Imanol Larrea - Soziolinguistika Klusterra

‘Language is very important in any economic activity’

‘The sociolinguistics cluster is the meeting point that analyses language and society, Basque and society, all with a scientific objective. We are the research centre for the revitalisation of the Basque language'. This is how Imanol Larrea has presented Soziolinguistika Klusterra in this interview in which we have gone from the beginnings of the cluster to the latest projects that have been launched.

‘We carry out research projects. What we want to know, on the one hand, is the situation of the Basque language and, on the other hand, how we can improve it. And we also want to disseminate all this information about all the work that is being done there'. The best known project of the Sociolinguistics Cluster is the measurement of the use of languages in the street, a work that is carried out every five years throughout the Basque Country.

Imanol Larrea says, ‘the most important data we obtain is the street measurement and what we see there is that use is maintained, the use in the street, but we are not able to give a significant increase’.  But there is also positive data, such as the fact that the youngest people are the ones who use the language the most. ‘Is this enough, is it enough for the regeneration we dream of? Of course not, it is not enough,' adds Larrea.