18(a) Describe the mission/purpose of your proposed gTLD

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1 - Describe the mission⁄purpose of your proposed gTLD


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1 - Describe the mission⁄purpose of your proposed gTLD

The mission of the proposed gTLD is to serve the Breton community, to represent, characterize and display all of its cultural, economic and social productions on the

internet. The Breton community is defined by all the people who feel attached to Brittany, its culture and its languages and who wish to display this attachment by

using a domain name.

Brittany is a western region of France with a specific culture and history, including two local languages (Breton and Gallo), and a strong identity. The members of the

community are, first and foremost, the inhabitants of the cultural and linguistic Breton area (4,441,000 people in 2009) and its diaspora (between 4 and 6 million

people), established across the globe, and in particular in France.

The Breton language (brezhoneg in Breton) is one of the six Celtic languages still spoken in Europe alongside Welsh and Cornish, with which it forms the Brittonic

branch of Celtic languages, and Scottish Gaelic, Irish and Manx. Today it is the Celtic language with the third largest number of speakers.
It is recognized as a regional and minority language in France, one of the languages of the Brittany area as well as the Gallo and the French. It is deemed severely

endangered by the UNESCO. A cultural language, the Breton has an extensive written literature. Its revival essentially occurred in the 1970s, when the population

showed a renewed interest. It started being taught at that time, with the creation of the Diwan associative schools in 1977, then the network of bilingual schools in

the national educational system and private schools around the parents’ associations Div Yezh (two languages) and Dihun (awakening). The Breton language also gained in

visibility by appearing in public life (bilingual signs, communication…), leading to the creation of the Office for the Breton Language in 1999, a public institution

for cultural cooperation since 2010. The Breton is practiced in the west of Brittany as well as in the large Breton cities (Nantes, Rennes…). Today, according to

sources, since no official census has been made, the total number of Breton speakers could be 500,000 (including occasional speakers and those who understand without

speaking). The number of active speakers is estimated to be close to 200,000.

The Gallo is part of the langues d’oil languages - as is French -, a group that includes for instance the Picard, the Norman and the Walloon. In 2004, the Regional

Council of Brittany has recognized the Breton and the Gallo as ‘languages of Brittany alongside the French language’. It is also recognized by governmental

institutions (1998, 1999, 2001), such as the Department of the French language and languages of France, in charge of linguistic policy. The Gallo is spoken in Upper

Brittany in the East. It is very difficult to determine the number of regular speakers. The National Institute for Statistics (INSEE, 1999) estimated this figure at

28,300, whereas other studies evaluated the number at 200,000 (including passive speakers). The Gallo is very close to other roman dialects such as Mayennais or

Angevin.

Brittany offers a rich and original cultural production (1st French region for the number of festivals, for its associative system, 2nd region for the production of

music records), while a significant part of its economy relies on a strong regional and cultural identity. Brittany is the second French region in Information

Technologies: it hosts 35% of French public research, 44,000 jobs are in this sector within 650 dedicated companies and 65 laboratories from 4 universities and higher

education establishments (more than 3,500 high level researchers). Brittany ranks second for telecommunication engineering degrees and third for electronics, IT and

communication degrees.

Brittany is widely referenced on the internet both directly (144,000,000 search results for Bretagne, 134,000,000 for Brittany) and through domain names: 14,000 names

are directly related to Brittany in the main registries (com, net, org, info and biz) with community keywords (Bretagne, Breton, breizh, bzh).

The purpose of the proposed gTLD is to provide the community of Brittany with a specific Internet tool that will better reflect the specificity of its cultural,

linguistic, economic and social activities and thus to :
* Serve the needs and interests of the Breton community and promote its culture, its languages and its economy by highlighting its products and productions
* Provide the online recognition expected by the community just as it benefits from this recognition offline
* Develop Information Technologies in Brittany while reinforcing the local innovation ecosystem, increase the value of the know-how and regional capacities in IT
* Work against the digital divide that separates high tech savvy users from the others.

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