• Catalan
• a minority language?
• a business opportunity
• .cat domain
• Termcat
• curiosities
• Contact

Within the European Union there is no other case of a language spoken by so many millions of inhabitants which is not fully present in the majority of mass-market goods. For many products, Catalan is still the exception. The erroneous criteria of associating the importance and therefore the consideration of a language with the fact that it belongs to an independent state affects its status in all areas.

Everywhere in democratic and developed countries, linguistic communities with a volume of consumers similar to that of Catalan are always respected. There are no objective reasons to justify discriminatory treatment of Catalan consumers. Catalan consumers have exactly the same rights as any other European consumers and furthermore, their economic strength is often much higher than that of other linguistic communities that already have all products available in their language, and therefore production in Catalan is fully economically justifiable.

The presence of Catalan within products is one of the precepts included in what is called social responsibility. Labelling in Catalan is as much a part of responsible consumption as respect for the environment, the consumer's right to appropriate product information and the rights of workers involved in production. If a company has a public commitment to act according to a code of ethics by which it takes into account the communities where it operates, or if it is committed to not showing racist or discriminatory attitudes for cultural or social reasons, then it should label in Catalan at least essential information for all its mass-market products distributed in Catalan territory.

Catalan, a minority language?

• Europe's 8th language in terms of population.
• Europe's 13th language in terms of speakers.
• 9.1 million speakers.
• 11 million people understand it.
• A higher number of speakers than Finnish, Danish and Norwegian and comparable to Swedish, Greek and Portuguese in Europe.
• Catalan is an official language of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, theValencia Region and an extensive area of southern France, which the Catalans refer to as "North Catalonia". It is the only official language in Andorra (an independent state between France and Spain, recognised by the United Nations) and is also spoken on the "Aragonese Fringe" (a narrow area in Spain between Catalonia and Aragon) and in Alghero, Sardinia (Italy). Catalan can be studied in 160 universities worldwide. Catalan, is the 19th language on the Internet in terms of websites per number of speakers. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's Translatonium Index, Catalan is the 23rd most translated language in the world.

Catalan language, a business opportunity

Gross Domestic Product

2006	Catalonia	Balearic Islands	Valencia Region	EU-25 Average
GDP per capita (€/inhabitant)	26.124	24.456	20.239	24.500

Source: Eurostat, INE

Note: The GDP of this region is higher than that of Sweden, Ireland, Finland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Its exports (2002) exceeded those of Turkey or Argentina.

Population

2007	Catalonia	Balearic Islands	Valencia Region	TOTAL
Population	7.210.508	1.030.650	4.885.029	13,126,187

Source: INE
Note: The number of inhabitants of the Catalan-speaking territories within Spain represents 29% of its population.

 

IT (%) in homes

2007	Catalonia	Balearic Islands	Valencia Region	EU-27 Average
PC	65.5%	59.9%	57.6%	60% (2006)
Internet	42.9%	48.2%	42.9%	54% (2007)
Mobile phone	92.7%	89.5%	92.7%	80% (2007)
MP3 player	43.7%	37.7%	40.1%	n.a

Source: INE, Eurostat, Eurobarometer                      
n/a (not available)

Presence (%) of IT in companies

2007	Catalonia	Balearic Islands	Valencia Region	EU-27 Average
PC	98.57%	99.83%	98.80%	97%
Internet	96.37%	95.25%	93.24%	94%

Source: INE, Eurostat
n/a (not available)

Use of IT by those over 15 (%)

2007	Catalonia	Balearic Islands	Valencia Region	EU-27 Average
Percentage of regular PC users	58.7%	58.2%	52.7%	62%*
Percentage of regular Internet users	53.9%	53.7%	48%	51%**
Percentage of mobile users	87.2%	85.2%	85.2%	n.a
Percentage of users of Internet for leisure (%)	45.6%	50.6%	47.2%	n.a

Source: INE, Eurostat
n.a (not available)
*Note: Percentage of individuals (16 to 74 years of age) who have used a computer in the last 3 months
**Note: Percentage of individuals (16 to 74 years of age) who access the Internet, on average, at least once a week.

 

Use of ICT between 10 and 14 years old (%)

2006	Catalonia	Balearic Islands	Valencia Region	EU Average
Percentage of regular PC users	83.1%	73.2%	72.8%	n.a
Percentage of regular Internet users	83.3%	80.7%	64.3%	n.a
Percentage of mobile users	47.4%	48.9%	58.4%	n.a
Percentage of users of the Internet for leisure (leisure, music, games)	79.6%	81.2%	80.6%	n.a

Source: INE
n.a (not available)

There is an obvious demand for an IT device market inCatalan. According to the 2007 TIC-Llengua [ICT-Language] study, promoted, among others, by the Government of Catalonia, a significant percentage of consumers want devices in Catalan.

 

	MOBILE PHONE		MP3 PLAYER		GAME CONSOLE		PDA
Users (%)	81.9		34		19.9		4.8
Language device	Current	Wants	Current	Wants	Current	Wants	Current	Wants
Catalan	11.8	30.3	4.3	28.6	2.7	22.3	15.3	31.3
Spanish	82.7	46.8	70.9	42.3	81.9	49.6	73.2	37.5
English	2.5	1.3	16.1	3.2	7.7	3.3	8.6	6.8
Other	1.2	0.8	0.8	0.8	1.0	0.2	0	0.1
Don’t  know/Don’t answer	1.9	0.8	7.9	3.3	6.8	4.3	2.8	2.4
Indifferent	-	20.1	-	21.9	-	20.3	-	21.9

Profile of intensive Catalan user of IT devices

- Male

- Aged 15 to 29

- He considers himself to be Catalan, or at least more Catalan than Spanish

- Mobile 100%

- MP3 player 80%

- Internet, SMS, file swapping 80%

According to a study entitled "Llengua i activitat econòmica" (1999) [Language and economic activity in Catalonia] issued by the Government of Catalonia, 71.4% of citizens believe that the use of Catalan should be increased on product labels.

Furthermore, according to the Fundació Audiències de la Comunicació i la Cultura (FUNDACC), the number of homes in Catalonia in which the common language is Catalan have a percentage of Internet connection (56%) which is 7 points higher than those in which the language is Spanish.

To grasp the volume represented by the Catalan market, one should remember this fact: The leading telecommunications operator, Telefónica, receives as much income from the area of Catalonia alone as it does from its markets in Chile and Argentina combined.

According to a report by the Nuffield Foundation, “Languages for All: Languages for Life. A Strategy for England”, 20% of British companies have missed opportunities for business due to lack a of multilingual capabilities.

.cat, an exclusive domain to identify Catalan

In September 2005, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), based in California, approved the establishment of the Internet domain .cat which will identify Catalan culture and language on the Internet. More than 27,000 domains have been registered and the principal search engines list more than 4,000,000 web documents under the .cat domain up to February 2008. The .cat domain has more presence than other TLDs, such as .aero, .travel, .jobs and .museum, and is the first and only domain in the world that identifies a specific language and culture on the Internet. . If you get a .cat domain you will improve business by targeting a better segmented market. Here are some examples:

• Microsoft - www.microsoft.cat
• Google - www.google.cat
• McDonald's – www.mcdonalds.cat

termcat, quality catalan translations

Through the TERMCAT [Terminology Centre for the Catalan Language], the Government of Catalonia offers advice on the localization of technological products in Catalan. This guarantees the quality of translation of terms included in the language options for IT devices.

catalan curiosities

• The origins of Catalan date back to the 9th century and the first texts in Catalan date from the 12th century.
• Famous Catalans, such as the painter Salvador Dalí, the musician Pau Casals, the architect Antoni Gaudí, the soprano Montserrat Caballé, the tenor Josep Carreras, the world’s best chef, Ferran Adrià, the NBA basketball player, Pau Gasol (Los Angeles Lakers), the Popes Calixtus III and Alexander VI (15th century), or the first governor of California (17th century), Gaspar Portolà have Catalan as their first language.
• English words, such as alioli and groggy are from Catalan.
• ISOC-CAT, the Catalan chapter of the Internet Societyand one of the first chapters in the world of this internationalorganization, was created in 1995.
• The size of the Catalan iTunes audience in its worldwide Spanish version is reflected in the politics and news sections of the TOP PODCAST. 14 of the TOP 100 are in Catalan.
• Google and the Biblioteca Nacional de Catalunya [National Library of Catalonia] have signed a collaboration agreement for the inclusion of the collection of five of the main libraries of Catalonia in Google Books: The books that will be digitised are those that have come into the public domain, which could represent a collection of some 300,000 volumes
• The Catalan version of the free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, was the second in the world to be published on the Internet and offers over 100,000 articles.
  

Contact

Ministry of Governance and Public Administration
Secretariat for Telecommunications and the Information Society

Passeig de Gràcia,11 esc.B 6è-2a 08007
Barcelona (CATALONIA-Spain)
Tel.: 0034 933638364
E-mail: difusio.stsi@gencat.cat

Download "Catalan, a business opportunity" (.pdf)

 

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