Almost 70.000 citizens of all the Basque Country have signed up for the second edition of the “Euskaraldia”. After the great success the first edition had in 2018, they decided to do another edition this 2020. The 20% of the people that have signed up this year, didn’t participate in the previous edition. 

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Euskaraldia is an initiative in order to encourage the Basque language. The aim of the initiative is to speak in basque to everyone that understands the language during 14 days. There are two ways to participate: you could rather be Belarriprest or Ahobizi. The first group consists of people that understand the language, but they don’t know how to speak or don’t feel comfortable speaking it. So it means that you can talk to them in Basque, and they will try to answer you in Basque too. The second group is for those who know how to speak the language and understand it too. So, you must talk to them in Basque, and they must answer you in Basque too. 

 

In this new edition, there is another way to participate too. This new way is dedicated to the companies; could be a little shop, or a cafe, or any type of company. This new way is called Ariguneak and that means that you can speak basque in there and that they will understand you and they will even answer you in basque too. There will be more than 13.000 arigune in total in the whole Basque Country.

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The presentation of this new edition was in june, and since then members of the euskaraldia have been organizing everything. The time to sign up started in September, and now is about to finish as the initiative is about to start. There is just one condition to sign in, and is to be older than 16 year old. The initiative is from the 20th until the 4th of December. The reason for the date is because the 3th of December is the day of the Basque language, and this is going to be the last day of the initiative. 

 

Social exercise conditioned by Covid-19

Due to the global pandemic of the Covid-19, social distancing is a very important thing to do. So, as there is less presence on the streets, the organisers say that is time to change social habits on social media. At the end the main aim of this initiative is to encourage the use of the language, it doesn't matter how.