Part of
Language Contact and Development around the North SeaEdited by Merja Stenroos, Martti Mäkinen and Inge Særheim
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 321] 2012
► pp. 193–212
This chapter continues an earlier investigation that considers whether terms for timber items in an inventory in Scots for a Danish-owned ship’s timber cargo from Norway, dated 1698, could have been mutually intelligible among timber traders from the various North Sea countries in the Early Modern period. The apparent existence of cognates for nearly all the terms examined, along with the desire to communicate in order to do business, could explain the absence of a North Sea trade pidgin similar to the Pomor trade’s Russenorsk. While the etymological investigation focuses mainly on Scots and Norwegian, cognates in other North Sea languages are also considered.