Johan Peter Weisse (13 August 1832 – 7 March 1886) was a Norwegian philologist.

Personal life

He was born in

Fluberg Fluberg is a village in Søndre Land Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located near the north end of the Randsfjorden, about north of the village of Hov and about to the southeast of the village of Dokka. The village w ...

as a son of physician Joachim Frederik Weisse and his wife Grethe Fleischer. His grandfather had migrated to Norway from

Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...

. The family moved to

Trondhjem Trondheim ( , , ; ), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros, and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2022, it had a population of 212,660. Trondheim is the third most populous municipality in Norway, and is t ...

in 1833. He married his own cousin Maja Stang (1843–1916) in July 1863 in Fredrikshald. She was an aunt of engineer

Olaf Stang Olaf Stang (10 June 1871 – 14 November 1956) was a Norwegian engineer. He was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway. He was a son of county treasurer Wilhelm Baltazar Stang (1838–1916) and Petra Sørensen. In 1898 he married Olavia Stang from ...

. In May 1893 one of their daughters married politician

Gabriel Gabrielsen Holtsmark Gabriel Gabrielsen Holtsmark (1 February 1867 – 20 July 1954) was a Norwegian educator, physicist and actuary. Personal life He was born in Asker as a son of farmer and mayor Bent Holtsmark and his wife Anne Elisabeth Gabrielsen. He was a brot ...

. Through them, Weisse was the maternal grandfather of professor

Johan Peter Holtsmark Johan Peter Holtsmark (13 February 1894 – 10 December 1975) was a Norwegian physicist, who studied spectral line broadening and electron scattering. In 1929, while at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, Holtsmark established acoustics resea ...

, professor

Anne Holtsmark Anne Elisabeth Holtsmark (21 June 1896 – 19 May 1974) was a Norwegian philologist. Personal life She was born in Kristiania, the second of five children of Gabriel Gabrielsen Holtsmark (1867–1954) and Margrete Weisse (1871–1933), and grew ...

and painter Karen Holtsmark.

Career

He took his

examen artium Examen artium was the name of the academic certification conferred in Denmark and Norway, qualifying the student for admission to university studies. Examen artium was originally introduced as the entrance exam of the University of Copenhagen in 1 ...

at Trondhjem Cathedral School in 1850. He read languages such as Norse,

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

Old Danish The Danish language developed during the Middle Ages out of Old East Norse, the common predecessor of Danish and Swedish. It was a late form of common Old Norse. The Danish philologist Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen divided the history of Danish in ...

Old Swedish Old Swedish ( Modern Swedish: ) is the name for two distinct stages of the Swedish language that were spoken in the Middle Ages: Early Old Swedish (), spoken from about 1225 until about 1375, and Late Old Swedish (), spoken from about 1375 unti ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

and

Cuneiform script Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

already at that time, as witnessed by his diary ''Litterær Dagbog''. He started studying philology in 1851. From 1853 to 1855 he had to stay in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

because of health issues, but he studied the city vividly. He was a part of a Nordic intellectual group here, which included Julius Middelthun, Christoffer Borch,

Georg Forchhammer Johannes Georg Forchhammer (22 May 1861 – 23 July 1938) was a Danish educator of the deaf, who was director of several deaf schools in Nyborg and Fredericia from 1891 to 1926. Born to a family of academics, in Aalborg, first training as a ...

and Niels Ravnkilde. He finally graduated from the

Royal Frederick University The University of Oslo (; ) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the oldest university in Norway. Originally named the Royal Frederick University, the university was established in 1811 as the de facto Norwegian conti ...

with the cand.philol. degree in 1858. In October 1858 he was hired as co-editor (together with Nicolai Mejdell) of the newspaper ''

Christiania-Posten ''Christiania-Posten'' was a short-lived newspaper in Oslo, Norway. The paper began publication on 17 May 1848; it was edited by Carl Arntzen and Ludvig Vibe. In 1853 Ludvig Kristensen Daa Ludvig Kristensen Daa (19 August 1809 – 12 June 1877 ...

''. He is remembered for writing political and satirical commentary, and a 25-piece series between July 1859 and January 1860 on Italian history and society, marking himself as a supporter of

Camillo Cavour Camillo Paolo Filippo Giulio Benso, Count of Cavour, Isolabella and Leri (; 10 August 1810 – 6 June 1861), generally known as the Count of Cavour ( ; ) or simply Cavour, was an Italian politician, statesman, businessman, economist, and no ...

. In early 1861 Weisse was hired as teacher at Trondhjem Cathedral School. He stayed here until September 1865, when he changed to ''Fredrikshalds lærde og realskole''. From June 1874 to April 1875 he worked at Christiania Cathedral School, and from April 1875 he was an inspector at Aars og Voss School. In November and December 1875 he held trial lectures for the position as professor at the Royal Frederick University, and he was appointed on 23 December in competition with Jan Johanssen. He was a member of the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick University in Christiania was establis ...

from 1879. He continued as professor until his death, and also held numerous popular lectures. His obituary in ''

Dagbladet () is one of Norway's largest newspapers and is published in the Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format. It has 1,400,000 daily readers on mobile, web and paper. Traditionally it was considered the main liberal newspaper of Norway, with a ...

'' read that Weisse wanted to "form men and not mere objects for examination". He contributed "significantly" to

Marius Nygaard Marius Nygaard may refer to: * Marius Nygaard (academic) (1838–1912), Norwegian educator and linguist * Marius Nygaard (judge) (1902–1978), Norwegian judge See also

* {{hndis, Nygaard, Marius ...

's textbooks on Old Norse, first published in 1871. In 1871, Weisse released his own Latin grammar, ''Latinsk Grammatik til Skolebrug'', but it was considered too difficult for school students, and was out-competed by Emil Schreiner's ''Latinsk Sproglære''. The dominating Latin-Norwegian dictionary was later released by Schreiner, Nygaard and Johanssen. Schreiner sat on the committee that hired Weisse as professor in 1875. Weisse died from a

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

in March 1886. He was buried at

Vår Frelsers gravlund The Cemetery of Our Saviour () is a cemetery in Oslo, Norway, located north of Hammersborg in Gamle Aker district. It is located adjacent to the older Old Aker Cemetery and was created in 1808 as a result of the great famine and cholera epidemi ...

References

External links

Digitized books by Weisse
in the

National Library of Norway The National Library of Norway () was established in 1989. Its principal task is "to preserve the past for the future". The library is located both in Oslo and in Mo i Rana. The building in Oslo was restored and reopened in 2005. Prior to the e ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weisse, Johan Peter 1832 births 1886 deaths People from Trondheim Norwegian people of German descent 19th-century Norwegian diarists Norwegian philologists Classical philologists Norwegian Latinists Norwegian expatriates in Italy University of Oslo alumni Norwegian newspaper editors Norwegian schoolteachers Academic staff of the University of Oslo Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Burials at the Cemetery of Our Saviour People educated at the Trondheim Cathedral School 19th-century Norwegian male writers