Knud Knudsen (January 6, 1812 March 30, 1895) was a Norwegian educator, author,

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...

, known as "The Father of

Bokmål Bokmål () (, ; ) is one of the official written standards for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is by far the most used written form of Norwegian today, as it is adopted by 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. There is no cou ...

". He is best known for having assembled from Dano-Norwegian one of the two official written versions of the Norwegian language, Bokmål, one of the two official written versions of the

Norwegian language Norwegian ( ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken mainly in Norway, where it is an official language. Along with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a dialect continuum of more or less mutually intelli ...

Biography

Knud Knudsen was born at Tvedestrand in Agder, Norway. He was first adjunct professor in

Drammen Drammen () is a city and municipality in Buskerud county, Norway. The port and river city of Drammen is centrally located in the south-eastern and most populated part of Norway. Drammen municipality also includes smaller towns and villages such ...

until 1846, when he was appointed headmaster at the Christiania Cathedral School, a position he held until 1880. Knudsen became involved in the development of the national debate which resulted in the '' Riksmål'' (later ''

'') and '' Landsmål'' (later ''

Nynorsk Nynorsk (; ) is one of the two official written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language (''Landsmål''), parallel to the Da ...

'') forms of the written

. As an educator, he had observed that students had difficulty writing in the

Danish language Danish (, ; , ) is a North Germanic languages, North Germanic language from the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken by about six million people, principally in and around Denmark. Communities of Danish speakers are a ...

, when they spoke the

. He came to believe that the written language should be changed to match common speech. In this regard, Knudsen came to exercise influence among his contemporaries, including Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Knudsen was one of the first to propose Norwegianization (''fornorskninglinjen''), the rewriting of loanwords into a Norwegian spelling (e.g., turning chauffeur into ''sjåfør''). His aim was to give a more Norwegian coloring to the literary language of Norway by adapting the orthography and syntax to Norwegian usage, and by substituting wherever it was possible, Norwegian words for foreign derivatives. He wanted changes that could occur in the shortest time possible and consequently put forward several reforms working within the Danish written language. The most comprehensive treatment of the subject may be found in his ''Unorsk og norsk, eller Fremmedords avlösning'' (1879–1881).Finn-Erik Vinje:''Knud Knudsen - Språkreformator og Skolemann'' (Norsk biografisk leksikon)
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Selected works

* ''Haandbog i dansk-norsk sproglære'' (1856) * ''Er norsk det samme som dansk?'' (1862) * ''Modersmaalet som skolefag'' (1864) * ''Det norske maal-stræv'' (1867) * ''Nogle spraak- og skolespörgsmaal'' (1869) * ''Den landsgyldige norske uttale'' (1876) * ''Unorsk og norsk eller fremmede ords avlösning'', (1879–1881) * ''Af maalstriden 1881'' (1881) * ''Norsk blandkorn'' (3 samlingar, 1882–1885) * ''Latinskole uten latin'' (1884) * ''Hvem skal vinne?'' (1886) * ''Tyskhet i norsk og dansk'' (1888). * ''Norsk maalvekst fra 1852 å regne'' (1894)

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Other sources

*Vinje, Finn-Erik (1978) ''Et språk i utvikling: noen hovedlinjer i norsk språkhistorie fra reformasjonen til våre dager'' (Oslo: Aschehoug) *Hyvik, Jens Johan (2009) ''Språk Og Nasjon 1739-1868. Norsk Målreising. Band I'' (Det Norske Samlaget)

Biography

Selected works

See also

Notes

References

Other sources

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