A conversation at Hondarribia airport

Arriving at Hondarribia airport, John guesses that the pair of students approaching him are in charge of taking him to the pragmatics conference in Donostia. He tells them: “/ninaizdjon/.” Joana, a philosopher, has heard that John is very fond of both identity statements and jokes, so she takes him to have uttered the English sentence:

(1.1) Nina is John.

Although she thinks she has identified the English sentence used, Joana is puzzled about what John could be saying. She expects he is referring to himself with his use of ‘John’. But then to whom is he referring with the typically feminine name ‘Nina’? And why is he saying that he is Nina? What is he trying to do? She suspects John is trying to convey something funny connected with identity sentences and what philosophers say about them, but she can't figure out what this hypothetical joke might be.

Joana's friend, Larraitz, a Basque philologist, was not required to learn much about issues of reference and identity, and doesn't know much about John. This gives her an advantage in understanding what he is saying. She correctly takes John's utterance to be a use of a Basque sentence,

(1.2) Ni naiz John,

a rather literal if clumsy equivalent of ‘I am John.’ Her only doubts concern the proper way to greet him: shaking hands, the American way, or giving a kiss on each cheek, the usual way in this part of Europe.