We have also a language technology department that develops automatic translators, voice synthesis technology… and some other tools that help us guarantee or increase the use and presence of Basque not only at work, but in many other areas. This is how for 52 years Elhuyar has developed new units: responding to the needs that have emerged in Basque society over the years .
Helene Armentia Artzak and Juanjo Perez Martinez de Lahidalga work for Elhuyar organizations established in 1972 in Basque Country. Its main objective is to bring together the science and Basque language. In this regard, the language technology department offers many services and tools that increase the presence and use of Basque in wide range of areas. Helene Armentia Artzak is responsible for language planning and Juanjo Perez Martinez de Lahidalga is language planning advisor at Elhuyar. Necat Ayaz has done an interview with both of them to bring attention the experience of the organization with the Kurdish language movement.
To the best of my knowledge, any organization working on language normalization specialize in one field but Elhuyar works in both the fields of corpus and linguistic planning. Why do you prefer to work in two different fields?
Elhuyar has a 52 year history and at the beginning the main need in terms of language normalization was the corpus; unified Basque dictionary…
Then, when “ikastolas” or schools in Basque started (in a minoritarian way, with no legal frame at all…), Elhuyar brought together a group of professionals on a voluntary basis, to write school text books in Basque.
Some years after that, upon the requests of companies, and Elhuyar started giving specialised courses of Basque at work (terminology, standard document creation…).
However, eventually, we realised those courses were not enough; we had to plan how to increase the use of Basque in companies in a more integral way: linguistic landscape, external written and oral communications, marketing area….
And that´s why Elhuyar works in different fields. In fact, nowadays we have also a language technology department that develops automatic translators, voice synthesis technology… and some other tools that help us guarantee or increase the use and presence of Basque not only at work, but in many other areas. This is how for 52 years Elhuyar has developed new units: responding to the needs that have emerged in Basque society over the years .
Do you get any support from the Basque Government linguistic department or any other language related organization working for Basque normalization? How do you cooperate with the official and civil structures in aiming linguistic normalization?
In our specific field, language planning, we do not get economic support (normally); our clients can obtain different grants depending on the investment they make to normalise the use of Basque in their company.
In the case of clients of the public administration, most of the are obliged to design and develop plans of normalisation of Basque inside the institutions and also in municipalities, so that, despite we do not get direct economic support from the government, local institutions usually contract services like ours to carry out those plans.
In other fields, specially in those that include some research, Elhuyar gets more economic support from the Basque Government.
I assume the different linguistic regimes based on the differences between the statute of Basque in each region further complicates your work. How do you take into account this fact when you prepare linguistic plans for entities?
We usually design each plan taking into account many factors, including legal framework. But apart from that we collect many quantitative data and qualitative information to make a thorough diagnosis. And we design the plans based on these diagnoses and the participation of the agents involved.
I am especially interested in your linguistic plans for municipalities. Can you give some information related the preparation and implementation of your general and sectoral plans for activation of use of Basque at municipal level?
Yes, of course. As I said, first of all, we try to make a rigorous diagnosis of the situation of Basque in different areas: education, leisure time (specially of kids and teenagers), sport, culture, socio-economic field… And then we organise a working group with representatives of different sectors of local society, citizens interested in the subject… to design the plan.
Once we have it organised we usually organise 3 meetings:
- 1 st meeting: we share the diagnosis with the participants, we collect their views to complete the diagnosis and among all we outline the most important challenges
- 2nd meeting: the group defines strategic objectives, main lines of work and actions.
- 3rd meeting: the group reflects on the structure, organization to develop the plan: How are they going to the develop the plan? Who is going to take part? Is the very same group going to coordinate with the city council to carry out the plan? Who is going to be in the “motor group” or motive?
We utilise participatory methodology for linguistic plans.
Kurdish mayors elected in the recent local elections in Kurdistan pledged to create Kurdish language departments to protect the language at municipal level. Given that this will be the first organized step to protect Kurdish what do you suggest for Kurdish municipalities drawing from your experience in Basque Country
This is a very difficult answer… but, I would start with training the elected councillors, but after that contract language technicians that could start working in language planning. It would be helpful, as well, to create a Kurdish Language Comission that include council members and interested citizens. The Comission should analyse the situation, and make proposal.
And first of all, if you do not have yet, a good diagnosis of the Kurdish language situation inside the council and at the municipality level would be very helpful to start with.
Photo: Juanjo Perez Martinez de Lahidalga Helene Armentia Artzak