Russenorsk language

Russenorsk was a pidgin language combining elements of Russian and Norwegian. The presence of seamen, fishermen, and traders in close proximity with no common language necessitated the creation of some minimal form of communication. Understandably, Russenorsk was not an incredibly complex language. It dealt mostly with the essentials of Arctic business transactions (fish, weather, etc.) and did not particularly deal with "minutiae" (existentialism, music, etc.) that were not relevant to the situation.

Some scholars do not classify Russenorsk as pidgin. For example, Prof. Kortlandt[1] argues that Russenorsk was essentially a variant of Norwegian with an admixture of Russian ``foreigner's talk''.

The history of Russenorsk is limited to 18th and 19th centuries. It stopped being used after 1917. Note also that it is in no way related to the old historic connections between Scandinavia and Russia. (The rise of Russian civilization in 9th-11th centuries was greatly influenced by, and, some believe, was largely due to Varangian warriors and Norsemen traders reaching as far as Baghdad and Istanbul. However, very few traces of this influence remained.)