Introduction by Mark Kurlansky

The firs time I heard the secret tongue, the ancient and forbidden language of the Basques, was in the Hotel Eskualduna in St.-Jean-de-Luz. It was the early 1970s, and Franco still ruled Spain like a 1930s dictator. I was interested in the Basques because I was a journalist and they were the only story, the only Spaniards visibly resisting Franco. But if they still spoke their language, they dindn't do it in front of me in Spanish Basque-land, where a few phrases or Basque could lead to an arrest. In the french parte of Basqueland, in St-Jean-de Luz, people spoke Basque only in private, or whispered it, as though, only a few miles from the border, they feared it would be heard on the other side.

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