Traders came from the areas near Murmansk and the White Sea, most often to Vardø, Hammerfest, and Tromsø, sometimes reaching as far south as Lofoten. The trading went on throughout the sunny months of the year and was beneficial to both sides Norwegians had access to cheap fish in the summer, whilst Russians had surplus wheat. Norwegians mainly traded fish for flour and wheat from Russians. This barter was supported by the Norwegian government, and King Christian VII conferred city status to several settlements, such as Tromsø, to facilitate it. 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.).īarter existed between Russians and Norwegians for 150 years in Troms and Finnmark counties. ContentsĪs 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. 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. It was used extensively in Northern Norway for about 150 years in the Pomor trade. Russenorsk ( Russian: Руссено́рск, English: Russo-Norwegian) is an extinct dual-source pidgin language formerly used in the Arctic, which combined elements of Russian and Norwegian, and which was created by Russian traders and Norwegian fishermen from northern Norway and the Russian Kola peninsula.
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