The Elaboration of Human Anatomy Terminology for the Basque Language: the Contribution of Translators, Linguists and Experts

In this paper we compare the translation of an atlas of anatomy with the review that was carried out by experts in human anatomy and linguists. The goal is to evaluate the type of contribution that translators, linguists and experts can make in the elaboration of the terminology of human anatomy in Basque. We analyzed the sequences that showed discordances between translation and review with respect to the lexical units and the term formation patterns used. We found that the corrections made by experts and linguists show a clear tendency to replace lexical loanwords and calqued term formation rules by genuine elements and structures. We conclude that the aims of language planning policies of gradually providing the language with terminological resources that are less dependent on other languages have not been met by translators due to the semantic opacity of anatomical terminology and the transparent morphology of Basque compared with Spanish.