Basque–Icelandic pidgin

TheBasque–Icelandic pidgin(Basque:Euskoislandiera, Islandiera-euskara pidgina;Icelandic:Basknesk-íslenskt blendingsmál) was aBasque-basedpidginspoken inIcelandduring the 17th century. It consisted ofBasque,Germanic, andRomancewords.
Basquewhale hunterswho sailed to the IcelandicWestfjordsused the pidgin as a means of rudimentary communication with locals.It might have developed inWestfjords, where manuscripts were written in the language, but since it had influences from many otherEuropeanlanguages, it is more likely that it was created elsewhere and brought to Iceland by Basque sailors.Basque entries are mixed with words fromDutch,English,French,GermanandSpanish. The Basque–Icelandic pidgin is therefore not a mixture of Basque and Icelandic, but between Basque and other languages. It was so named because it was written in Iceland and translated into Icelandic.
Only a few manuscripts have been found containing Basque–Icelandicglossary, and knowledge of the pidgin is limited.
Basque whalerswere among the first to catch whales commercially; they spread to the far parts of theNorth Atlanticand even reached Brazil. They started coming to Iceland about 1600.In 1615, after becoming shipwrecked and getting into a conflict with the locals, some Basque sailors were massacred in an event that would be known as theSlaying of the Spaniards. Basques continued to sail to Iceland, but for the second half of the 17th century French and Spanish whalers are more often mentioned in Icelandic sources.
Only a few anonymous glossaries have been found. Two of them were found among the documents of 18th century scholarJón Ólafsson of Grunnavík, titled:
These manuscripts were found in the mid-1920s by the IcelandicphilologistJón Helgasonin theArnamagnæan Collectionat theUniversity of Copenhagen. He copied the glossaries, translated the Icelandic words into German and sent the copies to professorC. C. UhlenbeckatLeiden Universityin theNetherlands. Uhlenbeck had expertise in Basque, but since he retired from the university in 1926, he gave the glossaries to his post-graduate student Nicolaas Gerard Hendrik Deen. Deen consulted with the Basque scholarJulio de Urquijo, and in 1937, Deen published hisdoctoral thesison the Basque–Icelandic glossaries. It was titledGlossaria duo vasco-islandicaand written inLatin, though most of the phrases of the glossaries were also translated into German and Spanish.
In 1986, Jón Ólafsson's manuscripts were brought back fromDenmarktoIceland.
The manuscript with the glossaries (University of Iceland):
There is also evidence of a third contemporary Basque–Icelandic glossary. In a letter, the Icelandic linguistSveinbjörn Egilssonmentioned a document with two pages containing "funny words and glosses"and he copied eleven examples of them. The glossary itself has been lost, but the letter is still preserved at theNational Library of Iceland. There is no pidgin element in the examples he copies.
Afourth Basque–Icelandic glossarywas found at theHoughton LibraryatHarvard University. It had been collected by the German historianKonrad von Maurerwhen he visited Iceland in 1858, the manuscript is from the late 18th century or the early 19th century.The glossary was discovered around 2008,the original owner had not identified the manuscript as containing Basque text.Only two of the pages contain Basque–Icelandic glossary; the material surrounding includes unrelated items such asinstructions about magicand casting love spells. It is clear that the copyist was not aware that they were copying Basque glossary, as the text has the heading "A few Latin glosses".Many of the entries are corrupted or wrong, seemingly made by someone not used to writing. A large number of the entries are not a part of Deen's glossary, and so the manuscript is thought to be a copy of an unknown Basque–Icelandic glossary. A total of 68 words and phrases can be discerned, but with some uncertainty.
The manuscriptVocabula Biscaicacontains the following phrases which contain a pidgin element:
A majority of these words are of Basque origin:
Some of the words are of Germanic origin:
And others come from the Romance languages:
All nouns and adjectives in the pidgin are marked with Basque'sdefinite articlesuffix-a, even in cases for which the suffix would be ungrammatical in Basque. The order of nouns and adjectives is also reversed. For example, pidginberrua usnia('warm milk-DET') versus Basqueesne beroa('milk warm-DET').
Although there are quite a few Spanish and French words listed in the glossaries, this is not a sign of the pidgin language, but rather a result of French and Spanish influence on the Basque language throughout the ages, since Basque has taken many loan words from its neighbouring languages.Furthermore, many of the people in the Basque crews that came to Iceland might have been multilingual, speaking French and/or Spanish as well. That would explain for example why the Icelandicja'yes' is translated with both Basquebaiand Frenchvÿ(modern spellingoui) at the end ofVocabula Biscaica.
These examples are from the recently discovered Harvard manuscript:
The first phrase,nola dai fussu("What's your name?"), might be written with standardized (but ungrammatical) Basque as "Nola deitu zu?".That is amorphologicallysimplified construction of the correct Basque sentence"Nola deitzen zara zu?".
A section inVocabula Biscaicagoes over a few obscenities: