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Donostia-San Sebastian.  Today, the International Day of Euskera will be celebrated all around the world, or at least in places where Basques reside.  The celebration was an initiative that began in 1948 Thanks to Eusko Ikaskuntza (Society of Basque Studies) and since then it has become an annual Basque language festival.

Celebrations are taking place all around the world, thanks to Basque clubs.  Some of these were reported last week, in another article that mentioned several activities that will take place these days in the Basque community in Argentina. Following we will take a tour of this world-wide celebration from the Basque Country to the Diaspora.

In the Basque Country

“Mundiala,” is the motto that the Basque Government chose for this day that has claimed Basque as the “base and bridge for coexistence,” according to the Department of Education, Language Policy and Culture in its institutional declaration.  In this spirit, it has launched a campaign #mundiala, playing with its double significance in Basque: as Mundial can also mean wonderful, marvelous.  This is Basque for the Basques and to show it, the campaign has created a world map of Basque speakers on Twitter.  Basque is one of 25 languages that is used on this social network and all the messages that are sent with the hashtag #mundiala will identify Basque speakers in the world and create a map

The official celebration will include an institutional event at the Lehendakaritza where former President of the Academy of the Basque Language (Euskaltzaindia), Jean Haritschelahar will be honored.   Haritschelhar passed away on September 1^st.

Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa

In Gipuzkoa the Provincial Government, the University of the Basque Country, Mondragon University and the Gaztezulo Magazine will hold a youth event as part of the program “Ika Mizka,” gathering young Basques from Mondragon’s College of Business to debate how they live in Euskera. 

In Bilbao, the Provincial Government of Bizkaia awarded the Lauaxeta awards yesterday that are given annually to different cultural personalities for “their efforts and work in favor of the production, diffusion and standardization of Euskera in Bizkaia.”  Balendin Lasuen won the 2013 Lauaxeta Honorary Mention, the Lauaxeta Poetry Award was won by writer Ricardo Arregi Diaz de Heredia for his work Bitan esan beharra, and the Lauaxeta Prize for AudioVisual went to director Jabi Elortegi for his documentary Galerna ekaitz ezezaguna.

In the Diaspora

From the Diaspora we have received word about events for today and the coming days, as well as information and photos of various festivities that have taken place. In Santiago, the Basque Community in Chile celebrated an event at the Cerro San Cristobal, where the Basque Plaza is located.

In Salto, Uruguay, the Saltoko Euskaldunak Association held an urban intervention that can be seen in the video on its blog: Basques in Salto.

Today and in the coming days

In Valencia, the Euskaltzaleok club will celebrate Euskera Day today by showing the feature-length animated film Gartxot, in Basque with Catalan subtitles at the College of Philology at the University of Valencia.

In Reno, NV the Center for Basque Studies has organized a translation workshop from Basque to English and vice versa, followed by “A bite of Basque America,” a tasting of Basque food at the Basque Conference Room starting today at 4:30pm.

In Barcelona, the Basque club will celebrate all week long with Basque activities, with a  Basque refrain contest, documentaries, a concert by Kepa Junkera (December 5^th),and much more.  All the information is on the Euskal Etxea’s blog.  In Madrid, the Department of Philology at Complutense University held a dinner yesterday to celebrate and today the Basque club will also host a meal, while also celebrating the day of Navarre (today is also San Frances Xavier) in an event that will include the award ceremony for the III Photography Contest.

From Germany, the Berlin Basque club let us know about activities that is has organized including a complete program that will begin on December 5^th with a concert by Napoka Iria and Gari.  In Leipzig, the Basque lecturer at the University there has also organized various events.  Today, HABE technician, Kinku Zinkunegi, will give a talk on language policy in the Basque Country and on December 17^th poet, Angel Erro, will give a talk on queer poetry entitled, “Miss Pelotaris favoritoak,”  at the Horns Erben bar.