26.1440, Featured Linguist: Itziar Laka

[The LINGUIST List via LINGUIST]

LINGUIST List: Vol-26-1440. Mon Mar 16 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.1440, Featured Linguist: Itziar Laka

Moderators: linguist at linguistlist.org (Damir Cavar, Malgorzata E. Cavar)
Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org (Anthony Aristar, Helen Aristar-Dry, Sara Couture)
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

*************    LINGUIST List 2015 Fund Drive    *************
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:

              http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/

Editor for this issue: Malgorzata Cavar <gosia at linguistlist.org>
================================================================


Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2015 07:10:21
From: LINGUIST List [linguist at linguistlist.org]
Subject: Featured Linguist: Itziar Laka

 
Dear subscribers,

we are pleased to present you our featured linguist Itziar Laka for Fund Drive
2015. Please support the LINGUIST List editors and activities with a donation:

http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/

----------------------------------------------

Itziar Laka

As a child, I always thought I would grow up to be the kind of biologist that
goes to Africa to film wild animals. Either that, or a novelist. Becoming a
linguist was not part of the landscape, since I had no notion then of what a
linguist did. However, I grew up in a place and a time where language was a
constant and relentless issue: the dictator Francisco Franco was alive, his
regime in full force.

There were many stories that had language at their heart when I grew up, too
many to tell here. There was for instance the story of how grandmother
Damiana, my fathers mum, had spent a night in jail because she had been caught
speaking Basque in the streets of Bilbao to an acquaintance who came from her
village and could not speak Spanish. That night in jail left a mark that never
went away. On my mother’s side, there were books hidden first, then burnt,
forbidden books whose crime was the language they were written in.

Even my school was clandestine and forbidden, it did not have a fixed
location. We left in the morning with a book and a folding chair, to the home
of whoever’s turn it was. Then, for a week or so, the folding chairs would
unfold in your living room and that would be school. I cannot thank enough the
brave  unassuming women who taught us. They were truly risking it all in their
quiet, humble, daily work. It is hard to explain what it is like to have your
language forbidden. It definitely makes you very aware of it.

Read more: 
http://blog.linguistlist.org/?p=2048

----------------------------------------------

Please support The LINGUIST List editors and activities and donate during the
Fund Drive 2015. LINGUIST List really needs your suppport!

Thank you all!








----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-26-1440	
----------------------------------------------------------