake. I followed certain comments on here regarding the Catalan language, TV3 and audience quotas per language. Catalonia has 3 languages, the third one being Aranés, whose speakers often complain to the Catalan government along the same lines the latter uses to complain to the national one...

But enough ranting and back to the beautifully intriguing Basque language and Navarre. The association between Basque and the Kingdom of Navarre is a modern fallacy, at least to a certain extent. I don't know why nationalists always think that the borders of the territories they claim independence for always extend beyond the territories themselves (Have you seen the "Catalonian" weather forecast maps?). The Basque language is certainly alive in parts of Northern and Eastern Navarre. Before the arrival of the Romans, it may could might have been too, but certainty is shrouded in mystery (and a thick layer of nationalist pledges). Nowadays Basque is a big deal in the entire Navarre... but not for historic reasons but mundane ones including access to certain positions and even status, and this is detrimental in the short term and perhaps enriching in the long term to the zones of Navarre that were never Basque speaking areas. Did you know that Navarre had its own Romance language, actually languages when Mozárabe is included, and that they are already dead languages? I am talking here about that famous Kingdom of Navarre which built that Amaiur Castle and that your text claims as (presumably only) Basque-speaking.

This makes me have mixed feelings about learning certain languages with restricted native material. On the one hand I know I would enjoy conversations, music, film and literature so so much. On the other, I fear the amount of nationalism-loaded nonsense I may come across.

[nooj]

You don't need to speak or learn Basque to see through Spanish nationalist lies. There's plenty of history books written already in Spanish that can help you overcome Spanish nationalism.

Only Spanish nationalists like to claim that Basque was a minority language in Navarra. It wasn't. It was spoken in most of the kingdom, far more south than it is currently today. There was no place in Navarra - not even in Tudela - where Basque wasn't spoken in the Middle Ages.

Navarra was a multilingual kingdom, where Occitan-Gascon, Navarro-Aragonese, Arabic, Hebrew, Basque, Latin etc was spoken or written.

Care to have a guess what foreign language and foreign kingdom destroyed this multilingualism? It certainly wasn't Basque.

Of course I'm a strong supporter of Basque and Galician and Catalan far left nationalism. If you don't like that, you're not going to like most of what I post.

[nooj]

I want to talk about something that struck me when I was traveling through the North Basque Country. Very often I met French tourists, that is, not North Basques, but people from outside the North Basque Country, and had occasion to speak to them or ask them directions.

As usual I spoke in Basque first, to which I got the reply several times "ah non, je parle pas le basque, je suis français". As if French people can't speak Basque...?!

"Ah no, no hablo euskera, soy español" in Spain would be something only a Spanish nationalist would say here. It's an offensive statement that a normal person wouldn't be caught saying if they're not from the far right.

If an Andalucian tourist was in the Basque Country and someone asked them if they spoke Basque, the natural response would be "no, soy andaluz", as in, I'm from a different autonomous community where the indigenous language is not Basque so I don't speak Basque. To oppose Basque speaking and being Spanish is not a mainstream view.

But French linguistic ethnonationalism is the norm in France, so I guess speaking Basque is what foreigners do.

Sometimes I even detected a sense of offense, as if they were offended I expected them to speak Basque.

For example in the town of Ainhoa, I went to the tourist information office and asked for information in Basque. To which the lady said she didn't speak Basque... but with a strange tone and expression, defiant and miffed at the same time, as if to say "why should I speak Basque?".

Uh well you work in a Basque town and you're working in a tourism office... why shouldn't you speak Basque?

Now think about this, Ainhoa has a population of 666 people, 27.34% of whom were Basque speakers in 2010, and 4.7% of whom used Basque regularly.

But in Iruñea (Pamplona), the capital of Navarra, with a population of 201,000 people, 8.65% of whom were Basque speakers in 2010, with the terrifying low rate of 0.4% of regular Basque use...three days ago, I was still able to go to the tourist information centre and talk in Basque to the three employees, all of whom were native Basque speakers.

That is to say, in Iruñea, a city with less Basque speakers proportionally than in the town of Ainhoa, I was able to be served in Basque.

But the woman at the information desk in Ainhoa did not speak Basque and I had to speak French to get what I needed. What kind of dumb employment practices are going on there?

[Dagane]

Of course I'm a strong supporter of Basque and Galician and Catalan far left nationalism. If you don't like that, you're not going to like most of what I post.

Not long ago there was a poll in Spain asking people to rate their feelings for their autonomous community, the country and the European Union in order of strength. Mine was the only region among 17 where the three of them stood on equal grounds, and I thought nothing else could represent me better. The three political layers have the same importance to me.

I am not nationalist, and that includes Spanish nationalism. I am also a convinced leftist. There is no such thing as true leftist nationalism because they nationalism is in essence a right-wing ideology. I show respect to parties like ERC and BNG for their leftist ideas and also for their subtle political prowess, but not for their nationalist interests.

I am a strong supporter of multilingual communities and abhor of all types of nationalism because they tend to be monolingual. I think it is best to keep languages and politics separate because politicians make random groups of people hate their own languages otherwise, and that is very sad.

[nooj]

For example, the idea that it's okay to use a certain linguistic variety to present the weather or comment on sport, but this variety shouldn't be used in a political debate because it doesn't sound 'serious'. To combat such an ideology, in my ideal world, the television would not disqualify journalists who speak this 'unserious' variety to moderate such a debate...

I agree, but do they disqualify journalists from western Catalonia in this manner?

Not as far as I know for Catalan, but this does happen for Spanish on national TV. That is, although you will find Murcian, Extremaduran and Andalucian journalists speaking their respective dialects of Spanish in their autonomous community's TV channels, it's very rare to see/hear these varieties in the studios in Madrid. They're told explicitly or implicitly to speak differently.

[Dagane]

As usual I spoke in Basque first, to which I got the reply several times "ah non, je parle pas le basque, je suis français". As if French people can't speak Basque...?!

That's because France is a very centralised state for most things including languages, and its lamguages and dialects are therefore dissappearing. They haven't even signed the European chart of minority languages (I forgot its official name). Spain has a completely different approach to this.