YouTube incorporates Catalan after nearly a year of internet outcry

Barcelona (ACN) .- YouTube finally speaks Catalan. The most popular video site on the internet is finally navigable in Catalan. The move comes three months after a group of web-surfers handed 2,000 signatures to Google requesting a translation into Catalan. The head of the campaign is a computer scientist from Elx, Daniel Olivares. He told CNA that “it was about time” that YouTube was available in Catalan. He feels that the presence of Catalan on the popular video service site will bring about a “normalisation of the language”. Now he hopes to achieve the same goal with the new online music service, Spotify.

“The campaign ends with 2973 signatures”or “We have succeeded in getting the Catalan language on YouTube”. These were phrases that could be read on the campaign’s website on the Catalan social network, flog.cat. No need to collect more signatures because the goal has been reached, the biggest audiovisual website online is now ready for Catalan-speaking Internet users.

The satisfaction of the head of the campaign Olivares was evident. This March will mark the one year anniversary since he began the campaign to collect signatures that was also spread on Facebook to encourage YouTube’s owner, Google to start speaking Catalan. Seven months later, an ordinary mail was sent with more than 2,000 people to the Google branch in Spain and the company headquarters in California.

Olivares explained that Google reported that it had received the request but, once the translation was available, the computer giant was not been in contact with those responsible for the campaign.

Why Campaign?

"YouTube is one of the most popular Internet services online with the most visits so we thought it should have Catalan”, the young guy from Elx told CNA. “As most Google services are already in Catalan, we thought it was time to incorporate YouTube, in order to achieve a standardisation of the language”.

Browse in Catalan

Catalan has been added to the list of 40 available languages available on YouTube. For those who already have the browser set in the Catalan language, the translation is automatic. On entering www.youtube.com, you already see the version in Catalan. If not, you can change it from the internal tool options or choose to configure the browser in Catalan, just like the campaign of the foundation PuntCAT says ‘Browse in Catalan’

New challenges

Flog.cat is a social network Facebook-style, but “more humble and simpler” explains Olivares. It has plenty of different activities including campaigns for the Catalan language. Daniel Olivares explained that before the YouTube campaign, they fought for the translation of Windows Live Messenger, Tuenti and Fotolog. The latter are now all available in Catalan. His new target is having the Swedish music site Spotify and the telephonic company Yoigo translated into Catalan.  “We now have over 600 signatures for Spotify and 170 for the mobile phone company”.