In this video, Chechu says,

“Hello. I’m Chechu Rubiera. I’m a cyclist. Prevent its death. Because it’s our language. Asturian official language!”

Leading Asturians have joined this political campaign to prevent the Asturian language dying out.

Although the official language of Asturias is Spanish, the language spoken by many locals is Asturian. Now protected by law and offered as an optional language in schools, supporters of Asturian claim that, because it is not officially recognised, it may be a dead language within two generations.

Chechu describes Asturian as “a dialect of Spanish, and very similar, although unfortunately it’s becoming obsolete and only a few words are still used between Asturians.” He has even taken to the streets to support his local language.

In 1994, there were 100,000 first language speakers of Asturian, with 450,000 able to speak or understand it as a second language.

photo source:  flickr.com