The Basque language (Euskera) is on the verge of disappearing from the digital sphere. The governments of Spain and the Basque Country have decided to join forces to prevent it from vanishing from the world of technology. Over the next three years, 10.5 million euros will be allocated to the development of Euskera in the field of artificial intelligence. This initiative aims not only to preserve the language but also to make it relevant in modern digital services.
Under the agreement signed by representatives of both governments, a large-scale language corpus will be created. Its goal is to provide developers and companies with the necessary data to integrate Euskera into voice assistants, translators, and other intelligent systems. This move is intended to serve as an example for supporting other minority languages that are also at risk of disappearing from the digital world.
Euskera Corpus: Building a Digital Base for the Language
The project involves collecting and processing a vast array of audio recordings and texts in Basque. This data will be carefully annotated and used to train machine learning algorithms. As a result, new speech recognition systems, automatic translation tools, and virtual assistants capable of understanding and speaking Euskera will be developed.
The creation of the corpus will proceed in stages. The project involves not only government agencies, but also private companies and academic organizations, including the Euskaltzaindia language academy. In the future, all developments will be made available to businesses, society, and European open-source platforms.
Funding and Criticism: Who Supports the Project and How
The Basque Country will allocate five million euros over two years to implement the initiative, along with additional funding from other departments. The Spanish government will provide the remaining funds. However, there has been some criticism: some experts argue that the project has not sufficiently considered the opinions of leading language technology centers such as the Hitz research center and the Langune cluster.
Despite this, the goal remains the same — to create a sustainable digital infrastructure for Euskera and other minority languages. Particular emphasis is placed on developing language models capable of competing with their English counterparts and ensuring a strong presence of Basque in the digital space.
ALIA and New Prospects for Spain’s Languages
As part of the national artificial intelligence strategy, the ALIA project is being developed—a large-scale language model that covers not only Spanish, but also Catalan, Galician, Valencian, and Basque. Ten million euros have been allocated for ALIA’s development, and the language corpus is set to expand to four trillion words. Official documents and scientific publications serve as the primary sources.
The Ministry of Digital Transformation pays special attention to copyright protection when using texts for model training. At the same time, some materials were obtained without royalty payments, which is permitted under current legislation if the rights were not specifically asserted by their owners.
The future of minority languages in the digital age
It remains unclear whether similar agreements will be established for other Spanish languages, such as Galician or Catalan. However, the experience with Euskera could serve as a starting point for large-scale programs to preserve linguistic diversity in the digital environment. Authorities emphasize that the openness and accessibility of new language models will be key to their successful integration into daily life.
In the coming years, the Basque language will have the opportunity not only to survive but also to secure its place among languages actively used in modern technologies. This is an important step for preserving cultural heritage and fostering the development of a digital society in Spain.
