Knud Knudsen

Knud Knudsen (January 6, 1812 March 30, 1895) was a Norwegian educator, author, linguist and philologist, known as "The Father of Bokmål". He is best known for having assembled from Dano-Norwegian one of the two official written versions of the Norwegian language, Bokmål, one of the two official written versions of the Norwegian language. Biography Knud Knudsen was born at Tvedestrand in Agder, Norway. He was first adjunct professor in Drammen until 1846, when he was appointed headmaster at the Christiania Cathedral School, a position he held until 1880. Knudsen became involved in the development of the national debate which resulted in the Riksmål (later Bokmål) and Landsmål (later Nynorsk) forms of the written Norwegian language. As an educator, he had observed that students had difficulty writing in the Danish language, when they spoke the Norwegian language. He came to believe that the written language should be changed to match common speech. In this regard, Knudsen came to exercise influence among his contemporaries, including Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Knudsen was one of the first to propose Norwegianization (fornorskninglinjen), the rewriting of loanwords into a Norwegian spelling (e.g., turning chauffeur into sjåfør). His aim was to give a more Norwegian coloring to the literary language of Norway by adapting the orthography and syntax to Norwegian usage, and by substituting wherever it was possible, Norwegian words for foreign derivatives. He wanted changes that could occur in the shortest time possible and consequently put forward several reforms working within the Danish written language. The most comprehensive treatment of the subject may be found in his Unorsk og norsk, eller Fremmedords avlösning (1879–1881).