Knud Knudsen (Linguist)
Knud Knudsen ( born January 6, 1812 in Holt, † March 4, 1895 in Christiania ) was a Norwegian linguist. He developed the Norwegian Riksmål. He was no less important for the development of the Norwegian language as Ivar Aasen.
Life
Knud Knudsen was born 1812 in Holt at Tvedestrand. He was the son of a small farmer and teacher and grew up in poverty. He was interested in literature and came early for 1831 in the middle school of Arendal, then to high school in Christiania. After completing a teaching degree in 1840 in philology, he was until 1846 Studienassessor in Drammen. From there he became a senior teacher at the Cathedral School in Christiania, and remained there until his retirement in 1880.
Work
Reform of the curriculum
Latin was then the main subject in the schools. He immediately turned against the dominance of the classical languages , as he could not see the benefit of Latin and Greek for the students. He led with Alexander Kielland a campaign against the classical languages , and finally he succeeded in that they have been abolished in the high schools. The mother tongue was the main compartment.
Reform of the orthography
He found that students made many spelling mistakes, because the orthography of the spoken language differed greatly. She built namely on the Danish language. He called for a stronger alignment with the spoken language. He joined the Orthophoniebewegung the Danish philologist Rasmus Rask, who demanded that each letter must correspond to a speech sound and vice versa. In 1845 he published his first article on the Norwegian language: Om lydene, Lydtegnene og det norske Sprog Rettskrivningen i ( About sounds, phonograms and spelling in the Norwegian language ). This title indicates the main theme of his later ministry, culminating in the motto: The Norwegian written language must be based on the Norwegian speaking. The Norwegian words must be written as they are denominated. Since there was no standard way of speaking, he opted for the most used pronunciation of the educated. 1850 was succeeded by his articles Om Norskhed before i og Skrift Tale ( About the Norwegian in our speaking and writing ). Here he discussed specifically in the Norwegian language and advocated to bring the slightly harder pronunciation of words in Norwegian compared to the Danish in the orthography expressed so as to counteract the Danisierung the debate. He gave the example of words with b, d and g, which in Norwegian as p, t and k are pronounced.
Reform debate
In 1850 he created a voice guide for the actors in the Det Norske Theater in Bergen. There mastered the Danish language the scene, which the nationalist Norwegians, including Knudsen, considered unworthy. He tried to bring some actors to instead use a sophisticated vernacular. He worked with Ibsen, who had since 1851 artistic director of the theater. Ibsen later confessed that it Knud Knudsen was linguistically influenced. Ibsen and Bjørnson Bjørnstjerne directed temporarily after his proposals. But later they returned with regard to the Danish readers of the Danish spelling. In 1869 Ibsen and Knudsen, the Norwegian representative in the Scandinavian spelling congress in Stockholm. Here the consistent sensitivity of the nouns and the replacement of aa suggested by å and later introduced.
The fight against the foreign words
Knud Knudsen was also an avid purists and stood vigorously in a 1887 published book against foreign words. His most important contribution was his dictionary " Unorsk norsk og eller fremmedords avløsning " ( Unnorwegisch and Norwegian, or the replacement of foreign words ), in which he replaced hundreds of foreign words by Norwegian. He served also the work Ivar Aasen.
Success
But he also had sharp opponent, for example, the famous Norwegian historian Peter Andreas Munch, which developed a long polemical controversy in the newspapers. Munch was against herumzuflicken to a living language and demanded that one must go back to the old norrøne language and dialects. Threatened Munch's unassailable authority to bring the desire Knudsen to failure. The first victory came in 1862 but with a decree implementing a spelling reform, which largely followed the proposals Knudsen. In it were, in the main " silent letters " away. From Miil ( miles ) was Mil, from Huus (House), Hus, Troe (faith) to Tro was. Even the spelling of foreign words has been simplified, as has been re- Filosof from philosopher. The introduction of hard consonants in the spelling dared not yet, but she remained Knudsen's goal. It was implemented only with the language reform of 1907, after his death. In 1867 he put in the book Det norske målstræv ( The Norwegian language efforts ) dar. its program of gradual end adjustment It consisted of several points, of which the most important are the replacement of b, d and g, according to the Norwegian pronunciation by p, t and k were and the replacement ven ld and nd by ll and nn and the introduction of short forms such as be ( ask, pray ), bli ( Me ), dra (drag ) instead bede, blive, drage. He also called for - for the time being still without success - the consistent lowercase nouns.
He knew the aspirations Ivar Aasen to create a Landsmål based on Norwegian dialects. He did not turn against this plan, but held its general introduction for an unrealistic dream. But he now felt in a competitive situation with Landsmål. That became clear when in 1885 the Landsmål was equated with the Riksmål. But in parts of the population, particularly the urban middle class, now the fear grew but before the complete prevail the Landsmål that zuführte him more and more followers.
In 1867 he published the book The landsgyldige norske uttale ( The correct pronunciation Norwegian ), where he took the view that an educated manner of speech in the country is widely disseminated and one can find a high-level language. 1887 took over the Ministry this view and issued a circular according to which the students should speak the language in general use of the educated, but not contrived language. That it was impossible to practice this, was a different matter, because none of the students knew what was to be a " colloquial language of the educated ."
His work became the basis of Riksmål. 1929 this language was renamed by the Norwegian Storting in Bokmål. But then there was a controversy about the normalization of this form of speech, so that later a division was made in two versions ( moderate and conservative Bokmål Riksmål ), each with its own standardization and linguistic tradition.