Ottar Nicolai Grønvik (21 October 1916 – 15 May 2008) was a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

and

runologist Runology is the study of the Runic alphabets, Runic inscriptions and their history. Runology forms a specialized branch of Germanic linguistics. History Runology was initiated by Johannes Bureus (1568–1652), who was very interested in the lingu ...

. He was a lecturer from 1959 and associate professor from 1965 to 1986 at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...

. His doctoral thesis, which earned him the dr.philos. degree in 1981, was ''Runene på Tunesteinen''. He was best known for his work on the

runic alphabet Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...

and various

runestone A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition began in the 4th century and lasted into the 12th century, but most of the runestones d ...

s, especially the

Tune Runestone The Tune stone is an important runestone from about 200–450 AD. It bears runes of the Elder Futhark, and the language is Proto-Norse. It was discovered in 1627 in the church yard wall of the church in Tune, Østfold, Norway. Today it is housed ...

, the

Rök runestone The Rök runestone ( sv, Rökstenen; Ög 136) is one of the most famous runestones, featuring the longest known runic inscription in stone. It can now be seen beside the church in Rök, Ödeshög Municipality, Östergötland, Sweden. It is co ...

and the

Eggjum stone The Eggja stone (also known as the Eggum or Eggjum stone), listed as N KJ101 in the Rundata catalog, is a grave stone with a runic inscription that was ploughed up in 1917 on the farm Eggja in Sogndal, Nordre Bergenhus amt (now in Vestland county) ...

Bibliography

* ''Luthertexte für sprachgeschichtliche und grammatische Übungen'' exts by Luther for exercises in historical linguistics and grammar(1960) * ''Runene på Tunesteinen: alfabet, språkform, budskap'' (1981) * ''The Words for "Heir", "Inheritance", and "Funeral Feast" in Early Germanic'' (1982) * ''Die dialektgeographische Stellung des Krimgotischen und die krimgotische cantilena'' he position of Crimean Gothic in dialect geography and the Crimean Gothic cantilena(1983) * ''Runene på Eggjasteinen: en hedensk gravinnskrift fra slutten av 600-tallet'' (1985) * ''Über den Ursprung und die Entwicklung der aktiven Perfekt- und Plusquamperfektkonstruktionen des Hochdeutschen und ihre Eigenart innerhalb des germanischen Sprachraumes'' n the origin and development of the active perfect and pluperfect constructions of High German and their peculiarities within the Germanic linguistic area(1986) * ''Fra Ågedal til Setre: sentrale runeinnskrifter fra det 6. århundre'' (1987) * ''Fra Vimose til Ødemotland : nye studier over runeinnskrifter fra førkristen tid i Norden'' (1996) * ''Untersuchungen zur älteren nordischen und germanischen Sprachgeschichte'' tudies in older Norse and Germanic linguistic history(1998) * ''Der Rökstein: Über die religiöse Bestimmung und das weltliche Schicksal eines Helden aus der frühen Wikingerzeit'' he Rök Stone: Of the religious destiny and worldly fate of a hero in the early Viking era(2003)

References

1916 births 2008 deaths Germanic studies scholars Linguists from Norway Linguists of Germanic languages Writers on Germanic paganism Runologists University of Oslo faculty 20th-century linguists {{Norway-linguist-stub