Den første norske tesaurus: Ivar Aasens Norsk Maalbunad

Abstract

This article contains a discussion of the first onomasiological dictionary
for Norwegian: Ivar Aasen’s Norsk Maalbunad (published
posthumously in 1925). Aasen (1813–1896) was the founder of the
dialect-based “Nynorsk” variety of Norwegian, and Norway’s first
advanced dialectologist and lexicographer. Norsk Maalbunad was in
fact primarily intended by Aasen as an aid in his other lexicographic
work, and therefore not published by him (although completed in
1876). Its model was Roget’s Thesaurus, but Aasen’s choice of words
and their arrangement were taken from the world of Norwegian farmers,
although he also coined abstract words for concepts not covered
in everyday popular speech at the time. The article analyses the
structure of Norsk Maalbunad and discusses some of the problems
Aasen encountered in the development of an adequate modern vocabulary
for the new written language.