Koldo Mitxelena

"[1] He is known for the complete reconstruction of Proto-Basque he undertook in the 1950s, as well as the formal demonstration in 1954 that the Aquitanian language was an ancestral form of Basque.

When he was young, he was affiliated with the Euskal Langileen Alkartasuna and the Basque Nationalist Party, and learnt about the Euskaltzaleak youth movement led by Jose Ariztimuño, known as "Aitzol."

When the Spanish coup of July 1936 took place, Mitxelena volunteered to join the Euzko Gudarostea, the army of the Basque Government.

The entire opposition had one hope: that the Allied Forces in World War II would win, and thus cause Francoist Spain to fall.

On April 10, 1946, Mitxelena was again arrested for his activities related to the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo and the Basque Nationalist Party.

In 1948, Mitxelena was once again in Errenteria, but he enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters in Madrid, having been encouraged by Francisco Jordá, his prison mate.

In 1954 he was appointed director of the Julio de Urquijo School of Basque Philology, as well as member of the editorial board of the magazine Egan.

At the same time as he began giving classes in Salamanca, the Royal Academy of the Basque Language charged him with the great responsibility of unifying the written Basque language, among other things because of the disputes caused by the use of the letter H. His point of view was not the neutral one of a linguist, but also had the input of sociolinguistics in his mind.

Between 1969 and 1971, Mitxelena taught comparative Basque linguistics at the Sorbonne as professeur associé and chargé de cours in the École Pratique des Hautes Études.

At the beginning, he would often visit Martinet's house, and he eventually entered into his circle of friends and scientists, as well as into his publishing network.

Mitxelena was a linguist of true calling, and had knowledge of many languages, but beyond that, he was an avid reader of literature, including detective novels.

The first volume of the General Basque Dictionary was finally published in 1987, but Mitxelena was unable to see it, as he had died shortly before, in that same year.