The dictionary was developed by the Consortium of Transport of Bizkaia, CAF, Metro Bilbao, Euskotren and Euskal Trenbide Sarea, with the advice of experts in terminology of Elhuyar.

This dictionary includes 4,830 concepts on sectoral terminology and
can be consulted in four languages on the internet

Bilbao, 21 July 2016

The Consortium of Transport of Bizkaia, CAF, Euskotren, Euskal Trenbide Sarea and Metro Bilbao, advised by terminological experts of the Language and Technology unit of Elhuyar, have developed a Railway Dictionary specialized in four languages: Basque, Spanish, English and French. The dictionary groups 4,830 concepts of the railway sector classified in 15 areas and can be consulted on the Internet at http://trenhiztegia.eus/.

The dictionary was presented this morning in Bilbao, in the Plaza Bizkaia building. The event was attended by representatives of all the entities that participated in the project. On behalf of the public institutions, Antonio Aiz Salazar has been Deputy Minister of Transport of the Basque Government; on the part of CAF, Gorka Acebal Trueba, Head of Human Resources; and on the part of Elhuyar, Leire Cancio Orueta, Director General; and Garbiñe Alkiza Lopez of Samaniego Dictionary.

From left to right: Gorka Acebal, Antonio Aiz, Leire Cancio and Garbiñe Alkiza

In the railway sector, the new terms continually emerge in more than one language. In addition, each organization does this work separately. In view of the need to collect and unify all these terms, various entities in the sector, such as the Transport Consortium of Bizkaia, CAF, Euskotren, Euskal Trenbide Sarea and Metro Bilbao, have joined to create the Trengintza Dictionary, advised by experts in terminology of the Language and Technology unit of Elhuyar.

The terms they use in their work have been collected in four languages and made available to society. In addition to its utility for the railway sector, this dictionary will be made available to the whole of society and can be used in other sectors (translation, journalism, education…). The aim is that this dictionary also supports the normalization of Basque, and for this purpose Basque has been put in line with other languages with a consolidated terminology in the railway sector.

The Deputy Minister of Transport of the Basque Government, Antonio Aiz, stressed that this dictionary is the result of a collaboration between public sector entities and private companies: “Under the leadership and technical coordination of the Elhuyar Foundation, they have worked together to equip society with a new resource and unify much of the scattered terminology.”

After Mr. Aiz, Leire Cancio Orueta, director general of the Elhuyar Foundation, spoke. Elhuyar’s experience in the development of dictionaries and linguistic technologies has highlighted the importance of such projects “to contribute from the local environment to the multilingual environment” and its social commitment to contribute to the development of Basque.

Finally, the technical director of the dictionary Garbiñe Alkiza López de Samaniego has released the details of the same. The dictionary includes 4,830 concepts of the railway sector, divided into 15 areas, in four languages: Basque, Spanish, English and French. And the interface itself can be consulted in these four languages. According to Alkiza, “the Trengintza Hiztegia dictionary is a dictionary of use”, and for CAF it has been based on a previous bilingual dictionary and on the terms used in the documentation of the entities participating in the project. “In this first step, Elhuyar’s linguistic technologies have been fundamental to automate work to the fullest,” he said. Finally, he highlighted the direct involvement of experts from all institutions throughout the process.

They remember that this project does not end here and that it is important to continue working as a team in order to standardize and unify terminology.