Revival, reggaeton, and rejecting unicorns - Basque interview with Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez
A new episode of Lingthusiasm!
Click here to listen to ‘Revival, reggaeton, and rejecting unicorns - Basque interview with Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez’
Basque is a language of Europe which is unrelated to the Indo-European languages around it or any other recorded language. As a minority language, Basque has faced considerable pressure from Spanish and French, leading to waves of language revitalization movements from the 1960s and 1980s to the present day. Which means that some of the kids who grew up among language revitalization activities are now adults, and the project of Basque language revival has taken on further dimensions.
In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic about new speakers and multiple generations of language revitalization in the Basque country with Dr. Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez, who’s an Assistant Professor at California State University, Long Beach, USA, and a native speaker of Basque and Spanish. We talk about how Itxaso grew up learning Basque at school and from her parents, who’d learned it as adults as part of the Basque language revitalization movement, and how studying linguistics gave her names for her linguistic experiences and made her realize she wasn’t alone. We also talk about a paper Itxaso wrote with several other multilingual linguists about how academia needs to stop searching for “unicorn language users”, aka users of minoritized languages who perfectly match a monolingual majority control group. Plus: Basque language revitalization through punk rock, reggaeton, and more music recs! (Links to songs in shownotes.)
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Here are the links mentioned in the episode:
Basque at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign blog (posts in Basque and English)
Basque music recommendations from Itxaso:
Berri Txarrak 'Libre' on YouTube. This band, mentioned by Itxaso in the episode, was huge in the 90s and 2000s. This song was a big hit, and it is very philosophical about topics also related to Basque politics. This one discusses 'Freedom'.
Su Ta Gar 'Mari' on YouTube. This band was huge during the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, and key to the revitalization processes - at least for the younger generation that wanted to see themselves as young 'rebels'.
Gatibu 'Aske Maitte' on YouTube. This band is from Gernika, they became active in 2000s and are one of the leading bands in Basque Country today. Their topics continued with the general theme of freedom, but also tackle lots of issues of feminism in a softer rock way.
Zetak 'Hitzeman' on YouTube. The band has become a biiiig hit in the Basque Country in the past few years. Super romantic and fun.
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Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, and our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.
Here’s the link again to ‘Revival, reggaeton, and rejecting unicorns - Basque interview with Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez’
Thanks for listening, and stay Lingthusiastic!
Lauren & Gretchen