The Taimyr Pidgin Russian morphology enigma

• Published in: International Journal of Bilingualism
• Main Author: Stern, Dieter
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: Languages and Literatures; Taimyr Pidgin Russian; Pidgin morphology; language contact; cerise; Taimyr; Siberia
• Online Access: https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/1056714; http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-1056714; https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006909346624; https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/1056714/file/3084304

Unlike prototypical pidgins, Taimyr Pidgin Russian (TPR) has adopted almost the complete set of verbal inflexions from its lexifier. This might be indicative of a social setting differing in a significant way from the usual pidginization scenario. Taking into account the ecolinguistic setting under which TPR evolved, a general picture of how TPR may have acquired its unique morphological peculiarities will be drawn. This article will try to piece the relevant sociohistorical evidence together and argue for TPR representing a pidgin of a different type, as it reflects in its morphological frame a less segregated contact history between the indigenous population of northern Siberia and the Russian newcomers. In the end TPR may have more in common with L2-varieties of old-settlers' Russian, like Kamchadal Russian used by Itelmens, than with prototypical pidgins, thus constituting a Russian equivalent in type to pidgins in the colonial sphere of western nations.