Basque (Spain) style guide¶
Apply these local conventions alongside the house voice and localization review. Source acknowledgments and selected references are in credits.
Voice and exact meaning¶
Write clear, natural Basque for the intended reader. Use approved technical terms when the task needs them. Keep the chosen register and form of address consistent; an explicit second-person pronoun is not necessary in every sentence. Simplify syntax without deleting the actor, owner, condition or uncertainty. A more conversational sentence must not invent a product capability.
Shorten a label only when its context supplies the omitted meaning. Mezu elektroniko can become Mezu in a clearly identified email context; Helbide elektroniko can become Helbide under the same constraint. Posta-kontu and Datu-konexio are the supplied shorter account and connection terms. Retain the qualifier when it distinguishes email from another message, address or account, or mobile data from another connection.
Prefer recognizable full words such as Aplikazio, Informazio and Ordenagailu to improvised truncations. Keep USB unitatea and disko gogorra distinct where the kind of drive matters. The supplied Lortu and Eskuratu distinction is a terminology prompt, not a universal rule dividing everything into abstract and physical objects.
Do not translate every “pick” or “choose” as Erabili. That verb can mean “use”; Aukeratu expresses choosing. Follow the intended operation and the product's approved terminology. Likewise, Hautatu, Egin klik and Sakatu are not automatic substitutes for every gesture. Follow interface actions.
Prefer direct purpose wording such as -tzeko, and use -ri buruz or -ri dagokionez where their meaning fits. Rewriting a construction with “help” or “enable” must retain who helps, what becomes possible and whether the result is guaranteed. “User experience,” “use” and “service operation” are not interchangeable concepts. Recast idioms for their intended meaning; remove one only when no meaning is lost.
Commands, states and messages¶
A command label can begin with its action, as in Sortu kontaktua. Preserve a distinction such as “new” when it separates creating from opening or reusing. Questions and explanations need natural sentence structure rather than the command-label template. Aurrera egin nahi duzu? is a question about continuing; Dena prest reports readiness.
Check tense and completion explicitly. The supplier's instalatzen ari dira describes installation in progress; it does not preserve an English statement that updates are already installed. A restart warning must retain the possibility of losing unsaved work and all affected users. Correcting invalid properties must precede a move that depends on that correction. Cancel is not proof that work has been saved.
Use complete messages and preserve the actual condition:
| Source function | Supplied Basque example or pattern |
|---|---|
| Cannot do something now | Ezin da… |
| Could not do something | Ezin izan da… |
| Not enough memory | Ez dago behar adina memoria. |
| Save changes to a known file | %1 fitxategian egindako aldaketak gorde nahi dituzu? |
| Purpose followed by an instruction | Laguntza lortzeko, sakatu F1 |
These patterns are not complete translations for every context. Keep memory distinct from storage, inability from unavailability, and an unsuccessful attempt from a current restriction. Use the named file pattern only when %1 really supplies a filename. Retain the actual key binding rather than copying F1 into an unrelated product.
Grammar, names and placeholders¶
Basque case endings and postpositions carry relationships that English often expresses separately. Choose the construction from the complete sentence. -ren, -ko and a compound are not a global find-and-replace set. The source distinguishes kontu-kudeatzaile from kontuaren kudeatzailearekin in different contexts. A glossary entry does not freeze every inflected occurrence.
Do not omit ownership merely because explicit possessives are less frequent. The source's Domeinu-administratzaileak kontua blokeatu dizu. illustrates person marking in a sentence about an account. Check whether the actual context also needs to identify whose domain or account is involved.
Do not invent a masculine/feminine article assignment rule for borrowed nouns. Check the accepted Basque word and its inflection. Preserve an untranslated product name, adding a grammatical ending or a generic descriptor as needed. Source forms such as Interneteko, bloga and Word dokumentu illustrate different constructions; they do not establish one suffix rule for every name.
Identify a placeholder's possible values before attaching an ending. A fixed word, a trademark, a multiword name and an arbitrary filename need different treatment. Keep %s, %1, [ProductName], escapes and markup intact. For variable content, a following generic noun can carry the required inflection. Test several real substitutions, including long and multiword values; do not guess a suffix from an English resource name.
Preserve the relation expressed by a destination or location. The supplied Kopiatu karpetan and Deskargatu karpetara use different cases with different verbs. Review the whole action; do not mechanically transfer English “to” or “for.” Zehaztu karpetaren izena expresses setting the folder's name.
