diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.rst b/CONTRIBUTING.rst
index a479770f9..64570c411 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.rst
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.rst
@@ -304,7 +304,7 @@ To update a translation:
   ``build_tools/fish_xgettext.fish`` from the source tree
 
 * update the existing translation by running
-  ``msgmerge --update --no-fuzzy-matching po/LANG.po messages.pot``
+  ``msgmerge --update --no-fuzzy-matching --no-wrap po/LANG.po messages.pot``
 
 The ``--no-fuzzy-matching`` is important as we have had terrible experiences with gettext's "fuzzy" translations in the past.
 
diff --git a/build_tools/fish_xgettext.fish b/build_tools/fish_xgettext.fish
index 771f25647..b559b4a63 100755
--- a/build_tools/fish_xgettext.fish
+++ b/build_tools/fish_xgettext.fish
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 # works around that - based on share/functions/funced.fish.
 set -q TMPDIR
 or set -l TMPDIR /tmp
-set -l tmpdir (mktemp -d $TMPDIR/fish.XXXXXX)
+set tmpdir (mktemp -d $TMPDIR/fish.XXXXXX)
 or exit 1
 
 # This is a gigantic crime.
@@ -30,35 +30,49 @@ for str in $strs
     # grep -P needed for string escape to be compatible (PCRE-style),
     # -H gives the filename, -n the line number.
     # If you want to run this on non-GNU grep: Don't.
-    echo "#:" (grep -PHn -r -- (string escape --style=regex -- $str) src/ |
+    echo "#:" (grep -PHn -r -- \"(string escape --style=regex -- $str)\" src/ |
     head -n1 | string replace -r ':\s.*' '')
     echo "msgid \"$str\""
     echo 'msgstr ""'
 end >messages.pot
 
+function extract_fish_script_messages --argument-names name regex;
+    mkdir -p $tmpdir/$name/share/completions $tmpdir/$name/share/functions
+    for f in share/config.fish share/completions/*.fish share/functions/*.fish
+        # Extract messages from fish script.
+        # This is done by creating a file which has the message strings in the same lines as the
+        # oritinal, in the form:
+        # N_ "message"
+        # All other lines will be empty.
+        # Multiple messages on a single line are not supported.
+
+        # Start by transforming the matching lines according to $explicit_regex and adding 'N_ ' as
+        # a prefix.
+        # Then, replace all lines without this prefix by empty lines.
+        # These lines are kept to ensure that the correct line number makes it into the pot file.
+        # Replacing irrelevant lines by empty lines must happen before unescaping, because otherwise
+        # multi-line commands (lines ending on \) would get merged, changing the line count.
+        # Double quotes are escaped, and finally unescaped double quotes are added around the string.
+        # The result will be a file consisting of empty lines and potentially some lines prefixed with
+        # 'N_ ', followed by a double-quoted string.
+        string replace --regex $regex 'N_ $1' <$f |
+            sed '/^N_ / !{s/^.*$//}' |
+            string unescape |
+            string replace --all '"' '\\"' |
+            string replace --regex '^N_ (.*)$' 'N_ "$1"' \
+            >$tmpdir/$name/$f
+    end
+end
+
 # This regex handles descriptions for `complete` and `function` statements. These messages are not
 # particularly important to translate. Hence the "implicit" label.
 set -l implicit_regex '(?:^| +)(?:complete|function).*? (?:-d|--description) (([\'"]).+?(?<!\\\\)\\2).*'
+extract_fish_script_messages implicit $implicit_regex
 
 # This regex handles explicit requests to translate a message. These are more important to translate
 # than messages which should be implicitly translated.
 set -l explicit_regex '.*\( *_ (([\'"]).+?(?<!\\\\)\\2) *\).*'
-
-mkdir -p $tmpdir/implicit/share/completions $tmpdir/implicit/share/functions
-mkdir -p $tmpdir/explicit/share/completions $tmpdir/explicit/share/functions
-
-for f in share/config.fish share/completions/*.fish share/functions/*.fish
-    # Extract explicit attempts to translate a message. That is, those that are of the form
-    # `(_ "message")`.
-    string replace --filter --regex $explicit_regex '$1' <$f | string unescape \
-        | string replace --all '"' '\\"' | string replace -r '(.*)' 'N_ "$1"' >$tmpdir/explicit/$f
-
-    # Handle `complete` / `function` description messages. The `| fish` is subtle. It basically
-    # avoids the need to use `source` with a command substitution that could affect the current
-    # shell.
-    string replace --filter --regex $implicit_regex '$1' <$f | string unescape \
-        | string replace --all '"' '\\"' | string replace -r '(.*)' 'N_ "$1"' >$tmpdir/implicit/$f
-end
+extract_fish_script_messages explicit $explicit_regex
 
 xgettext -j -k -kN_ -LShell --from-code=UTF-8 -cDescription --no-wrap -o messages.pot $tmpdir/{ex,im}plicit/share/*/*.fish