“Urquijote’s judicial crusade against the Basque language”: a single-faced “enemy”?

Abstract

In this article we will analyze the judicial appeals lodged by the Spanish Government Delegation in the Basque Autonomous Community against institutional initiatives aiming to revitalize the Basque language. In particular, we will look closely at the high-profile figure of Carlos Urquijo, the Government Delegate between 2012 and 2016, and the strategy of confrontation which he implemented and which was opposed by the euskalgintza, the movement in favor of Basque. According to the author, the judicial appeals lodged by the Delegate could have given rise to a more resilient and constructive reaction addressed to reinforcing the linguistic ideologies favorable to Basque, which is now in a phase in which its significant process of revitalization is slowing down. For the development of this research, a list of appeals lodged by Urquijo and his team will be compiled and various political-science and sociolinguistics theories will be the object of study and reflection.

Keywords: Basque language, Basque Autonomous Community, Spain, language ideologies, sociolinguistics, linguistic rights, language conflict.