Ivar Aasen

Iver Andreas Aasen was born in 1813 in Åsen (at the time also spelled Aasen), in the parish of Ørsten (now Ørsta Municipality), in the district of Sunnmøre, on the west coast of Norway. His father, Ivar Jonsson, a small-scale farmer, died in 1826. Iver was brought up doing farmwork, but spent all his leisure time reading.^[4] An early interest of his was botany.^[5] 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), where he picked up the elements of Latin. Aasen gradually mastered several languages and began the scientific study of their structure.^[4]

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When Aasen travelled to Bergen in 1841, he met Bishop Jacob Neumann, who was very impressed with his work and had excerpts of it published in Bergens Stiftstidende ("Bergen Diocese Newspaper"). His contacts with Bishop Neumann became Aasen's entrance ticket to the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters in Trondheim, who gave him generous financial support^{[clarification needed]} (an annual grant of 120-200 speciedaler) which made it possible for him to travel extensively and study the Norwegian vernacular. It is said^{[by whom?]} to have been the rector of Trondheim, Fredrik M. Bugge, who came across Neumann's articles while travelling in Bergen and persuaded the scientific society to grant the funding to Aasen.^[6] In 1842, Aasen began receiving a stipend enabling him to give his entire attention to his philological investigations;^[7] by 1846, he had ceased farm work entirely.^{[4][failed verification]}

Aasen's first monograph, a small collection of folk songs in the dialect of his native Sunnmøre, was published in 1843 and attracted general attention.^[4][vague] After travelling across every part of the country, Aasen published his Grammar of the Norwegian Dialects (Danish: Det Norske Folkesprogs Grammatik) in 1848. Aasen's well-known Dictionary of the Norwegian Dialects (Danish: Ordbog over det Norske Folkesprog) appeared in its original form in 1850 and became the basis of his construction of a popular language or definite folke-maal (lit. 'people's language') for Norway.^[4]

By 1853, he had created the norm for utilizing his new language, which he called Landsmål, meaning "country language".^[8] With certain modifications, the most important of which were introduced later by Aasen himself,^[4] and through a policy that aimed to merge this language with Dano-Norwegian, Landsmål eventually became Nynorsk (lit. 'New/Modern Norwegian').^{[citation needed]}

Aasen composed poems and plays in Landsmål to show how it should be used. One of these dramas, The Heir (1855), was frequently performed, and may be considered^{[weasel words]} as the pioneer of dialectal literature of the second half of the 19th century, inspiring writers from Aasmund Vinje to Arne Garborg.^[7] In 1856, he published Norske Ordsprog, a treatise on Norwegian proverbs. Aasen continuously enlarged and improved his grammars and dictionary. He lived quietly in lodgings in Oslo (then Christiania), surrounded by his books and avoiding publicity, but his name came into political favour as his ideas about the language of the peasants became more and more the watchword of the popular party.^{[7][clarification needed]} In 1864 Aasen published his definitive grammar of Nynorsk, and in 1873 he published the final version^{[verification needed]} of his Dictionary.^[9]

The Storting (the Norwegian parliament), conscious of the national importance of his work, increased its financial support to Aasen as he advanced in years.^{[7][clarification needed]} He continued his investigations until his death, but wrote little after the 1873 edition of his Dictionary (with a new title:^{[5][verification needed]} Danish: Norsk Ordbog, lit. 'Norwegian Dictionary').^[7]

He died in Christiania on 23 September 1896, and was buried with public honours.^[7][10]

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Nynorsk

See also: Norwegian language conflict

The language standardised by Aasen, Landsmål, was later renamed to Nynorsk (lit. 'New/Modern Norwegian'), emerging as 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 (lit. 'High Norwegian'). As of the early 2000s, some scholars^[who?] considered Nynorsk on equal footing with Bokmål, as Bokmål tended to be used more in radio and television and most newspapers, whereas Nynorsk was used equally in government work,^[3] as well as approximately 17% of schools.^[11] Although it was not as common as its brother language, some scholars^[who?] argued it needed to be looked upon as a viable language, as a large minority of Norwegians used it as their primary language, including many scholars and authors.^{[11][clarification needed]} Nynorsk is both a written and spoken language.^[12]

The Ivar Aasen Centre

Ivar Aasen-tunet [no], 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 Aasen's texts, numerous^[vague] other examples of Nynorsk literature (in Nettbiblioteket, the Internet Library), and some articles, including some in English, about language history in Norway.^{[citation needed]}

The Language Year 2013

Main article: Språkåret 2013

Språkåret 2013 (The Language Year 2013) celebrated Ivar Aasen's 200-year anniversary,^[13] as well as the 100-year anniversary of Det Norske Teateret. The year's main focus was to celebrate linguistic diversity in Norway.^[14] In a poll released in connection with the celebration, 56% of Norwegians said they held positive views of Aasen, while 7% held negative views.^[15] On 5 August 2013, Bergens Tidende, which is normally published mainly in Bokmål, published an edition fully in Nynorsk in memory of Aasen.^[16]

Nynorsk Day and Nynorsk Week

Nynorskdagen (Nynorsk Day) falls on the 12 of May. It commemorates the day of Jamstillingsvedtaket [nn], the law making Landsmål/Nynorsk an official language of Norway alongside Danish (later Bokmål). Noregs Mållag, the main organisation for Nynorsk, encouraged people and organisations that do not usually use the language to write Nynorsk on this day. Several companies, notably Vipps and Ruter, released Nynorsk language support for their mobile apps on the 12th of May. In 2025, Noregs Mållag announced Nynorsk Day has been expanded into a Nynorsk Week from the 6 to the 12 of May.^[17][18]

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