Borgarmålet


Borgarmålet was an early-18th-century Swedish-based pidgin of Lappland, used seasonally between the rural Sami and the Swedish-speaking inhabitants of the towns. The vocabulary was largely Swedish, and the grammar was simplified. From the limited data that's been preserved, it's not obvious to what extent Borgarmålet was a stable pidgin, as opposed to an ad hoc trade jargon. However, Yury Kuzmenko believes there is enough evidence to conclude that Borgarmålet was a typical pidgin with a stable grammar.
There was apparently some grammatical influence from the local Sami languages, such as conveying Sami grammatical aspectual distinctions by means of different Swedish words. Specifically, the data preserves several Borgarmålet verbs for 'to give', which seem to differ in the type of action. For example, 'you give me my skins and I'll give you your alcohol' uses two different verbs for 'give', stick and sätt, despite Borgarmålet being a simplified language. Stick apparently indicated a momentary action, sätt an inchoative action, and kast a action. In addition, släpp appears to have been causative. These corresponded to grammatical distinctions required by Sami languages, but not by Swedish.

Data

Five sentences were recorded by Pehr Högström, a missionary at Gällivare and Skellefteå, which he published in 1747: