The German-Russian pidgin is a

macaronic language Macaronic language uses a mixture of languages, particularly bilingual puns or situations in which the languages are otherwise used in the same context (rather than simply discrete segments of a text being in different languages). Hybrid words ...

of mixed

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

and

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

that appears to have arisen in the early 1990s. It is sometimes known as Deutschrussisch in German or Nemrus in Russian. Some speakers of the mixed language refer to it as Quelia. It is spoken by some

russophone This article details the geographical distribution of Russian-speakers. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the status of the Russian language often became a matter of controversy. Some Post-Soviet states adopted policies of derussi ...

immigrants in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

from the

former Soviet Union The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...

Grammar

acts as the

linguistic substratum In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...

, supplying the syntactic structure into which

words are inserted. The German content varies from speaker to speaker, but can be as high as 50% of the vocabulary. The situation is somewhat akin to

Spanglish Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is mos ...

in the United States.

Gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...

may be influenced by Russian genders, as in the case of most words ending in '-ung', which are always feminine in German, but usually masculine in the mixed language because Russian nouns ending in a hard consonant are always masculine. However, some words inherit their gender from the German noun, as in the feminine ''какая хорошая'' from German feminine ''die Überraschung'', meaning 'surprise'. A mixed language makes greater use of the uncommon Russian

auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb ( abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a ...

s ''иметь'' , meaning 'to have' and ''быть'' , meaning 'to be'. The corresponding verbs (''haben'' and ''sein'' respectively) are very common in German. German verbs are often treated in a sentence as though they were Russian verbs, being russified by replacing the German

infinitive Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...

verb ending. ''-(e)n'' with the Russian ''-''. For example, German ''spüren'' becomes ''шпюрить'' - 'to feel', or ''spielen'' becomes ''шпилить'', 'to play'. The following features vary from speaker to speaker: *Adopting the German terms for certain everyday items, particularly if the word has fewer syllables than the Russian equivalent. *Adopting the German terms for the realities of immigrant life, such as ''Arbeitsamt'' ('labor office'), ''Sozial'' (a shortening of ''Sozialhilfe'', meaning 'social assistance'), ''Termin'' (date), ''Vertrag'' (contract). *Literal translation of Russian terms or phrases into German (

calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language w ...

s). *Using the German pronunciation of proper names rather than the 'Russified' pronunciation based on the Cyrillic rendering which may reproduce the now-dialectal 18th-century pronunciation,

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

or just transliterate from Latin script. For example, in Russian ' Einstein' is written 'Эйнште́йн', and pronounced (as in Yiddish). But in this mixed language would be pronounced , the German pronunciation of Einstein. Also (''Ляйпциг'') for '

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

' instead of the russified ' (''Лейпциг''), and for ' Freud' instead of (as in many German dialects). *There is at least one example of a

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

. ''Arbeits'слёзы'', pronounced ''arbaytslyozy'', could be a form of the German word ''Arbeitslosengeld'' (meaning 'unemployment pay'). The word has undergone an interesting phonetic and semantic shift. Casual or incomplete articulation of ''Arbeitslosengeld'' may be vocally realized as ''Arbeitslose'', meaning 'an unemployed person', but the word takes on a new meaning because the Russian word ''слёзы'' (''sljozy'') means 'tears'. The resulting word in a mixed language, ''Arbeits'слёзы'', means 'unemployment pay' but it might be better translated as 'unemployment pain'.

References

"Mixed Languages and Cultural Identity" article
from the Goethe-Institut (In German)
Nemrus Dictionary
(In Russian)

. This resource calls the mixed language "Quelia". (In Quelia) * Belentschikow, Renate und Ella Handk
Об особенностях речевого поведения русскоязычного населения Германии
Article on the linguistics of Russian immigrants in Germany (in Russian). * Zemskaya, Е. А
Особенности русской речи эмигрантов четвертой волны
Article on the speech of Russian immigrants (in Russian). * Zemskaya E. A.
Язык русского зарубежья
Article from the Viennese-Slavic Almanac, 2001 (in Russian) * Добровольский Д. О. Рец. на кн.: K. Meng. Russlanddeutsch Sprachbiografien. Untersuchungen zur sprachlichen Integration von Aussiedlerfamilien Unter Mitarbeit von Ekaterina Protassova (= Studien zur deutschen Sprache. Forschungen des Institutes für deutsche Sprache; Bd. 21). Tübingen, 2001 // ВЯ, 2002, № 4, с. 137-141. (English title: Investigations on linguistic integration among refugee families) {{DEFAULTSORT:German-Russian Pidgin Russian language varieties and styles Languages of Europe Languages of Germany Macaronic language Russian diaspora in Germany