Ivar Aasen
| Ivar Aasen | |
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 Ivar Aasen (1881) |
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| Born | Ivar Andreas Aasen 5 August 1813 Ørsta, Norway |
| Died | 23 September 1896 (aged 83) Christiania (Oslo), Norway |
| Occupation | Philologist, lexicographer, playwright, poet |
| Language | Norse dialects |
| Nationality | Norwegian |
Ivar Andreas Aasen (5 August 1813 – 23 September 1896) was a Norwegian philologist, lexicographer, playwright and poet.[1]
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Background [edit]
Aasen was born at Åsen in Ørsta (then Ørsten), in the district of Sunnmøre, on the west coast of Norway. His father, a small peasant-farmer named Ivar Jonsson, died in 1826. He was brought up to farmwork, but he assiduously cultivated all his leisure in reading. An early interest was botany.[2] When he was eighteen, he opened an elementary school in his native parish. In 1833 he entered the household of H. C. Thoresen, the husband of the eminent writer Magdalene Thoresen, in Herøy (then Herø), and there he picked up the elements of Latin. Gradually, and by dint of infinite patience and concentration, the young peasant became master of many languages, and began the scientific study of their structure. Ivar single-handedly created a new language for Norway to become the "literary" language.[3]
Career [edit]
About 1841 he had freed himself from all the burden of manual labour, and could occupy his thoughts with the dialect of his native district, Sunnmøre; his first publication was a small collection of folk songs in the Sunnmøre dialect (1843). His remarkable abilities now attracted general attention, and he was helped to continue his studies undisturbed. His Grammar of the Norwegian Dialects (Norwegian: Det Norske Folkesprogs Grammatik, 1848) was the result of much labour, and of journeys taken to every part of the country. Aasen's famous Dictionary of the Norwegian Dialects (Norwegian: Ordbog over det Norske Folkesprog) appeared in its original form in 1850, and from this publication dates all the wide cultivation of the popular language in Norwegian, since Aasen really did no less than construct, out of the different materials at his disposal, a popular language or definite folke-maal (people's language) for Norway. By 1853, he had created the norm for utilizing his new language, which he called Landsmaal, meaning country language.[3] With certain modifications, the most important of which were introduced later by Aasen himself, but also through a latter policy aiming to merge this Norwegian language with Dano-Norwegian, this language has become Nynorsk ("New Norwegian"), the second of Norway's two official languages (the other being Bokmål, the Dano-Norwegian descendant of the Danish language used in Norway at Aasen's time). An unofficial variety of Norwegian more close to Aasen's language is still found in Høgnorsk ("High Norwegian").
Aasen composed poems and plays in the composite dialect to show how it should be used; one of these dramas, The Heir (1855), was frequently acted, and may be considered as the pioneer of all the abundant dialect-literature of the last half-century of the 1800s, from Vinje to Garborg. In 1856, he published Norske Ordsprog, a treatise on Norwegian proverbs. Aasen continuously enlarged and improved his grammars and his dictionary. He lived very quietly in lodgings in Oslo (then Christiania), surrounded by his books and shrinking from publicity, but his name grew into wide political favour as his ideas about the language of the peasants became more and more the watch-word of the popular party. In 1864, he published his definitive grammar of Nynorsk and in 1873 he published the definitive dictionary.[4]
Quite early in his career, in 1842, he had begun to receive a grant to enable him to give his entire attention to his philological investigations; and the Storting (Norwegian parliament), conscious of the national importance of his work, treated him in this respect with more and more generosity as he advanced in years. He continued his investigations to the last, but it may be said that, after the 1873 edition of his Dictionary (with a new title:[2] Norwegian: Norsk Ordbog), he added but little to his stores. Aasen holds perhaps an isolated place in literary history as the one man who has invented, or at least selected and constructed, a language which has pleased so many thousands of his countrymen that they have accepted it for their schools, their sermons and their songs. He died in Christiania on 23 September 1896, and was buried with public honours.[5]
The Ivar Aasen Centre [edit]
Ivar Aasen-tunet, an institution devoted to the Nynorsk language, opened in June 2000. Their web page includes most of Aasens' texts numerous other examples of Nynorsk literature (in Nettbiblioteket), and some articles, also in English, about language history in Norway.
References [edit]
- ^ Chambers Biographical Dictionary, ISBN 0-550-18022-2, page 1
- ^ a b
"Aasen, Ivar Andreas". New International Encyclopedia. 1905. - ^ a b Haugen, Einar (1997). "Aasen, Ivar Andreas". In Johnston, Bernard. Collier's Encyclopedia. I A to Ameland (First ed.). New York, NY: P.F. Collier. p. 4.
- ^ "Aasen, Ivar". Encyclopedia Britannica. I: A-Ak - Bayes (15th ed.). Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. 2010. pp. 5–6. ISBN 978-1-59339-837-8.
- ^ The Nynorsk Language of Norwayblank(by Lars S. Vikør, Professor of Scandinavian linguistics at the University of Oslo, Norway) http://www.aasentunet.no/default.asp?menu=94&id=455
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Edmund Gosse (1911). "Aasen, Ivar". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
External links [edit]
- Christian Sinding's musical setting of three Aasen poems Score from Sibley Music Library Digital Scores collections
- Monument honoring Ivar Aasen by Paul Fjelde
- The Ivar Aasen Centre Official Website
- Haraldshaugen by Ivar Aasen
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