euskalkultura.eus

Chicago, US. This Friday, Feb. 21, the University of Chicago will host a conference entitled, “Celebrating Basque on International Mother Language Day”. With three speeches on language and culture, this will be an important event for Basques. Talks will be led by Xavier Irujo, Karlos Arregi and Amaia Gabantxo and will start from 3:30 p.m.

Arregi will give the first speech, “Linguistic Diversity in the Basque Country”, which focuses on Basque dialectology. Next, in “A Hundred Years of Basque Poetry, a Map in 15”, Gabantxo will talk about Basque poetry and literary history. Finally Irujo will account the struggles of preserving the language in “Basque Language, a Fight for Survival”.

Unesco named Feb. 21 International Mother Language Day in 1999 in hopes that mother languages, and all minority languages, would be remembered and promoted.