Spelling, compounds and abbreviations¶
Use sentence case for new headings, labels and menu items. Retain proper names and literal UI capitalization. Not every Basque compound uses a hyphen: established forms can be closed, open or hyphenated. The supplied kontrol-panel, erabiltzaile-izen, aurrebista-modu, SIM txartel and Word dokumentu show different patterns. Check accepted spellings rather than imposing the supplier's preference for every compound with sorta, multzo or modu. Preserve the spelling of a protected name.
Prefer rewriting to unclear abbreviations. The supplied truncation convention keeps tx, ts and tz together, permits or. for orri, and recognizes vowel-ending month exceptions such as mai. and abu. Use established forms, not an automatic character-cutting rule. There is no fixed one-abbreviation budget for every string.
Common supplied forms include adib., admin., esk., ezk., zk., etab., or. and tel. Check ambiguity: or. appears for both a page and Friday in the source. Its weekday set is al., ar., az., og., or., lr., ig.; its month set is urt., ots., mar., api., mai., eka., uzt., abu., ira., urr., aza., abe. Keep the agreed set consistent and test the product's calendar output.
Retain established acronyms and expand unfamiliar meanings at first relevant use. PIN (identifikazio-zenbaki pertsonala) explains a retained acronym. A generic noun can carry inflection, as in PIN kode or SD txartel; the source also gives PINa and SDa. Established Basque acronyms can differ from English: AEB, AEBetan and AEBetako illustrate this. Do not impose an English-only acronym rule or abbreviate protected product names.
Numbers and punctuation¶
Use numerals for exact UI values, limits, versions and measurements. In ordinary prose, let grammar and readability determine whether to spell a number out; “up to ten” is not a rule for every surface. Aukeratu fitxategi bat illustrates the position of bat. A displayed numeric value and its spoken reading need not have identical word order.
For ordinary Basque percentages, place the percent sign before the value with a nonbreaking space: % 100, % 3,2. Euskaltzaindia's number guidance also recognizes standards-based notation in specialist texts; follow the actual document convention. Keep values and units together: 25 MB, 20 °C. An angle such as 90° has no intervening space. Preserve an attached case ending when required, as in 4 MB-ko eranskin.
Use a true minus in −9 °C and 5 − 7. Do not substitute an en dash or the masculine ordinal indicator for the minus or degree sign. Preserve both endpoints in a range such as 2–4 MB. Use the locale formatter for dates and ordinary numbers, but keep a literal version 4.2, input syntax and identifiers unchanged.
Use eta for “and” in prose; retain & in protected names, resource syntax and code. Follow punctuation and house formatting for UI references. Source quotation conventions do not require quotation marks around every control. Preserve case in names on either side of a slash. Place sentence punctuation according to whether parentheses enclose a whole sentence or only part of one. Prefer a clear sentence, comma or colon to a cumbersome dash aside. Use real Unicode characters; platform-specific Alt codes are not character definitions.
Inclusive language and final review¶
Use relevant, precise descriptions of people. A claim that Basque has no gender distinctions does not excuse stereotypes or remove the need to check the chosen address forms. Irakasleak and Bikotekide can suit teachers and a partner when those are the intended meanings. Preserve singular/plural reference and the actual relationship: gurasoak must not turn one parent into several. Senide can refer to a relative or sibling; context must retain the intended group. Seme-alabak and haurrak need not identify the same people when adult offspring are involved.
Follow accessible content. Do not equate health with absence of disability, replace every input method with selection, enforce one verb per sentence or assume symbols are always unreadable. Check actual accessible names and output. Claims about local product availability need current product evidence.
Use the actual keyboard behavior and bindings. Source key names include Gora gezia, Behera gezia, Eskuinera gezia, Ezkerrera gezia and zuriune-barra. Use zenbakizko teklatuko when the numeric keypad distinction matters. Access keys, key tips and command shortcuts are different mechanisms; test collisions and resource markers on the target platform. Do not inherit Spanish or English bindings, letter exclusions or arrow-key behavior without checking the app.
For audio and video, keep the agreed Basque variety, terminology and natural pronunciation. Verify retained names, acronyms, URLs and symbols with a proficient speaker; the supplier's mixed-quality pronunciation list is not a reliable script. Test a spoken draft against the visuals and the viewer's task. Opening length, repetition and a recap depend on what helps the viewer, not a fixed ten-second formula. Review full messages, counts, wrapping and substituted values with a proficient Basque reviewer.