Martin de Hoyarçabal

Martin de Hoyarçabal (Martin Oihartzabal in modern spelling) was a French Basque mariner. Little is generally known about his life. He was born in Ciboure, in the Iparralde, the French Basque Country. He is recognized for publishing one of the first Newfoundland pilots, a book which describes places and distances to aid sailors in navigation, in 1579. Les voyages aventureux du Capitaine Martin de Hoyarsal, habitant du çubiburu was published in French and was widely used by French and Spanish mariners for centuries.

The Pilot is the only known extant work by Hoyarçabal. As a reference work, the Navigational Pilot was invaluable for ships traveling in the Newfoundland area. The following is an example taken from Hoyarçabal's work; in this text, Hoyarçabal is giving distances between several places in Newfoundland:

In 1677, Pierre Detcheverry translated the Navigational Pilot into Labourdin Basque. The following is the corresponding passage, demonstrating the looseness of the translation into Basque:

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