ALSO ON THE INTERNET, THE FIRST WORD IN BASQUE

Today the PuntuEUS Foundation, CodeSyntax, the Federation of Ikastolas and Kontseilua presented the collaborative project. Also on the Internet, the first word in Basque, with the aim of raising awareness of the importance of the first word we use on the Internet being in Basque and promoting its use.

Nowadays, when you enter a website, the content that appears usually depends on the language of the browser. Thus, if the browser or mobile phone is configured in Basque, the website will be in that language; if not, it will be in Spanish.

The picture is worrying. According to the measurements carried out on the Internet by this working group, barely 3-5% of Internet users in the Basque Country have Basque set as their browsing language. This figure doubles among Basque speakers (approximately 10%), but it is still a very small figure. Even among the most technophile and motivated Internet users, the majority have Spanish as their surfing language (between 70 and 80%).

If people do not browse in Basque, web developers will not take it into account, so there will be no content in Basque. Nor will mobile and computer systems offer content in Basque.

For this reason, the organisations will launch a campaign for the configuration of browsers and mobiles in Basque.

Appeal to web users and webmasters

The campaign is aimed at website users and managers.

On the one hand, the promoters invite users to translate their browsers and mobile phones into Basque. With a small individual effort, we will make our contribution to the normalisation of the language. And, to facilitate the change, two resources have been created: a plugin that automatically translates the browser into Basque and an application that translates the mobile phone into Basque when possible.

The aim is not only to explain the importance of all this to children, teenagers and young people, but also to raise awareness of it and show how to use it. For this reason, a didactic unit has been prepared under the name “Also on the Internet, the first word in Basque”. Its use will be promoted in the centres of the Ikastolas Association, and those responsible will be encouraged to facilitate and promote its use in the rest of the schools.

On the other hand, the promoters have called on those responsible for websites to prioritise Basque. That is to say, that their websites should display the homepage in Basque by default, instead of leaving the decision to the cookies. In fact, users rarely make conscious decisions, they rarely configure the language of their devices. It is also the responsibility of organisations and companies to define the main language in which they display their content on their websites.

The project will be presented during the 2nd Internet Day in Basque

The initiative “Also on the Internet, the first word in Basque” will be presented to society on 17 May, Internet Day in Basque. For the second year running, on 17 May, International Internet Day, the community will be celebrating Internet Day in Basque. This year it will be held in Azpeitia, organised by the PuntuEUS Foundation and Kulturaz Kultur Kooperatiba.

The aim of the Basque Internet Day is to promote the use of this language on the Internet. Always in a festive atmosphere. The actress Miren Gaztañaga and the musicians Xabi Solana and DZ will be in charge of livening up the party. There will also be many other surprises. In the San Agustín cultural centre in Azpeitia, from 19:00.