Johan Fredrik Breda Storm (24 November 1836 – 26 October 1920) was a Norwegian professor,

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. Linguis ...

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 ...

. He is known for his development of the

Norvegia transcription Norvegia (Latin for ''Norway'') is a phonetic transcription (linguistics), transcription system which was developed by Norwegian linguist Johan Storm in 1884. Norvegia is still employed in the teaching of Scandinavian studies at Norwegian unive ...

Biography

Johan Storm was born at Lom in

Gudbrandsdalen Gudbrandsdalen (; en, Gudbrand Valley) is a valley and traditional district in the Norwegian county of Innlandet (formerly Oppland). The valley is oriented in a north-westerly direction from Lillehammer and the lake of Mjøsa, extending towar ...

. His father, Ole Johan Storm (1806-1850) was the chaplain in Lom at the time of his birth. In 1838, the family moved to Rendalen in

Hedmark Hedmark () was a county in Norway before 1 January 2020, bordering Trøndelag to the north, Oppland to the west, Akershus to the south, and Sweden to the east. The county administration is in Hamar. Hedmark and Oppland counties were merged i ...

where his father was the parish priest and subsequently to

Lardal Lardal () is a former municipality in Vestfold county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality was the village of Svarstad. The parish of ''Laurdal'' was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt ...

Vestfold Vestfold is a traditional region, a former county and a current electoral district in Eastern Norway. In 2020 the county became part of the much larger county of Vestfold og Telemark. Located on the western shore of the Oslofjord, it bordered th ...

. After the death of his father, his family moved to Christiania (now Oslo). He was from a family of six, including his brother, historian and professor

Gustav Storm Gustav Storm (18 June 1845 – 23 February 1903) was a Norwegian historian, a professor at the Royal Frederick University in Christiania from 1877. He was a driving force in the research of Scandinavian history and literature of the Middle ...

.Terje Bratberg: ''Storm – Ole Olsens slekt'' (Store norske leksikon)
/ref> Johan Storm was a professor of

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

and

Romance language The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European languages, I ...

philology at the

University of Christiania The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...

for almost four decades, from 1873 to 1912. Storm was a pioneer of modern phonetics and dialect research and made important contributions to the modernization of the teaching of living languages. He undertook the collection of Norwegian dialects, which formed the basis for his research into Norwegian phonetic writing. His work ''Norsk Retskrivning'' in two volumes (1904 and 1906) was a factor in the Norwegian language conflict. In 1884, he introduced the

used for phonetic transcription of Norwegian. Storm was a member of the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, 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 Univer ...

from 1872. He received an honorary doctorate from the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

and was decorated Commander of the

Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a cit ...

in 1904.

Selected works

*''De romanske Sprog og Folk. Skildringer fra en Studiereise med offentligt Stipendium'' (1871) *''Remarques sur les voyelles atones du latin, des dialectes italiques et de l'italien'' (1873) *''Det norske Maalstræv, særtrykk av Letterstedtske Nordisk Tidskrift'' (1878) *''Engelsk Filologi'' (1879) *''Englische philologie'' (1881) *''Norvegia. Tidsskrift for det norske Folks Maal og Minder'' (1884) *''Norsk Sprog. Kraakemaal og Landsmaal'' (1896) *''Franske Taleøvelser. Høiere Trin'' (1897) *''Ibsen og det norske Sprog. Mindeutgavens Tekst. Retskrivning og Sprogform'' (1907) *''Norsk Lydskrift med Omrids af Fonetiken'' (1908) *''Norvegia; tidsskrift for det norske folks maal og minder'' (1908)

References

Other sources

*Linn, Andrew R. (2005) ''Johan Storm: dhi grétest pràktikal liNgwist in dhi werld'' (Oxford, Blackwell Publishers)

External links

Nordmændenes Professor Higgins
{{DEFAULTSORT:Storm, Johan 1836 births 1920 deaths People from Lom, Norway Norwegian philologists Linguists from Norway Academic staff of the University of Oslo Translators of the Bible into Norwegian Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters