Only a few anonymous glossaries have been found. Two of them were found among the documents of 18th century scholar
Jón Ólafsson of Grunnavík, titled: •
Vocabula Gallica ("French words"). Written during the latter part of the 17th century, a total of 16 pages containing 517 words and short sentences, and 46 numerals. •
Vocabula Biscaica ("
Biscayan (
Basque) words"). A copy written during the 18th century by Jón Ólafsson, the original is lost. It contains a total of 229 words and short sentences, and 49 numerals. This glossary contains several pidgin words and phrases. These manuscripts were found in the mid-1920s by the Icelandic
philologist Jón Helgason in the
Arnamagnæan Collection at the
University of Copenhagen. He copied the glossaries, translated the Icelandic words into German and sent the copies to professor
C. C. Uhlenbeck at
Leiden University in the
Netherlands. 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 scholar
Julio de Urquijo, and in 1937, Deen published his
doctoral thesis on the Basque–Icelandic glossaries. It was titled
Glossaria duo vasco-islandica and written in
Latin, though most of the phrases of the glossaries were also translated into German and Spanish. In 1986, Jón Ólafsson's manuscripts were brought back from
Denmark to
Iceland. The manuscript with the glossaries (
University of Iceland): Basque-Icelandic pidgin Deen 17 40 22 467000.jpeg Basque-Icelandic pidgin Deen 17 40 14 552000.jpeg Basque-Icelandic pidgin Deen 17 40 07 688000.jpeg Basque-Icelandic pidgin Deen.jpeg There is also evidence of a third contemporary Basque–Icelandic glossary. In a letter, the Icelandic linguist
Sveinbjörn Egilsson mentioned 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 the
National Library of Iceland. There is no pidgin element in the examples he copies.
The fourth glossary A
fourth Basque–Icelandic glossary was found at the
Houghton Library at
Harvard University. It had been collected by the German historian
Konrad von Maurer when 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 as
instructions about magic and 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. ==Pidgin phrases==