In Spain, quite different from Belgium actually, we have four official languages; but only "castellano" -what the rest of the world calls logically Spanish- is official throughout the whole territory.

We have a problem in the Basque country, where a made up language -out of truly ancient dialects of the same roots, but nonetheless invented-, is being imposed to a population that mainly lives and communicates in castellano…

Unlike catalan or galego which have always had a lively literature and are widely spoken, the basque language didn’t endure the onslaught of the much more popular castellano in the XVII and XVIII centuries. It was cornered in the highlands and disvirtued… Now, they’ve tried to make it up again in a good-intended effort. However, this makes me ask the limits of "saving an endangered language"; above all, because this good willing initiative lost long ago its pristine intentions and, sadly enough, the basque language that so much helped to form castellano is now used as token to denigrate the latter.

        WS.