The PuntuEus Foundation and the Oiartzun City Council sign a pioneering agreement to increase the use of Basque in the digital environment

It is the first time that the PuntuEus Foundation and a city council signed this type of pioneering agreement to promote digitization in Basque. The objective of the agreement will be to increase the presence of the Basque language in the digital environment of Oiartzun. To facilitate the expansion of the PuntuEus domain to Oiartzun entities.

The PuntuEus Foundation and the Oiartzun City Council have signed a pioneering agreement to increase the presence of Basque in the digital environment. It is the first time that in Euskal Herria something like this is done between a town hall and the Fundación PuntuEus.

The objective of the agreement will be to increase the presence of Basque in the digital environment of the municipality. To do this, the current situation will be analyzed and, once the situation is known, actions will be proposed to increase the use of the Basque language.

In the words of Josu Waliño, director of the PuntuEus Foundation, “PuntuEUS aims to influence the digital transformation of society from the Basque language, and the agreement we signed today aims to strengthen the presence of the Basque language in the digital environment through the initiatives that we are going to implement, as well as promote digital transformation from the Basque language to local level.

To begin with, the City Council will facilitate the payment of the PuntuEus domain for one year to 100 local entities.

Oiartzun, municipality of high potentiality

The commitment of the Oiartzun City Council to promote the presence and use of Basque in the digital environment is not new. The corporate website of the City Council belongs to the PuntuEus domain since 2016 (www.oiartzun.eus).

According to the mayor of Oiartzun, Jexux Leonet, “in Oiartzun we see great opportunities. It is a Basque municipality with a large industrial estate. It has great potential to spread PuntuEus in our country.”

Oiartzun has more than 500 small, medium and large companies.

The PuntuEus domains will be deployed through three projects promoted by the City Council

The dissemination of the PuntuEus domain in Oiartzun will be carried out through three projects promoted by the Oiartzun City Council: LANIN, Euskara Merkatara and Euskara Elkartea.

The City Council launched in 2017 the LANIN project to promote the use of Basque in small and medium-sized enterprises (with less than 50 workers). To date, actions have been carried out in 42 companies. The translation of websites has been one of the most offered services.

Euskara Merkatara is a project to increase the presence of Basque in the hotel and commercial establishments of the town. In operation since 1995.

The Oiartzun City Council launched in 2006 the Euskara Elkartera project, with the aim of promoting the use of Basque in local associations. After several years of operation through specific agreements, guar is worked in 22 associations with a high degree of normalization.

Normalization of the Basque language in all fields

The aim of the Oiartzun City Council is to normalize the use and presence of the Basque language until it becomes a natural way of acting. For this purpose, it works in the activation and offers services that facilitate the normalization of the Basque language in the different areas of the municipality. The City Council considers that the agreement signed with the PuntuEus Foundation for two years will help break this path.