Dialogue with Antton Elosegi
Translation: Kristin Addis
Abstract
This article consists of an interview conducted in cyberspace with Antton Elosegi, the first translator of the modern Basque administration, who specialized in law before joining the administration in the capacity of official translator. About to retire from the University of the Basque Country, where he was a professor for more than twenty years, Elosegi discusses his long and rich life, linked like that of few others to the development of Unified Basque and to legal/administrative translation, as well as to pedagogical considerations. In the early days, when political militancy went hand in hand with linguistics, Elosegi was exiled but did not abandon his work as a translator. It would be difficult to find anyone better informed than Elosegi about the development of administrative language in Basque since he has been both a leading actor and a scholar of it, first as an active translator and then as a professor and researcher; indeed, his dissertation examined specific aspects of the administrative technolect.
