Spanish Basque (eu-ES)

This documentation was updated on October 31, 2023.

Creating grammars

The following subsections describe key issues for working with grammar documents in the Basque language.

Character encoding

Nuance Recognizer has full internal Unicode support. For example, you can create your grammars using UTF-8 or Latin-1 (also known as ISO-8859-1) character encoding. For example, your grammar header might be:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?> 


<grammar xml:lang="eu-ES" version="1.0" root="test">

Below are codes for writing some common Basque characters. These are useful if you do not have access to a Basque keyboard, and are typed by pressing the ALT key while entering digits on your keyboard (after typing the last digit, the desired character appears on your screen when you release the Alt key):

Alt/0209 = Ñ	Alt/0241 = ñ

If you do not have access to a keyboard for your target language, you can use the Windows character map. (Choose the “System” font and the “Latin-1” subset.)

Start _→_ Programs _→_ Accessories _→_ System Tools _→_ Character Map

alphanum_lc built-in grammar

The alphanum_lc built-in grammar recognizes a connected string of up to 20 digits and lower case alphabetic characters. For example, this grammar could be used to recognize a product code or order number.

Characters are the letters a-z, and ñ. The letter `w’ can be pronounced as “v bikoitza”, “v doble”, or “doble v.”

Digits are 0-9. The digit `0’ can be pronounced as either “zero,” “huts,” or “hutsa.”

Non-alphanumeric characters such as hyphens (-), dots (.), and underscores (_) are not recognized; if spoken they reduce recognition accuracy.

Note: The alphanum_lc built-in grammar replaces the alphanum built-in grammar

Return keys/values

MEANING	Contains a string of ISO-8859-1 digits and lowercase letters, with no embedded spaces.
SWI_literal	Contains the exact text that was recognized.

alphanum built-in grammar

The alphanum built-in grammar recognizes a connected string of up to 20 digits and alphabetic characters. For example, this grammar could be used to recognize a product code or order number.

Characters are the letters a-z, and ñ. The letter `w’ can be pronounced as “v bikoitza”, “v doble”, or “doble v.”

Digits are 0-9. The digit `0’ can be pronounced as either “zero,” “huts,” or “hutsa.”

Non-alphanumeric characters such as hyphens (-), dots (.), and underscores (_) are not recognized; if spoken they reduce recognition accuracy.

Return keys/values

MEANING	Contains a string of ISO-8859-1 digits and lowercase letters, with no embedded spaces.
SWI_literal	Contains the exact text that was recognized.

boolean built-in grammar

The boolean grammar collects an affirmative or negative response.

Properties

The y and n parameters let you associate any two touchtone buttons as synonyms for yes and no.

Parameter	Description
y	Desired DTMF digit to be equivalent to “bai” (default = 1)
n	Desired DTMF digit to be equivalent to “ez” (default = 2)

Examples

Caller says	MEANING key
bai	true
ez	false

digits built-in grammar

Valid characters are the digits 0-9. The digit `0’ can be pronounced as either “zero, “huts,” or “hutsa.”

Vocabulary items and pronunciations

This chapter describes considerations for vocabularies and their pronunciations in Basque (eu-ES). Your product documentation covers details about how to work with pronunciations and dictionaries.

Specially tuned pronunciations

The following table shows common words that are fine-tuned by Nuance Each of these words contains “word-specific phonemes;” that is, phonemes and associated models created especially for the words.

Words with tuned pronunciations (do not modify):

• All letters of the alphabet, a-z and ñ
• Boolean: bai and ez
• Digits: 0-9
• Cardinal numbers: 0-99, 100, and 1000

Basque pronunciations

This section provides detailed reference information to help create pronunciation dictionaries. It is intended for people who have sufficient knowledge of the Basque language as spoken in Spain. It provides information about transcription and pronunciation.

As reference dictionaries we use:

Basque-English Dictionary, ed. Gorka Aulestia, University of Nevada Press, 1989. ISBN: 0-87417-126-1

English-Basque Dictionary, ed. Gorka Aulestia and Linda White, University of Nevada Press, 1990. ISBN: 0-87417-156-3

The Basque phoneme system

The Basque phoneme system can be conveniently divided into two groups:

• Consonants
• Vowels

Furthermore, it is possible to define six different types of consonants:

• Plosives
• Fricatives
• Affricates
• Nasals
• Laterals
• Trills

Basque spelling is very regular. This means the relationship between spelling (grapheme) and sound (phoneme) is easy to define since the orthography is very regular and correlates well with pronunciation. Nevertheless, there are some, mostly regional, pronunciation variants.

Within the vowel group, a distinction can be made between vowels and semivowels . Furthermore, diphthongs represent an additional characteristic among the group of vowels. Basque has two groups of diphthongs, increasing diphthongs and decreasing diphthongs .

Exceptional in the case of Basque is the reduction of the vowel set, which is explained further on in the subsection Single vowels (monophthongs).

Basque symbol set grouped by phoneme classes

Phoneme class	SAMPA	IPA	Examples of use
Consonants	Plosives	p	p
b	b	begia	/beGia/
t	t	etorri	/etorri/
c	ɟ	ttanttaka	/cancaka/
d	d	denda	/denda/
k	k	ekarri	/ekarri/
g	g	gaia	/gaia/
Fricatives	jj	ʝ	paisaia
f	f	alfabetiko	/alfaBetiko/
B	β	global	/gloBal/
T	θ	interpretaci	/interrprretaTi/
D	ð	irudikatu	/iruDikatu/
s	s	museo	/museo/
s`	ś	kezken	/kes`ken/
S	ʃ	koexistentzi	/koeSistents`i/
x	x	konjokazio	/konxokas`io/
G	ɣ	milagarren	/miLaGarren/
Z	ʐ	oparia	/opariZe/
Affricates	tS	tʃ	momentutxo
ts	ts	saigots	/saiGots/
ts`	tś	motz	/mots`/
gj	ç	arrainjale	/arraingjale/
Consonants	Nasals	m	m
ɱ	hainbat	/aimbat/
n	n	normal	/norrmal/
J	ɲ	ñimiñotasuna	/JimiJotasuna/
Laterals	l	l	umilgarriak
L	ʎ	urtarrila	/urrtarriLa/
Trills	r	r	ikurrinaren
rr	ɾ	elektrikoa	/elektrrikoa/
Vowels	Singlevowels	a	ɑ
e	e / ɛ	baiteritzo	/baiterits`o/
i	i	digu	/diGu/
o	o / ɔ	erredakzino	/erreDaks`ino/
u	u	gailendu	/gaLendu/
Decreasingdipthongs	ai	ɑi	haien
ei	ɛi	hitzei	/its`ei/
oi	ɔi	kanoi	/kanoi/
au	ɑu	mahukari	/maukari/
eu	ɛu	neurri	/neurri/
ou	ɔu	bungalowak	/bungalouak/
Increasingdipthongs	ia	iɑ	buruhaundiak
ie	ie	eukien	/eukien/
io	iɔ	federazio	/feDeras`io/
iu	iu	ziur	/s`iurr/
ua	uɑ	eredua	/ereDua/
ue	uɛ	inguruetako	/inguruetako/
ui	ui	intuizio	/intuis`io/
uo	uo	munduotan	/munduotan/

Basque consonants

The standard Basqueconsonant system is generally considered to have:

• Seven plosives
• Eleven fricatives
• Four affricates
• Three nasals
• Two laterals
• Two trills

The sample words givenbelow demonstrate the different contexts in which the sounds canappear. A short explanation is also given.

Plosives

There are three voicedand four voiceless plosives in Basque, which can be arranged in pairsas shown below:

Voiced	Voiceless
/b/	badira futbol
/g/	gaika zerga
/d/	diagu helduz

Fricatives

Basque has a distinctionbetween laminal and apical articulation for the alveolar fricatives andaffricates. In the laminal consonants the friction occurs across theblade of the tongue, while in apical ones, it occurs at the tip ( apex ).

There are elevenfricatives in Basque, voiced and six voiceless:

Voiced	Voiceless
/jj/	baia gehiagotan
/B/	deskriptibo zubiak
/D/	badakizu xukadera
/G/	egindako txikiago
/Z/	morfologia

Affricates

In the Basque SAMPAsymbol set there are four affricates. Affricates are in SAMPA alwaysrepresented by two single phonemes.

