Project

The Basque Country has been a benchmark in the shipbuilding industry. Throughout history, ships built on our coasts have sailed the seas around the world, giving our country a rich traditional maritime and shipbuilding culture. However, the world and technology are constantly evolving, and our traditional heritage is being forgotten, along with the names and terms used to describe the concepts of that heritage.

The overall aim of this dictionary is to compile a basic specialised vocabulary covering concepts specific to the field of traditional shipbuilding, thereby providing experts and organisations working in this sector with a useful resource for their work and specialist discourse. Furthermore, it aims to provide a tool that will contribute to the preservation of this heritage in the Basque language, which is currently at risk of disappearing.

This project is the result of collaboration between three institutions (Albaola, Basque Maritime Museum, and UZEI) that have put their knowledge and experience at the service of the project. Thanks to this collaboration, the initiative has a solid foundation.

In order to define the semantic field in some way, concepts relating to the whaler San Juan have been compiled. In total, there are 241 concepts grouped according to the following themes:

The Basque terms have been compiled from a corpus of specialised texts in the field and, where necessary, directly from experts in the field in order to identify the most appropriate forms. Equivalents in Spanish, French and English are also included, allowing users to search in these languages. The dictionary has been compiled in accordance with the quality standards established by UZEI, as well as the rules and recommendations of the relevant linguistic authorities.

The main objective of this initiative has been to create a useful resource for experts, communicators and educators working in this field of knowledge.