Mogel and Father Añibarro were the first writers to express a concern for raising Biscayan to the level of a written Basque dialect. They wanted to create a literary Biscayan, just as other writers had done with Guipuzcoan before.

These two writers were close friends but argued at length with each other when discussing literary Biscayan.

Mogel lived in Biscay despite being Gipuzkoa-born and being in favour of adopting the Basque dialect of the town where he lived (Markina, Biscay) just as it was, and writing in it.

Father Añibarro, in contrast, lived in Gipuzkoa but hailed from Biscay and had a perspective of the whole of the Basque Country. He felt it was wrong for literary Biscayan to have the features of a single town and thought it should adopt some general criteria.

Apart from these two writers, Pedro Astarloa (1751-1821), Fray Bartolome (1768-1835) and Juan Mateo Zabala (1777-1840) also contributed to the creation of literary Biscayan.