Ivar Aasen og Universitetet i Oslo

Abstract

With his grammar of 1848, Det norske Folkesprogs Grammatik,
and his dictionary of 1850, Ordbog over det norske
Folkesprog, Ivar Aasen (1813–1896) provided the first systematic
account of Norwegian dialects and initiated the era of
modern Norwegian lexicography. These publications constituted
the scientific basis for a national written language for
Norway. Aasen had no formal academic education, but Det
Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab in Trondheim provided
Aasen with the funding he needed to collect linguistic
material from the dialects. In the final stages of the work on
the grammar and the dictionary, Aasen sought advice from
leading academics at the University of Oslo to ensure that his
account of the language was scientifically sound and up to
date. The article features the collaboration between Aasen and
the university academics in this period, and particular attention
is given to a disagreement that Aasen and the academics had
regarding how the closed and open vowels should be handled
in the written code. The article also addresses how the same
environment of academics who had been important for Aasen’s
breakthrough as a linguist and lexicographer turned against his
project when it was no longer just a theoretical linguistic
project, but a practical project to establish a dialect-based
written Norwegian language as an alternative to Danish.
Finally the focus is on how the University of Oslo in the years
after Aasen has taken care of and developed the constitutionally
grounded project to implement a national language.