Sharing our model on how we do things to promote the Catalan language
project and why we do it and how we engage with language activists and
also which are our challenges.
Did you know that Catalan Wikipedia was just the second version of
this encyclopedia to have articles, right after the English-language
version and weeks before versions began to appear in other languages
that are much more widely spoken throughout the world? It is just one
example of Catalans on the internet and of their civic activism in favor
of their language. With more than 500,000 articles, it’s the 18th
biggest Wikipedia in a ranking by number of articles. If you take into
account the number of Catalan speakers—about 11.5 million—it should be
in 80th or 90th place. Those who write in Catalan on the internet still
have a decidedly activist character borne of the prevailing diglossia.
Even still, the position of the Catalan language is not fully
normalized, despite its advances. On the internet, net neutrality and
the existence of open platforms that are easily adaptable to different
languages have been key factors in the success of networked Catalan
successes. The net favors activism and facilitates getting people with
similar interests together: it is a tool that connects. In a society
with a tradition of community involvement like Catalonia, the net has
been ideal for making our language and culture visible. Without
political borders or obstacles, we are able to grow more than we can in
the real world, which is significant given the numerous roadblocks that
we suffer there. Our only weapon to gain the world’s confidence has
always been our work ethic.
Even though it is horizontal and neutral, the internet tends to
reproduce the models we have in the physical world. When local
associations, chapters, or divisions are organized from whatever
international group or project, it’s often by country. Since Catalans
always want to be there with our own voice, we defend groups that are
defined by interest instead of by political borders. Our particular
situation as a nation without a state has often been the catalyst that
has generated changes in a variety of international organizations. One
example of this is the .cat domain, which was the very first top-level
domain to be awarded to a linguistic and cultural community—and not to a
state— and which opened the door to the creation of other types of
domains. In the case of Wikipedia, the Amical Wikimedia group of friends
of the Catalan Wikipedia lobbied the Wikimedia Foundation to create the
Thematic Organizations concept, which were local chapters of Wikimedia
based on common interests and not borders.