The Success of the Euskalmoji, and: Sign the petition to add the ikurriña to WhatsApp!

This article was translated by John R. Bopp

This isn’t the first time we’ve mentioned France Bleu, the website of the French national radio station.  And we’re doing so again today because the regional broadcaster sometimes surprises us with real gems about aspects of the Basque reality.  For example, it wasn’t too long ago that they told us about the Third Basque Espadrille Throwing Championship, and not too long before that that they told us about an app we could download that included 500 popular Basque songs.

A lot of media have been talking a lot about the Euskalmoji that were created for social networks by Roberto Garrido, Ivan Pretel, and the Basque agency Tellmewow.  Today, France Bleu has published a report on this app and its success, with more than 85,000 downloads in the ten days it’s been available for download, for free, to our mobiles.  Over sixty images full of freshness that are also available in the three languages of the Land of the Basques: Basque, Spanish, and French.

We can’t help but take the opportunity this gives us to talk about them and ask them to also offer it in English.  There’s a huge diaspora out there that works best in the Bard’s Tongue.

They can be downloaded here.

And that brings us to our second matter in this entry:

We want the ikurriña in WhatsApp

Back in February, WhatsApp decided to incorporate new flags in their list of emoji, flags that belonged to territories that are not strictly independent, but which have a special status that gives them their own defined personality.  We’re talking about flags like those of Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, the Pitcairn Islands, or the Cayman Islands (which all belong to the United Kingdom); New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Saint-Bartolomé (which belong to France); Greenland (under Danish administration); or Aruba (which belongs to the Netherlands).

Perhaps encouraged by this new reality, a campaign was launched on change.org asking for the ikurriña to be included.  The goal was 25,000 signatures, but just over 23,000 have signed so far.  We were sure that by now far more than 25,000 would have signed.

So, we’re encouraging you to sign so that the ikurriña becomes available on your list of flag emoji.  However, we can say that you most likely aren’t aware that the ikurriña is visible on the list of flags currently available–it’s just really small.  One of the French Overseas territories,  which we’ve spoken about before, called Saint-Pierre-et-Miquélon, has an interesting flag: a picture of a ship, with three smaller flags to the hoist side; from the bottom to the top, the flags are those of Normandy, Brittany, and the Basque Country!

And to head off some comments at the pass, as we’re sure many will say that the Basque Country is not at the same level of those overseas territories, we’d like to share some information an American friend has pointed out to us.

Yes, it’s true, the Basque Country is not independent, nor far overseas, of France and Spain, but neither is Texas in the US.  And they currently have their flag available!

We’ll leave you with the France Bleu report about the Euskalmoji, and a place where you can sign so that they add the ikurriña to the WhatsApp emoji.

France Bleu – 31/7/2017 – Francia

Euskal Moji : les émoticônes made in Pays Basque

Les émoticônes basques débarquent dans nos portables ! L’application “Euskal Moji” propose pour l’instant près de 60 images. Tout le monde – ou presque – utilise des émoticônes pour faire passer ses émotions lors d’un échange de SMS ou encore sur les réseaux sociaux.

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Charge.org – 2017 – 

Emoticono Ikurriña en “WHATSAPP”

Sign to add the ikurriña emoji to WhatsApp

BASQUE COUNTRY

muchas gracias

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Last Updated on Dec 20, 2020 by About Basque Country