Transcribe Basque audio with WhisperAI
WhisperAI transcribes Basque (Euskara) audio for the around 750,000 speakers who use the language across the Basque Country (northern Spain) and parts of southwestern France. Built on OpenAI Whisper and tuned for the realities of Basque speech, the service produces publication-grade transcripts in Latin alphabet (Basque alphabet).
Who actually needs Basque transcription
Basque demand comes from Basque regional government and education (which require Basque-language documentation under language-policy law), Basque cultural institutions, and Basque-language broadcasting.
Dialects and varieties handled
- Batua (Standard Basque)
- Bizkaian
- Gipuzkoan
- Navarrese
- French Basque (Lapurdian, Zuberoan)
Basque as a language isolate — and why generic ASR fails on it
Basque is a language isolate — unrelated to any other living language — with ergative-absolutive grammar and morphology that has no European parallel. ASR systems trained primarily on Indo-European languages produce essentially random output for Basque. Whisper handles Basque on its own terms with native orthography preserved.
Standard Batua and the major regional dialects (Bizkaian, Gipuzkoan, Navarrese, French Basque) are supported.
How Basque speakers actually use WhisperAI
- Basque regional governmentEusko Jaurlaritza offices transcribe Basque meetings for record-keeping under Basque language-policy requirements.
- Basque-medium education (ikastolak)Basque-language schools transcribe instructional meetings and parent-teacher conferences in Basque.
- Basque cultural and broadcasting workEITB transcribes Basque-language broadcasts for caption and editorial use.
- Basque oral history and ethnographyResearchers documenting Basque cultural and linguistic history transcribe interviews in native Basque.
What Basque transcripts include
Native Latin alphabet (Basque alphabet)
Output in Latin alphabet (Basque alphabet) with all diacritics, tone marks, special characters and script-specific conventions preserved — never transliteration.
Speaker labels
Diarisation that separates and labels speakers in Basque interviews, panels and multi-party meetings.
Timestamps and SRT
Word-level timestamps and SRT subtitle export for Basque video captioning, with proper line-breaking for the script.
Editor and exports
In-browser editor with PDF, DOCX, TXT and SRT exports. Edit the transcript without leaving the browser, then download the format your downstream workflow expects.
How to transcribe Basque audio
Upload your Basque recording
Drop in MP3, WAV, M4A, MP4 or similar — files up to 5GB. Long-form Basque interviews, lectures and meetings work without splitting.
Whisper transcribes the audio
The model recognises Basque speech across the dialects above and outputs Latin alphabet (Basque alphabet). Code-switched English and other languages in the same recording are handled inline.
Edit, label and export
Open the transcript in the editor, fix any names or terms, label speakers, and export to PDF, DOCX, TXT or SRT. Optional AI summary surfaces the key points and decisions.
Transcribe in 100+ languages
WhisperAI supports Basque alongside over 100 other languages with the same accuracy and editor experience.
Other widely-used pages: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Hindi, Italian, and 80+ more languages including Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Malay, Filipino and beyond.
See every supported language, with transcription, realtime and translation coverage.
Transcription guides and best practices
Start transcribing Basque today
Sign up free, drop in your first Basque file, and have a usable transcript in minutes.