Catalonia gets a '.cat' domain
2005-09-19 11:57
Madrid - Web domain authorities in the United States have handed the eastern Spanish region of Catalonia 'virtual' national status by approving ".cat" for internet sites in Catalan and pertaining to Catalan culture, regional government sources said on Friday.
"For the Generalitat (regional government), this signifies that the Catalan linguistic and cultural community in the whole world will be able to identify itself everywhere with a domain which places us, wholly normally, beside other languages and cultures which identify various states and nations," University research and information councillor Carles Sola said.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, the domain regulator, validated a submission by Catalonia's Association PUNTCAT (www.puntcat.org) which was made on March 16 last year.
The Generalitat, which comprises a socialist and leftist independent Catalan party, will now register its site under the new domain, Sola said.
"The acceptance of the domain means top-level recognition and is of primary importance for Catalan culture and language. It is a distinctive element which will go hand in hand with growing Catalan content on the web." said Oriol Ferran, Generalitat secretary for telecommunications and information affairs.
Catalan, an official language in Spain, and its variants are widely spoken in the autonomous region of Catalonia, as well as in the Balearic Islands off Spain's Mediterranean coast, the region of Valencia and parts of the region of Aragon.
It is the official language of the tiny principality of Andorra in the Pyrenees and is additionally spoken in parts of southern France around Perpignan, as well as in the Italian city of Alguer.