My name is Víctor, I'm from Oviedo, I speak Asturian,
which is a minoritized language in the north of Spain.
Asturian is currently in a situation...
in which it is not an official language, and there are many people
who are working for it to be official in the future.
As I've said, Asturian is not an official language,
it's only recognized in article 4
of our Statute of Autonomy, where its protection is recognized.
Later, in 1998, a law was passed, which is known as
'Law of use and promotion of Bable/Asturian',
which regulates a bit more the use of our language
and guarantees, in some way, its presence in education
and in the media, for example.
This is an insufficient law, although it has been useful
for [Asturian] to enter in the education system, and there are more and more students
who choose it as a subjetc. But we do find
some obstacles in the system.
I mean, from secondary education and beyond, students do not choose
Asturian because they don't see any utility, they don't consider that language to be useful,
and in the years before university and then in the university,
the presence of Asturian is meagre, you know?
As for the mass media,
Asturias has a public TV, the TPA, and when...
it was created, it had only one program in Asturian, and it was about...
recording people from different villages,
and it was mainly centered in orality,
in the Asturian's linguistic diversity.
It didn't make it any easier for people to consider Asturian as anunitarian language.
What we as a society claim,
-we who are worried and alarmed...
about the situation of the language-
is that there are news and sports broadcasts [in Asturian],
at least. I mean, something that people actively look for and, let's say,
consolidates the variety and strength of the language, right?
The TPA as well, from time to time,
broadcasts some film dubbed in Asturian...
We're making progress little by little, but what has been made so far
is not enough. I've personally been working since 2005
for the defense of Asturian, making it visible...
from my humble position, the situation of Asturian and also...
little by little, with the aid of Internet, with a blog, a personal blog...
in which I wrote my opinions and uploaded some some videos of demonstrations for Asturian...
I was associated to various organizations.
Afterwards, in 2006 I started to work on the Asturian Wikipedia,
because I thought it was essential for Asturian to be present on the Internet,