[lg policy] Catalan Language News, Edition. 27 - February 2010

Thu May 20 13:43:00 UTC 2010

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From: <info at observatoridelallengua.cat>

  *Catalan Language News 27 - February 2010*        *WHO ARE WE?*
 The Catalan Language Observatory was set up in 2004 by cultural
organisations from all the Catalan-speaking lands, with the purpose of
monitoring the Catalan language rigorously and objectively.

 *MEMBERSHIP*
 *The following organisati! ons are members of the Observatory:*
· Acció Cultural del País Valencià <http://www.acpv.net/php/index.php>
· Associació de Juristes per la llengua
<http://www.juristesperlallengua.cat/>
· Casal Jaume I de Fraga <http://www.acpv.net/casals/fraga.html>
· Casal Jaume I de Perpinyà <http://www.acpv.net/casals/perpinya.html>
· Centre Internacional Escarré per a les Minories Ètniques i les
Nacions<http://www.ciemen.cat/>(CIEMEN)
· Centre Unesco de Catalunya <http://www.unescocat.org/en>
· Comitè de Seguiment de la Declaració Universal de Drets
Lingüístics<http://www.linguistic-declaration.org/index-gb.htm>
· Consell de Col·legis d'Advocats de Catalunya <http://www.cicac.org/>
· Culturalnord <http://pro.wanadoo.fr/catnet/Culturalnord.html>
· Fundació Congrés de Cultura Catalana <http://www.fundccc.cat/>
· Institut Linguapax <http://www.linguapax.org/en/homeang.html>
· Obra Cultural Balear <http://www.ocbweb.org/>
· Observatori de la Universitat d'Alacant <http://www.ua.es/spv/observatori>
· Omnium Cultural <http://www.omnium.cat/>
· Omnium Cultural de l'Alguer <http://www.omnium.cat/index.php?cov_ID=22>
· Organització pel Multilingüisme <http://www.om-plural.org/indexeng.html>
· Plataforma per la llengua <http://www.plataforma-llengua.cat/>

*With the support of:*
· Institute of Catalan
Studies<http://www.iec.cat/gc/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=148&languageId=1&contentId=-1>
· Television of Catalonia <http://www.tv3.cat/ptvcatalunya/tvcHome.jsp>
· IJLV <http://www.llengua.info/>- the Joan Lluís Vives Institute -, whose
members are the following universities:
- Abat Oliba CEU University<http://www.uao.es/cream/?site=uao&page=1&idioma=ca>
- Autonomous University of
Barcelona<http://www.uab.es/servlet/Satellite?cid=1101231878924&pagename=UAB%2FPage%2FTemplateHomeUAB>
- International University of Catalonia <http://www.unica.edu/primera.uic>
- Jaume I University <http://www.uji.es/UK/basic>
- Miguel Hernández University <http://www.umh.es/> (Elx)
- Open University of Catalonia <http://www.uoc.edu/web/eng/index.html>
- Pompeu Fabra University <http://www.upf.es/english/web>
- Ramon Llull University <http://www.url.es/en/index.php>
- Rovira i Virgili University <http://www.urv.es/en_index.html>
- Technical University of Catalonia <http://www.upc.edu/eng>
- Technical University of Valencia <http://www.upv.es/menui.html>
- University of Alacant <http://www.ua.es/en/index.html>
- University of Andorra <http://www.uda.ad/index.php>
- University of the Balearic Islands <http://www.uib.es/en>
- University of Barcelona <http://www.ub.edu/homeub/welcome.html>
- University of Girona <http://www.udg.es/>
- University of Lleida <http://www.udl.es/perfils/visitors.html>
- University of Perpinyà <http://www.univ-perp.fr/>
- University of Valencia <http://www.uv.es/~webuv/ingles/index.htm>
- University of Vic <http://www.uvic.cat/en/inici.html>

*With the support of:*

GENERALITAT DE CATALUNYA

INSTITUT RAMON LLULL

 *LINKS TO SITES WITH GENERAL INFORMATION ON CATALAN*
 Generalitat de Catalunya <http://www.gencat.net/index_eng.htm> *Government
of Catalonia*
Govern de les Illes Balears <http://www.caib.es/govern/index.jsp> *Government
of the Balearic Islands*
Generalitat Valenciana<http://http//www.gva.es/jsp/portalgv.jsp?br=1&re=1&co=es&chflash=true&force=si>
*Government of the Valencian Community*
Parlament de Catalunya<http://www.parlament-cat.net/portal/page?_pageid=34,33596&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL>
*Parliament of Catalonia*
IEC <http://www.iec.cat/>
*Institute of Catalan Studies*
institut Ramon Llull <http://www.llull.cat/llull/index.jsp?idioma=en>
*Ramon Llull Institute *

 *CONTACT US*
 *Observatori de la llengua catalana*
C/ de la Diputació, 276, pral.
08009 BARCELONA
observatori at observatoridelallengua.cat
00 34 93 319 80 50

    *CATALAN AND INTERNET*

*By Miquel Strubell i Trueta
Fundació Congrés de Cultura Catalana*

In 2005 Jordi Mas published a report on the presence on the Internet of the
top 34 languages, according to Google. Naturally, English took first place,
with 9.4 billion pages, over 45 times more than the runner-up, French (with
202 million pages).
Ahead of Slovene, Slovakian and the three Baltic languages, among others,
came Catalan, which took 26th place. In the previous two years it had been
overtaken by Greek, Indonesian, Croatian and Romanian (though earlier counts
had been undertaken using www.alltheweb.com, which is built on different
technology). In terms of pages per speaker, Catalan was 19th, immediately
ahead of Hungarian, Greek, Polish, Bulgarian and Spanish, among others.
The figures strongly that the Catalan-speaking world was quite quick to
realise the enormous potential that the world wide web offered. Infopista,
an early electronic newspaper, became www.vilaweb.cat in 1996, and has never
looked back. An Internet-based university, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya,
also began to offer its first degree courses - in Catalan - in 1995.
The figures given above do not mean to say that all websites of bodies based
in the Catalan-speaking lands have their website in Catalan. An organisation
set up by Catalan webmasters, WICCAC.CAT <http://wiccac.cat/>, has monitored
this development over the years, since 2002, thanks to its Barometer of the
Use of Catalan on the Internet. In that time the proportion of websites in
Catalan (or with a Catalan version) has risen from 40.7% to 59.0% (in
February 2010).
WICCAC has tracked down 78 websites in Catalan, of local authorities,
organisations, blogs and companies based in French Catalonia. By sectors,
WICCAC highlights areas in which the use of Catalan is least prevalent
(chiefly, industrial and commercial websites, such as electrical appliances
and photography - 7% in Catalan -; motor cars and motor bikes - likewise 7%)
or most prevalent (such as universities - 100% -; Theatre and Dancing - 97%;
Fairs and Shows - 89%-; and Wines - 88%).
The Catalan-speaking community, which has over 6 million first language
speakers, and a further 3 million who speak it as a second language, is
unique in having a top level domain (TLD) of its own, assigned by ICANN, the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ".CAT" falls between
the politically-defined TLDs such as .UK, .FR or .ES, on the one hand, and
thematically defined domains such as .ORG, .TV or .COM. "A short history of
the Catalan campaign to win the .cat Internet domain, with implications for
other minority languages", by Australian Peter Gerrand, makes interesting
reading.

The freedom that is a feature of the Internet also helps to explain why
Catalans have taken to the Internet with such enthusiasm. Moreover, groups
of volunteers have made it possible to download Catalan versions of a whole
range of popular computer programmes, including Open Office, Firefox and
WinRAR (through Softcatalà), or the popular TV series "Lost" with Catalan
subtitles.

      <http://www.cataloniatoday.cat/> <http://www.eurotribune.net/>
<http://www.observatoridelallengua.cat/observatori.php?llengua=en>

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