SAMPA	Examples
/tS/	atxuri motxila	/atSuri/ /motSiLa/
/ts/	aberats suntsi	/aBerats/ /suntsi/
/ts`/	dakartzak hemezortzian	/dakarrtsak/ /emesorrts`ian/
/gj/	jabegoa sanjatzea	/gjaBeGoa/ /sangjats`ea/

Nasals

There are three nasals inBasque, /m/, /n/, and /J/:

SAMPA	Examples
/m/	emotea hainbestek	/emotea/ /aimbestek/
/n/	funtzionatu gauzaren	/funtsionatu/ /gausaren/
/J/	baitinagu doña gaineko	/baitiJaGu/ /doJa/ /gaJeko/

Laterals

There are two laterals inBasque, /l/ and /L/:

SAMPA	Examples
/l/	afal sekula	/afal/ /sekula/
/L/	ailegatu urtarrila	/aLeGatu/ /urrtarriLa/

Trills

Basque has two trills,both are pronounced with the tip of the tongue: /r/ and /rr/.

SAMPA	Examples
/r/	daraman desorekatu	/daraman/ /desorekatu/
/rr/	administrari zumar	/aDmiJistrrari/ /s`umarr/

Basque vowels

Singlevowels (monophthongs)

Generally, the Basquelanguage has nine distinguishable monophthongs:

• The vowel /a/
• Two representationsfor each of the vowels <e>, <i>,<o>, and <u> (formed basically as a longand a short variant)

Since these vowels havesimilar pronunciations, and the different phonemes do not carryimportant information to convey the meaning of a word, it was decidedto use only one phoneme for each vowel. Subsequent speech recognitiontesting has shown very good results for this practice. The mainadvantage for transcription is that it reduces the amount of phonemesto be considered and, at the same time, reduces a possible error source.

SAMPA	Examples
/a/	absoluto hamabian	/absoluto/ /amaBian/
/e/	ebaki txapelketeak	/eBaki/ /tSapelketeak/
/i/	gelarik ipintea	/gelarik/ /ipintea/
/o/	kirol nomada	/kirol/ /nomaDa/
/u/	laguna parkatu	/laGuna/ /parrkatu/

Diphthongs

In Basque diphtongs arenormally formed by the combination of a vowel and a semivowel. Thevowel forms the nucleus of the syllable. The reduced vowel set (see Single vowels (monophthongs)) also applies to the diphthongs.

Take care with hiatus.They are also formed as a conjunction of two vowels, but each vowelforms the nucleus of a different syllable. For example:

pi-a-noa /pianoa/

In the Basque languagesix decreasing diphthongs (/ai/, /ei/, /oi/, /au/, /eu/, /ou/) andeight increasing diphthongs (/ia/, /ie/, /io/, /iu/, /ua/, /ue/, /ui/,/uo/) can be distinguished.

Decreasing diphthongs

Decreasing diphthongshave the first vowel as the nucleus of the syllable. The vocal organsmove from an open position into a closed position.

SAMPA	Examples
/ai/	baitu	/baitu/
/ei/	ezein	/es`ein/
/oi/	bakoitza	/bakoits`a/
/au/	aunitz	/aunits`/
/eu/	euskal	/euskal/
/ou/	bungalowak	/bungalouak/

Increasing diphthongs

Increasing diphthongshave the second vowel as the nucleus of the syllable. The vocalorgans–especially the tongue–move from a closed into an open position.

SAMPA	Examples
/ia/	diamante	/diamante/
/ie/	pazientzia	/pasientsia/
/io/	bahizkio	/bais`kio/
/iu/	ziur	/s`iurr/
/ua/	eguaztena	/eGuas`tena/
/ue/	ditzazuen	/ditsasuen/
/ui/	muin	/muin/
/uo/	anbiguo	/ambiGuo/

Specific pronunciationtranscription methods

Letter <h>

The h should always beignored in transcription as it is not pronounced in Basque. For example:

hotel	/otel/
mahai	/maai/

Differences betweenfricatives and plosives

/D/ versus /d/

The Basque phoneme /D/occurs in the middle of a word between two vowels and at the end of aword. For example:

adibide	/aDiBiDe/
David	/daBiD/

The phoneme /d/ occurs atthe beginning, or in the middle after the letters <l>,<n>, or <r>. For example:

dadoak	/daDoak/
gudaldian	/guDaldian/
mandatua	/mandatua/
erdibide	/errdiBiDe/

/G/ versus /g/

The phoneme /G/ occursbetween two vowels, before a consonant, or after <l>. Forexample:

estrategia	/estrrateGia/
aglomeratu	/aGlomeratu/
malgukien	/malGukien/

The phoneme /g/ occurs atthe beginning of a word or after a consonant, except <l>.For example:

gitxiago	/gitSiaGo/
negargura	/neGarrgura/
egosgogor	/eGosgoGorr/

/B/ versus /b/

The Basque fricative /B/occurs in the middle of a word between two vowels, and after aconsonant other than a nasal. For example:

kabina	/kaBiJa/
kalbindar	/kalBindarr/

The Basque plosive /b/occurs at the beginning of a word, or after a nasal. For example:

bentaberri	/bentaBerri/
bazenbiltza	/basembiltsa/

Transcription of thenasal /J/

The Basque letter<ñ> is always represented by the Basque SAMPAsymbol /J/. For example:

ñimiño	/JimiJo/

Many dialects of Basqueexhibit a derived palatalization effect in which coronal onsetconsonants are changed into the palatal counterpart after the highfront vowel /i/.

For example the /n/ inthe word egin becomes palatal when the suffix -a is added:

egina	/eGiJa/

In some dialects howeverthe variant /eGina/ is used.

Assimilation

In Basque only the /n/can be assimilated:

nb	/mb/
anbibalentzia	/ambiBalents`ia/

Pronunciationof foreign words

To transcribe foreignwords, you must use the Basque SAMPA symbols. If you use a differentsymbol set your system will be incapable of understanding the input.

Every language has adifferent phoneme inventory, so you may have problems in covering eachand every sound. In order to get a Basque transcription which isclosest to the transcription in the original language, the Basque SAMPAsymbols that most resemble the SAMPA symbols of the foreign languagesare the ones to be used. For example:

Bordeaux	/borrdo/

The originaltranscription ‘bORDo’ cannot be realized because the French symbols
/O/ and /R/ do not belong to the Basque SAMPA symbol set. Therefore,these symbols have to be replaced by the Basque symbols which areclosest to the French ones. In this case /o/ replaces /O/ and /rr/replaces /R/.

Even with English vowelsyou have to try to apply a pronunciation that has been adapted toBasque, for example:

buggy	/buGi/
Chrysler	/krrislerr/

The originaltranscriptions /bVgI/ and /kraIsl@r/ cannot be realized because theEnglish symbols /V/, /I/, /aI/, and /@/ are not part of the BasqueSAMPA set.

TheBasque symbol set in alphabetical order

The following table showsthe Basque symbol set in alphabetical order:

SAMPA	IPA	Examplesof use
a	ɑ	alai
ai	ɑi	haien
au	ɑu	mahukari
b	b	begia
B	β	global
c	ɟ	ttanttaka
d	d	denda
D	ð	irudikatu
e	e / ɛ	baiteritzo
ei	ɛi	hitzei
eu	ɛu	neurri
f	f	alfabetiko
g	g	gaia
G	ɣ	milagarren
gj	ç	arrainjale
i	i	digu
ia	iɑ	buruhaundiak
ie	ie	eukien
io	iɔ	federazio
iu	iu	ziur
J	ɲ	ñimiñotasuna
jj	ʝ	paisaia
k	k	ekarri
l	l	umilgarriak
L	ʎ	urtarrila
m	m	magia
ɱ	hainbat	/aimbat/
n	n	normal
o	o / ɔ	erredakzino
oi	ɔi	kanoi
ou	ɔu	bungalowak
p	p	apeza
r	r	ikurrinaren
rr	ɾ	elektrikoa
s	s	museo
S	ʃ	koexistentzi
s`	ś	kezken
t	t	etorri
T	θ	interpretaci
tS	tʃ	momentutxo
ts	ts	saigots
ts`	tś	motz
u	u	gailendu
ua	uɑ	eredua
ue	uɛ	inguruetako
ui	ui	intuizio
uo	uo	munduotan
x	x	konjokazio
Z	ʐ	oparia

Start→Programs→Accessories→System Tools→Character Mapbe key issues for working with grammar documents in the Basque language.

Character encoding

Nuance Recognizer has full internal Unicode support. For example, you can create your grammars using UTF-8 or Latin-1 (also known as ISO-8859-1) character encoding. For example, your grammar header might be:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?> 


<grammar xml:lang="eu-ES" version="1.0" root="test">

Below are codes for writing some common Basque characters. These are useful if you do not have access to a Basque keyboard, and are typed by pressing the ALT key while entering digits on your keyboard (after typing the last digit, the desired character appears on your screen when you release the Alt key):

Alt/0209 = Ñ	Alt/0241 = ñ

If you do not have access to a keyboard for your target language, you can use the Windows character map. (Choose the “System” font and the “Latin-1” subset.)

Start _→_ Programs _→_ Accessories _→_ System Tools _→_ Character Map

Entering Basque grammars for ParseTool

The ParseTool program lets you type sentences into a grammar and returns the grammar’s results. The tool is stored in the bin directory of the installation baseline. See your product documentation for information.

When entering Basque text for the built-in grammars, note the following:

• Digits in the digits grammar are written as words (not as Arabic digits). For example, 1 = bat, 2 = bi, 3 = hiru, etc.
• Digits in the alphanum grammar are written as digits (0-9).

alphanum_lc built-in grammar

The alphanum_lc built-in grammar recognizes a connected string of up to 20 digits and lower case alphabetic characters. For example, this grammar could be used to recognize a product code or order number.

Characters are the letters a-z, and ñ. The letter `w’ can be pronounced as “v bikoitza”, “v doble”, or “doble v.”

Digits are 0-9. The digit `0’ can be pronounced as either “zero,” “huts,” or “hutsa.”

Non-alphanumeric characters such as hyphens (-), dots (.), and underscores (_) are not recognized; if spoken they reduce recognition accuracy.

Note: The alphanum_lc built-in grammar replaces the alphanum built-in grammar

Return keys/values

MEANING	Contains a string of ISO-8859-1 digits and lowercase letters, with no embedded spaces.
SWI_literal	Contains the exact text that was recognized.

alphanum built-in grammar

The alphanum built-in grammar recognizes a connected string of up to 20 digits and alphabetic characters. For example, this grammar could be used to recognize a product code or order number.

Characters are the letters a-z, and ñ. The letter `w’ can be pronounced as “v bikoitza”, “v doble”, or “doble v.”

Digits are 0-9. The digit `0’ can be pronounced as either “zero,” “huts,” or “hutsa.”

Non-alphanumeric characters such as hyphens (-), dots (.), and underscores (_) are not recognized; if spoken they reduce recognition accuracy.

Return keys/values

MEANING	Contains a string of ISO-8859-1 digits and lowercase letters, with no embedded spaces.
SWI_literal	Contains the exact text that was recognized.

boolean built-in grammar

The boolean grammar collects an affirmative or negative response.

Properties

The y and n parameters let you associate any two touchtone buttons as synonyms for yes and no.

Parameter	Description
y	Desired DTMF digit to be equivalent to “bai” (default = 1)
n	Desired DTMF digit to be equivalent to “ez” (default = 2)

Examples

Caller says	MEANING key
bai	true
ez	false

digits built-in grammar

Valid characters are the digits 0-9. The digit `0’ can be pronounced as either “zero, “huts,” or “hutsa.”

Vocabulary items and pronunciations

This chapter describes considerations for vocabularies and their pronunciations in Basque (eu-ES). Your product documentation covers details about how to work with pronunciations and dictionaries.

Specially tuned pronunciations

The following table shows common words that are fine-tuned by Nuance Each of these words contains “word-specific phonemes;” that is, phonemes and associated models created especially for the words.

Words with tuned pronunciations (do not modify):

• All letters of the alphabet, a-z and ñ
• Boolean: bai and ez
• Digits: 0-9
• Cardinal numbers: 0-99, 100, and 1000

Basque pronunciations

This section provides detailed reference information to help create pronunciation dictionaries. It is intended for people who have sufficient knowledge of the Basque language as spoken in Spain. It provides information about transcription and pronunciation.

As reference dictionaries we use:

Basque-English Dictionary, ed. Gorka Aulestia, University of Nevada Press, 1989. ISBN: 0-87417-126-1

English-Basque Dictionary, ed. Gorka Aulestia and Linda White, University of Nevada Press, 1990. ISBN: 0-87417-156-3

The Basque phoneme system

The Basque phoneme system can be conveniently divided into two groups:

• Consonants
• Vowels

Furthermore, it is possible to define six different types of consonants:

• Plosives
• Fricatives
• Affricates
• Nasals
• Laterals
• Trills

Basque spelling is very regular. This means the relationship between spelling (grapheme) and sound (phoneme) is easy to define since the orthography is very regular and correlates well with pronunciation. Nevertheless, there are some, mostly regional, pronunciation variants.

Within the vowel group, a distinction can be made between vowels and semivowels . Furthermore, diphthongs represent an additional characteristic among the group of vowels. Basque has two groups of diphthongs, increasing diphthongs and decreasing diphthongs .

Exceptional in the case of Basque is the reduction of the vowel set, which is explained further on in the subsection Single vowels (monophthongs).

Basque symbol set grouped by phoneme classes

Phoneme class	SAMPA	IPA	Examples of use
Consonants	Plosives	p	p
b	b	begia	/beGia/
t	t	etorri	/etorri/
c	ɟ	ttanttaka	/cancaka/
d	d	denda	/denda/
k	k	ekarri	/ekarri/
g	g	gaia	/gaia/
Fricatives	jj	ʝ	paisaia
f	f	alfabetiko	/alfaBetiko/
B	β	global	/gloBal/
T	θ	interpretaci	/interrprretaTi/
D	ð	irudikatu	/iruDikatu/
s	s	museo	/museo/
s`	ś	kezken	/kes`ken/
S	ʃ	koexistentzi	/koeSistents`i/
x	x	konjokazio	/konxokas`io/
G	ɣ	milagarren	/miLaGarren/
Z	ʐ	oparia	/opariZe/
Affricates	tS	tʃ	momentutxo
ts	ts	saigots	/saiGots/
ts`	tś	motz	/mots`/
gj	ç	arrainjale	/arraingjale/
Consonants	Nasals	m	m
ɱ	hainbat	/aimbat/
n	n	normal	/norrmal/
J	ɲ	ñimiñotasuna	/JimiJotasuna/
Laterals	l	l	umilgarriak
L	ʎ	urtarrila	/urrtarriLa/
Trills	r	r	ikurrinaren
rr	ɾ	elektrikoa	/elektrrikoa/
Vowels	Singlevowels	a	ɑ
e	e / ɛ	baiteritzo	/baiterits`o/
i	i	digu	/diGu/
o	o / ɔ	erredakzino	/erreDaks`ino/
u	u	gailendu	/gaLendu/
Decreasingdipthongs	ai	ɑi	haien
ei	ɛi	hitzei	/its`ei/
oi	ɔi	kanoi	/kanoi/
au	ɑu	mahukari	/maukari/
eu	ɛu	neurri	/neurri/
ou	ɔu	bungalowak	/bungalouak/
Increasingdipthongs	ia	iɑ	buruhaundiak
ie	ie	eukien	/eukien/
io	iɔ	federazio	/feDeras`io/
iu	iu	ziur	/s`iurr/
ua	uɑ	eredua	/ereDua/
ue	uɛ	inguruetako	/inguruetako/
ui	ui	intuizio	/intuis`io/
uo	uo	munduotan	/munduotan/

Basque consonants

The standard Basqueconsonant system is generally considered to have:

• Seven plosives
• Eleven fricatives
• Four affricates
• Three nasals
• Two laterals
• Two trills

The sample words givenbelow demonstrate the different contexts in which the sounds canappear. A short explanation is also given.

Plosives

There are three voicedand four voiceless plosives in Basque, which can be arranged in pairsas shown below:

Voiced	Voiceless
/b/	badira futbol
/g/	gaika zerga
/d/	diagu helduz

Fricatives

Basque has a distinctionbetween laminal and apical articulation for the alveolar fricatives andaffricates. In the laminal consonants the friction occurs across theblade of the tongue, while in apical ones, it occurs at the tip ( apex ).

There are elevenfricatives in Basque, voiced and six voiceless:

Voiced	Voiceless
/jj/	baia gehiagotan
/B/	deskriptibo zubiak
/D/	badakizu xukadera
/G/	egindako txikiago
/Z/	morfologia

Affricates

In the Basque SAMPAsymbol set there are four affricates. Affricates are in SAMPA alwaysrepresented by two single phonemes.

