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

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingui ...

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 especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

, known as "The Father of

Bokmål Bokmål () (, ; ) is an official written standard for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is the preferred written standard of Norwegian for 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. Unlike, for instance, the Italian language, there ...

". He is best known for having assembled from

Dano-Norwegian Dano-Norwegian ( Danish and no, dansk-norsk) was a koiné/mixed language that evolved among the urban elite in Norwegian cities during the later years of the union between the Kingdoms of Denmark and Norway (1536/1537–1814). It is from thi ...

one of the two official written versions of the Norwegian language, Bokmål, one of the two official written versions of the

Norwegian language Norwegian ( no, norsk, links=no ) is a North Germanic language 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 intelligible local and region ...

Biography

Knud Knudsen was born at

Tvedestrand is municipality in Agder county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Sørlandet. The administrative center is the town of Tvedestrand. There are many villages in the municipality including Dypvåg, Fiane, Gjeving, Gød ...

Agder Agder is a county (''fylke'') and traditional region in the southern part of Norway. The county was established on 1 January 2020, when the old Vest-Agder and Aust-Agder counties were merged. Since the early 1900s, the term Sørlandet ("south ...

, Norway. He was first

Adjunct Professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the gener ...

Drammen Drammen () is a city and municipality in Viken, 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 as Konn ...

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 (, also , ) is a written Norwegian language form or spelling standard, meaning the ''National Language'', closely related and now almost identical to the dominant form of Bokmål, known as . Both Bokmål and Riksmål evolved from the Danish wri ...

'' (later ''

'') and ''

Landsmål Nynorsk () () is one of the two 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 ( no, Landsmål) parallel to the Dano-Nor ...

'' (later ''

Nynorsk Nynorsk () () is one of the two 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 ( no, Landsmål) parallel to the Dano-No ...

'') forms of the written

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

Danish language Danish (; , ) is a North Germanic language spoken by about six million people, principally in and around Denmark. Communities of Danish speakers are also found in Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and the northern German region of Southern Schle ...

, 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 Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson ( , ; 8 December 1832 – 26 April 1910) was a Norwegian writer who received the 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature "as a tribute to his noble, magnificent and versatile poetry, which has always been distinguished ...

. Knudsen was one of the first to propose Norwegianization (''fornorskninglinjen''), the rewriting of

loanwords A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because the ...

into a Norwegian spelling (e.g. turning

chauffeur A chauffeur is a person employed to drive a passenger motor vehicle, especially a luxury vehicle such as a large sedan or limousine. Originally, such drivers were often personal employees of the vehicle owner, but this has changed to speciali ...

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)

Notes

References

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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