Russenorsk language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Russenorsk or Russonorsk (Norwegian for "Russo-Norwegian") was a pidgin language combining elements of Russian and Norwegian, created by traders and whalers from northern Norway and the Russian Kola peninsula. Another name for the language was Moja på tvoja that parodied a perverted Russian phrase, meaning something like "I can speak in your language" (from the Russian words моя (moya) "my", по (po) here used to mean "in" (по-Русски (po Russki) means "in Russian" in Russian) твоя (tvoya) "your")

As is common in the development of pidgins and trade languages, the interaction of seamen, fishermen, and traders with no common language necessitated the creation of some minimal form of communication. Like all pidgins, Russenorsk was not a complex system of communication. It 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.).

1 Classification
2 Examples
3 History
4 Bibliography
5 See also

[edit] Classification

Some scholars do not classify Russenorsk as a pidgin. For example, Frederik Kortlandt (professor of linguistics at Leiden University) argues that Russenorsk was essentially a variant of Norwegian with Russian loan words [1].

[edit] Examples

"R" marks Russian origin, "N" marks Norwegian.

"Moja på tvoja" - "I speak in your language" (wordwise: R: "My in your")
"Kak sprek? Moje niet forsto." - What are you saying? I don't understand. (How (R) speak (N)? My (R) not (R) understand (N).)
å råbbåte - to work (R: rabotat’)
klaba - bread (R: khleb)

[edit] History

The history of Russenorsk is mainly limited to 18th and 19th centuries. The Russian Revolution of 1917 brought about an end to its use; it is reported that the last Norwegian–Russian trade occurred in 1923, marking the last use of Russenorsk.

[edit] Bibliography

Broch, I. & Jahr, E. H. 1984. Russenorsk: Et pidginspråk i Norge (2. utgave), Oslo: Novus.
Kortlandt, F. 2000. On Russenorsk. Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 54, 123–127.
Lunden, S. S. 1978. Tracing the ancestry of Russenorsk. Slavia Orientalis 27/2, 213–217.
Peterson, R. E. 1980. Russenorsk: A little known aspect of Russian-Norwegian relations, Studies in language 4/2, 249–256.

[edit] See also

Slavic languages
East Slavic	Belarusian \| Old East Slavic † \| Old Novgorod dialect † \| Russian \| Rusyn (Carpathians) \| Ruthenian † \| Ukrainian
West Slavic	Czech \| Kashubian \| Knaanic † \| Lower Sorbian \| Pannonian Rusyn \| Polabian † \| Polish \| Pomeranian † \| Slovak \| Slovincian † \| Upper Sorbian
South Slavic	Banat Bulgarian \| Bulgarian \| Church Slavic \| Macedonian \| Old Church Slavonic † \| Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian, Bunjevac, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian) \| Slavic (Greece) \| Slovenian
Other	Proto-Slavic † \| Russenorsk † \| Slavoserbian † \| Slovio
	^† Extinct