Romaine and others) as an example of a stable pidgin. Russenorsk has been referred to in the literature (by S. Like all pidgins, Russenorsk had a rudimentary grammar and a restricted vocabulary, mostly composed of words essential to Arctic fishing and trade ( fish, weather, etc.) and did not particularly deal with unrelated issues ( music, politics, etc.). A special morphological feature is the verb ending -om, probably taken from a (poorly attested) Russian-English pidgin in Arkhangelsk.Īs is common in the development of pidgins and trade languages, the interaction of fishermen and traders with no common language necessitated the creation of some minimal form of communication.

An interesting sociolinguistic feature is that there was no social difference between its users. Russenorsk is important as a test case for theories concerning pidgin languages since it was used far away from most of the other documented pidgins of the world. The first attested word in Russenorsk is from the 18th century the 19th century, however, was the main period of its use. It was used extensively in Northern Norway for about 150 years in the so-called Pomor trade, that is, the barter trade between Russians and Norwegians in the north.

Russenorsk ( Norwegian pronunciation: Russian: Руссено́рск, Russo-Norwegian) was a dual-source pidgin language in the Arctic combining elements of Russian and Norwegian, created by Russian traders and Norwegian fishermen from northern Norway and the Russian Kola peninsula.