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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. Like all pidgins, Russenorsk was not an 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 "minutiae" irrelevant to the situation, e.g. existentialism, music, etc.

Some scholars do not classify Russenorsk as a pidgin. For example, Prof. Kortlandt[1] argues that Russenorsk was essentially a variant of Norwegian with Russian loan words.

The history of Russenorsk is limited to 18th and 19th centuries. It stopped being used after 1917.