The Basque–Icelandic pidgin was a Basque-based pidgin spoken in Iceland in the 17th century. It consisted of Basque, Germanic and Romance words. Basque whale hunters who sailed to the Icelandic Westfjords used the pidgin as a means of rudimentary communication.
About Basque–Icelandic pidgin in brief
The Basque–Icelandic pidgin was a Basque-based pidgin spoken in Iceland in the 17th century. It consisted of Basque, Germanic and Romance words. Basque whale hunters who sailed to the Icelandic Westfjords used the pidgin as a means of rudimentary communication with locals. It was named from the fact that it was written down in Iceland and translated into Icelandic. Only a few anonymous glossaries have been found. A total of 68 words and phrases could be discerned, with some uncertainty as to their origin.
The majority of these words are ofBasque origin: A majority of German of the same origin: And there are quite a few Spanish words listed in the glossaries. Although French and Spanish influence on the Basque language is not a sign of pidgin, but a result of French andSpanish influence on Basque. That would explain why the people in Iceland might have been multilingual, speaking French and Icelandic as well as Basque and Spanish.
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This page is based on the article Basque–Icelandic pidgin published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
