Magne Rommetveit (4 October 1918 – 6 January 2009) was a Norwegian lexicographer. He was born in

Stord Stord is a municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Sunnhordland. Stord is sometimes called "Norway in miniature" since i ...

. He finished his secondary education in

Voss Voss () is a Municipalities of Norway, municipality and a Districts of Norway, traditional district in Vestland Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative center of the municipality is the village of Vossevangen. Other villages inclu ...

in 1940 and took the cand.philol. degree in 1950. He worked as a lexicographer associated with the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo (; ) is a public university, public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation#Europe, oldest university in Norway. Originally named the Royal Frederick Univ ...

, and eventually became a

docent The term "docent" is derived from the Latin word , which is the third-person plural present active indicative of ('to teach, to lecture'). Becoming a docent is often referred to as habilitation or doctor of science and is an academic qualifi ...

and professor of Nynorsk philology from 1978 to 1988. He was involved in '' Nynorskordboka'' and '' Norsk ordbok'', but his main work was the agricultural lexicon ''Norsk landbruksordbok''. Commencing the work in 1955, it was published at

Samlaget Det Norske Samlaget is a Norwegian publishing house founded on 24 March 1868 with the aim to promote and publish books in Landsmål, now known as Nynorsk. ''Det Norske Samlaget'' is now divided into two institutions: a literature organization, '' ...

in 1978 with 80,000 entries. He later wrote the more popular book on Nynorsk synonyms, ''Med andre ord''. Published in 1985 as a follow-up of the earlier ''På godt norsk'', it was reissued several times. He was a co-founder of several

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 ...

institutions in

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

: Kringkastingsringen which fought for Nynorsk use in the

NRK The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (), commonly known by its initialism NRK, is a Norwegian state-run, government-influenced radio and television public broadcasting company. The NRK broadcasts three national TV channels and thirteen nat ...

, where he was general manager from 1955 to 1970; the weekly newspaper ''

Dag og Tid ''Dag og Tid'' () is a national weekly newspaper in Norway that uses the Nynorsk standard of the Norwegian language. ''Dag og Tid'' was founded in 1962. Contrary to most other Norwegian newspapers, its circulation has recently increased signific ...

'' in 1962 for which he coined the name; and the news agency Nynorsk Pressekontor in 1969. He became an honorary member of

Noregs Mållag Noregs Mållag (literally "Language Organisation of Norway") is the main organisation for Norwegian Nynorsk (New Norwegian), one of the two official written standards of the Norwegian language Norwegian ( ) is a North Germanic language from th ...

in 1998.

References

1918 births 2009 deaths People from Stord Academic staff of the University of Oslo Norwegian lexicographers Nynorsk-language writers 20th-century lexicographers {{Norway-academic-bio-stub