![]() ![]() The thesis answers the following questions: (1) What are the challenges that all minority languages face in gaining visibility and greater usage on the Internet? And are there any reliable measures of the usage of minority languages on the Internet? (2) To what extent have the proponents of the major Spanish minority languages (Catalan, Galician and Basque) followed the historical approaches of the ‘majority language’ champions of Europe in promoting their languages and cultures globally? And to what extent have they employed different strategies on the Internet? (3) What can we learn from the successful Catalan campaign to win the first TLD in the Internet to be devoted to a minority language and culture? And what are the technical and political constraints on other minority languages achieving similar prominence and take-up on the Internet? The thesis critiques the literature on linguistic diversity on the Internet, and contributes a new taxonomy to resolve current confusion on the actual state of Internet language use, especially English. This provides an inspiring precedent for other minority language communities, keen to raise the prestige of their languages and thus avoid language decline. ![]() In 2005, one of these languages achieved an historic world record: the first allocation of an Internet top level domain name (TLD) to a specific language – Catalan. This thesis examines a recent phenomenon: the vigorous promotion of the minority languages of Spain on the Internet.
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