Template:Short description Template:Infobox writer Ivar Andreas Aasen ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}; 5 August 1813<ref name="nynorsk.no bio"/> – 23 September 1896) was a Norwegian philologist, lexicographer, playwright, and poet.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> He is best known for having assembled one of the two official written versions of the Norwegian language, Nynorsk, from various dialects.<ref name=kat/>

BackgroundEdit

He was born as Iver Andreas Aasen at Åsen in the parish of Ørsten (now Ørsta Municipality), in the district of Sunnmøre, on the west coast of Norway. His father, a peasant with a small farm, Ivar Jonsson, died in 1826. The younger Ivar was brought up to farmwork, but he assiduously cultivated all his leisure in reading.<ref name=Gosse4 /> An early interest of his was botany.<ref name=nie>Template:Harvnb</ref> When he was eighteen, he opened an elementary school in his native parish. In 1833 he entered the household of Hans Conrad Thoresen, the husband of the eminent writer Magdalene Thoresen, in the parish of Herø (now Herøy Municipality), and there he picked up the elements of Latin. Gradually, and by dint of infinite patience and concentration, the young peasant mastered many languages, and began the scientific study of their structure.<ref name=Gosse4>Template:Harvnb</ref> Ivar single-handedly created a new language for Norway to become the "literary" language.<ref name=Colliers>Template:Harvnb</ref>

CareerEdit

About 1846 he had freed himself from all the burden of manual labour, and could occupy his thoughts with the dialect of his native district, Sunnmøre; his first publication was a small collection of folk songs in the Sunnmøre dialect (1843). His remarkable abilities now attracted general attention, and he was helped to continue his studies undisturbed. His Grammar of the Norwegian Dialects (Template:Langx, 1848) was the result of much labour, and of journeys taken to every part of the country. Aasen's famous Dictionary of the Norwegian Dialects (Template:Langx) appeared in its original form in 1850, and from this publication dates all the wide cultivation of the popular language in Norwegian, since Aasen really did no less than construct, out of the different materials at his disposal, a popular language or definite folke-maal (Template:Lit) for Norway. By 1853, he had created the norm for utilizing his new language, which he called Landsmaal, meaning country language.<ref name=Colliers /> With certain modifications, the most important of which were introduced later by Aasen himself,<ref name=Gosse4 /> but also through a latter policy aiming to merge this Norwegian language with Dano-Norwegian, this language has become Nynorsk (Template:Lit), the second of Norway's two official languages (the other being Bokmål, the Dano-Norwegian descendant of the Danish language used in Norway in Aasen's time). An unofficial variety of Norwegian closer to Aasen's language is still found in Høgnorsk (Template:Lit). Today, some consider Nynorsk on equal footing with Bokmål, as Bokmål tends to be used more in radio and television and most newspapers, whereas Nynorsk is used equally in government<ref name=kat>Template:Harvnb</ref> work as well as approximately 17% of schools.<ref name=Hau1>Template:Harvnb</ref> Although it is not as common as its brother language, it needs to be looked upon as a viable language, as a large minority of Norwegians use it as their primary language including many scholars and authors.<ref name=Hau1 /> New Norse is both a written and spoken language.<ref name=hau>Template:Harvnb</ref>

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Tomb of Ivar Aasen at Vår Frelsers gravlund, Oslo

Aasen composed poems and plays in the composite dialect to show how it should be used; one of these dramas, The Heir (1855), was frequently acted, and may be considered as the pioneer of all the abundant dialect-literature of the last half-century of the 1800s, from Vinje to Garborg. In 1856, he published Norske Ordsprog, a treatise on Norwegian proverbs. Aasen continuously enlarged and improved his grammars and his dictionary. He lived very quietly in lodgings in Oslo (then Christiania), surrounded by his books and shrinking from publicity, but his name grew into wide political favour as his ideas about the language of the peasants became more and more the watch-word of the popular party.<ref name=Gosse5>Template:Harvnb</ref> In 1864, he published his definitive grammar of Nynorsk and in 1873 he published the definitive dictionary.<ref name=EB>Template:Harvnb</ref>

Quite early in his career, in 1842, he had begun to receive a grant to enable him to give his entire attention to his philological investigations; and the Storting (Norwegian parliament), conscious of the national importance of his work, treated him in this respect with more and more generosity as he advanced in years. He continued his investigations to the last, but it may be said that, after the 1873 edition of his Dictionary (with a new title:<ref name=nie/> Template:Langx), he added but little to his stores. Ivar Aasen holds perhaps an isolated place in literary history as the one man who has invented, or at least selected and constructed, a language which has pleased so many thousands of his countrymen that they have accepted it for their schools, their sermons and their songs. He died in Christiania on 23 September 1896, and was buried with public honours.<ref name=Gosse5/><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>

The Ivar Aasen CentreEdit

Ivar Aasen-tunet, an institution devoted to the Nynorsk language, opened in June 2000. The building in Ørsta was designed by Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn. Their web page includes most of Aasens' texts, numerous other examples of Nynorsk literature (in Nettbiblioteket, the Internet Library), and some articles, including some in English, about language history in Norway.

2013 Language yearEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Språkåret 2013 (The Language Year 2013) celebrated Ivar Aasen's 200 year anniversary,<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> as well as the 100 year anniversary of Det Norske Teateret. The year's main focus was to celebrate linguistic diversity in Norway.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> In a poll released in connection with the celebration, 56% of Norwegians said they held positive views of Aasen, while 7% held negative views.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> On Aasen's 200 anniversary, 5 August 2013, Bergens Tidende, which is normally published mainly in Bokmål, published an edition fully in Nynorsk in memory of Aasen.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>

BibliographyEdit

Aasen published a wide range of material, some of it released posthumously.

Title Translated title Publication date Type Notes
Det norske Folkesprogs Grammatik Grammar of the Norwegian Dialects 1848 Book <ref name=eb1>Template:Harvnb</ref>
Ordbog over det norske Folkesprog Dictionary of the Norwegian Dialects 1850 Dictionary <ref name=eb1/> On Google Books
Symra Symra 1863 Poetry <ref name=eb1/> Includes the poem Nordmannen.
I Marknaden In the Market 1854 Play <ref name=eb1/>
Ervingen The Heir 1855 Play <ref name=eb1/>
Reise-Erindringer og Reise-Indberetninger Traveling Memories and Travel Reports 1842–1847 Prose Edited by H. Koht (1917)<ref name=eb1/>
Skrifter i Samling Writings in the Collection 1912 Prose 3 volumes<ref name=eb1/>
Dikting Poetry 1946 Prose <ref name=eb1/>

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