SAMPA	Examples
/tS/	atxuri motxila	/atSuri/ /motSiLa/
/ts/	aberats suntsi	/aBerats/ /suntsi/
/ts`/	dakartzak hemezortzian	/dakarrtsak/ /emesorrts`ian/
/gj/	jabegoa sanjatzea	/gjaBeGoa/ /sangjats`ea/

Nasals

There are three nasals inBasque, /m/, /n/, and /J/:

SAMPA	Examples
/m/	emotea hainbestek	/emotea/ /aimbestek/
/n/	funtzionatu gauzaren	/funtsionatu/ /gausaren/
/J/	baitinagu doña gaineko	/baitiJaGu/ /doJa/ /gaJeko/

Laterals

There are two laterals inBasque, /l/ and /L/:

SAMPA	Examples
/l/	afal sekula	/afal/ /sekula/
/L/	ailegatu urtarrila	/aLeGatu/ /urrtarriLa/

Trills

Basque has two trills,both are pronounced with the tip of the tongue: /r/ and /rr/.

SAMPA	Examples
/r/	daraman desorekatu	/daraman/ /desorekatu/
/rr/	administrari zumar	/aDmiJistrrari/ /s`umarr/

Basque vowels

Singlevowels (monophthongs)

Generally, the Basquelanguage has nine distinguishable monophthongs:

• The vowel /a/
• Two representationsfor each of the vowels <e>, <i>,<o>, and <u> (formed basically as a longand a short variant)

Since these vowels havesimilar pronunciations, and the different phonemes do not carryimportant information to convey the meaning of a word, it was decidedto use only one phoneme for each vowel. Subsequent speech recognitiontesting has shown very good results for this practice. The mainadvantage for transcription is that it reduces the amount of phonemesto be considered and, at the same time, reduces a possible error source.

SAMPA	Examples
/a/	absoluto hamabian	/absoluto/ /amaBian/
/e/	ebaki txapelketeak	/eBaki/ /tSapelketeak/
/i/	gelarik ipintea	/gelarik/ /ipintea/
/o/	kirol nomada	/kirol/ /nomaDa/
/u/	laguna parkatu	/laGuna/ /parrkatu/

Diphthongs

In Basque diphtongs arenormally formed by the combination of a vowel and a semivowel. Thevowel forms the nucleus of the syllable. The reduced vowel set (see Single vowels (monophthongs)) also applies to the diphthongs.

Take care with hiatus.They are also formed as a conjunction of two vowels, but each vowelforms the nucleus of a different syllable. For example:

pi-a-noa /pianoa/

In the Basque languagesix decreasing diphthongs (/ai/, /ei/, /oi/, /au/, /eu/, /ou/) andeight increasing diphthongs (/ia/, /ie/, /io/, /iu/, /ua/, /ue/, /ui/,/uo/) can be distinguished.

Decreasing diphthongs

Decreasing diphthongshave the first vowel as the nucleus of the syllable. The vocal organsmove from an open position into a closed position.

SAMPA	Examples
/ai/	baitu	/baitu/
/ei/	ezein	/es`ein/
/oi/	bakoitza	/bakoits`a/
/au/	aunitz	/aunits`/
/eu/	euskal	/euskal/
/ou/	bungalowak	/bungalouak/

Increasing diphthongs

Increasing diphthongshave the second vowel as the nucleus of the syllable. The vocalorgans–especially the tongue–move from a closed into an open position.

SAMPA	Examples
/ia/	diamante	/diamante/
/ie/	pazientzia	/pasientsia/
/io/	bahizkio	/bais`kio/
/iu/	ziur	/s`iurr/
/ua/	eguaztena	/eGuas`tena/
/ue/	ditzazuen	/ditsasuen/
/ui/	muin	/muin/
/uo/	anbiguo	/ambiGuo/

Specific pronunciationtranscription methods

Letter <h>

The h should always beignored in transcription as it is not pronounced in Basque. For example:

hotel	/otel/
mahai	/maai/

Differences betweenfricatives and plosives

/D/ versus /d/

The Basque phoneme /D/occurs in the middle of a word between two vowels and at the end of aword. For example:

adibide	/aDiBiDe/
David	/daBiD/

The phoneme /d/ occurs atthe beginning, or in the middle after the letters <l>,<n>, or <r>. For example:

dadoak	/daDoak/
gudaldian	/guDaldian/
mandatua	/mandatua/
erdibide	/errdiBiDe/

/G/ versus /g/

The phoneme /G/ occursbetween two vowels, before a consonant, or after <l>. Forexample:

estrategia	/estrrateGia/
aglomeratu	/aGlomeratu/
malgukien	/malGukien/

The phoneme /g/ occurs atthe beginning of a word or after a consonant, except <l>.For example:

gitxiago	/gitSiaGo/
negargura	/neGarrgura/
egosgogor	/eGosgoGorr/

/B/ versus /b/

The Basque fricative /B/occurs in the middle of a word between two vowels, and after aconsonant other than a nasal. For example:

kabina	/kaBiJa/
kalbindar	/kalBindarr/

The Basque plosive /b/occurs at the beginning of a word, or after a nasal. For example:

bentaberri	/bentaBerri/
bazenbiltza	/basembiltsa/

Transcription of thenasal /J/

The Basque letter<ñ> is always represented by the Basque SAMPAsymbol /J/. For example:

ñimiño	/JimiJo/

Many dialects of Basqueexhibit a derived palatalization effect in which coronal onsetconsonants are changed into the palatal counterpart after the highfront vowel /i/.

For example the /n/ inthe word egin becomes palatal when the suffix -a is added:

egina	/eGiJa/

In some dialects howeverthe variant /eGina/ is used.

Assimilation

In Basque only the /n/can be assimilated:

nb	/mb/
anbibalentzia	/ambiBalents`ia/

Pronunciationof foreign words

To transcribe foreignwords, you must use the Basque SAMPA symbols. If you use a differentsymbol set your system will be incapable of understanding the input.

Every language has adifferent phoneme inventory, so you may have problems in covering eachand every sound. In order to get a Basque transcription which isclosest to the transcription in the original language, the Basque SAMPAsymbols that most resemble the SAMPA symbols of the foreign languagesare the ones to be used. For example:

Bordeaux	/borrdo/

The originaltranscription ‘bORDo’ cannot be realized because the French symbols
/O/ and /R/ do not belong to the Basque SAMPA symbol set. Therefore,these symbols have to be replaced by the Basque symbols which areclosest to the French ones. In this case /o/ replaces /O/ and /rr/replaces /R/.

Even with English vowelsyou have to try to apply a pronunciation that has been adapted toBasque, for example:

buggy	/buGi/
Chrysler	/krrislerr/

The originaltranscriptions /bVgI/ and /kraIsl@r/ cannot be realized because theEnglish symbols /V/, /I/, /aI/, and /@/ are not part of the BasqueSAMPA set.

TheBasque symbol set in alphabetical order

The following table showsthe Basque symbol set in alphabetical order:

SAMPA	IPA	Examplesof use
a	ɑ	alai
ai	ɑi	haien
au	ɑu	mahukari
b	b	begia
B	β	global
c	ɟ	ttanttaka
d	d	denda
D	ð	irudikatu
e	e / ɛ	baiteritzo
ei	ɛi	hitzei
eu	ɛu	neurri
f	f	alfabetiko
g	g	gaia
G	ɣ	milagarren
gj	ç	arrainjale
i	i	digu
ia	iɑ	buruhaundiak
ie	ie	eukien
io	iɔ	federazio
iu	iu	ziur
J	ɲ	ñimiñotasuna
jj	ʝ	paisaia
k	k	ekarri
l	l	umilgarriak
L	ʎ	urtarrila
m	m	magia
ɱ	hainbat	/aimbat/
n	n	normal
o	o / ɔ	erredakzino
oi	ɔi	kanoi
ou	ɔu	bungalowak
p	p	apeza
r	r	ikurrinaren
rr	ɾ	elektrikoa
s	s	museo
S	ʃ	koexistentzi
s`	ś	kezken
t	t	etorri
T	θ	interpretaci
tS	tʃ	momentutxo
ts	ts	saigots
ts`	tś	motz
u	u	gailendu
ua	uɑ	eredua
ue	uɛ	inguruetako
ui	ui	intuizio
uo	uo	munduotan
x	x	konjokazio
Z	ʐ	oparia