Basque-Icelandic pidgin

The Basque-Icelandic pidgin was a pidgin spoken in Iceland in the 17th century. It developed due to the contact that Basque traders had with the Icelandic locals, probably in Vestfirðir. The vocabulary was heavily based upon the Labourdin Basque language, but also upon an Atlantic pidgin with Romance and English influences.

It is documented in two glossaries found around 1905 by Jón Helgason in the Arnamagnæan Collection of the University of Copenhagen: Vocabula gallica ("French words") and Vocabula biſcaïca ("Biscayne words"). Helgason brought them to the attention of Christianus Cornelius Uhlenbeck, a versatile linguist from the University of Leyden with an expertise in Basque. His post-graduate student, N.G.H. Deen, traveled in 1927 to the Basque Country to collaborate with Julio de Urquijo on the research that Deen published as his doctoral thesis in 1937. The manuscripts were sent back to Iceland in 1986, but one of them was lost.

Samples

• for ju mala gissuna. "You are a bad man". for ju points to English for you; mala is "bad" in Spanish; gizona is "the man" in modern Basque.
• normandia chave andia. "The French know a lot". normandia is Normandy, a part of France; forms similar to chave (from Spanish "sabe" or French "savez", know) are present in Mediterranean Lingua Franca (Sabir) and other pidgins and creoles (see "savvy" for a related form in English); handia is modern Basque for "the big one".

Basque-Icelandic	Basque	Spanish	English
sua	sua	fuego	fire
harria	harria	piedra	stone
eskora	aizkora	hacha	ax
kanavita	ganibeta	cuchillo	knife
schularua	eskularrua	guante	glove
unat	honat!	¡ven aquí!	come here!
lingva	mihi	lengua	tongue
trucka	trukatu	trocar	to buy

Basque-Icelandic	Basque	Icelandic	English
Gessurtia	Gezurtia	Lygari	Liar
Satto	Zatoz	Kom þú	Come!
Nescagastia	Neska gaztea	Ógift kona	Unmarried woman
Ez tacit	Ez dakit	Ég veit ekki	I don't know
Suas camporat	Zoaz kanpora	Farðu frá mér	Go away!
Gekiseite	Jaiki zaitez	Farðu á fætur	Get up!
gianzu caca	Jan ezazu kaka	Éttu skít	eat shit!

Bibliography

• Bakker, Peter (1987): "A Basque Nautical Pidgin: A Missing Link in the History of fu", Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 2:1, pp. 1–30.
• Bakker, Peter, et alii. (1991): Basque pidgins in Iceland and Canada. Anejos del Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca "Julio de Urquijo", XXIII.
• Deen, Nicolaas Gerard Hendrik (1937): Glossaria duo vasco-islandica, Amsterdam; (doctoral dissertation re-printed in 1991 in Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca Julio de Urquijo Vol. 25, Nº. 2, pp. 321–426).
• Holm, John A. (1989): Pidgins and Creoles. vol. 2 Reference Survey, "Cambridge Languages Surveys", pp. 628–630.
• Hualde, José Ignacio (1984): "Icelandic Basque pidgin", Journal of Basque Studies in America 5, pp. 41–59

External links

• Examples.
• Slaying of Spaniards in the West fjords in 1615, an exhibition and a conference on 24 June 2006 about a massacre of Basque castaways by the Icelandic locals.