Otto Christian Dahl (July 15, 1903 – November 11, 1995) 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 ...

missionary in Madagascar, linguist, and

government scholar Government scholar (Norwegian, ''statsstipendiat'') is a position awarded by the Parliament of Norway upon the recommendation of the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education and Research and funded directly over the State budget of Nor ...

. Dahl was born in

Namsos ( sma, Nåavmesjenjaelmie) is a municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Namdalen region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Namsos. Some of the villages in the municipality include Bangsund, Kl ...

. He enrolled in theology studies in 1924, graduated in 1927, and was ordained the same year. He worked as a librarian for one year at the Stavanger Mission School before traveling to Madagascar in 1929Dahl, Otto Christian. 1973. ''Proto-Austronesian''. Lund: Studentlitteratur, p. 150. as a missionary for the

Norwegian Missionary Society The Norwegian Missionary Society or the Norwegian Mission Society ( no, Det Norske Misjonsselskap, NMS) is the first and oldest missionary organization in Norway. It was started by a group of approximately 180 Stavanger residents in August 1842, ...

(NMS). He worked in Madagascar, with some interruptions, until 1957. He was the mission director for western Madagascar from 1952 to 1957, and president of the Malagasy Lutheran Church from 1955 to 1957. He was a teacher at Mission School from 1948 to 1949, and worked as a mission secretary for the NMS from 1958 to 1966. Dahl studied linguistics in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...

(1935–1937, 1947–1948, and 1950–1952), Hamburg (1937), and Leiden (1950). He received his doctorate from 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 ...

in 1952 with the dissertation ''Malgache et maanjan: Une comparaison linguistique'' ( Malagasy and Ma'anyan: A Linguistic Comparison). He was characterized as "probably the world's foremost expert on the Malagasy language." Dahl's work with the language and his comparison between Malagasy and Ma'anyan led him and others to advance the theory that Madagascar had been settled in approximately AD 400 by Ma'anyan-speaking people from the Tamianglayang area in southwestern Kalimantan (

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and ea ...

).Goodman, Steven M., & William L. Jungers . 2014. ''Extinct Madagascar: Picturing the Island's Past''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 38–40. Dahl was given a government scholarship in 1967. He was named a "knight" of the National Order of Madagascar in 1979, an "officer" in 1984, a "commander" in 1989, and a "grand officer" in 1995. Dahl was also awarded the Norwegian

King's Medal of Merit The King's Medal of Merit (Norwegian: ''Kongens fortjenstmedalje'') is a Norwegian award. It was instituted in 1908 to reward meritorious achievements in the fields of art, science, business, and public service. It is divided in two classes: gold ...

in gold. He was made a member of the Malagasy Academy 1941, and of the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick Unive ...

in 1957. Dahl had five children, one of whom is Øyvind Dahl, a missionary and professor at the Stavanger Mission School. Otto Christian Dahl died in Stavanger.

Selected works by Dahl

* "Bibelen på Madagaskar" (The Bible in Madagascar, 1950) * "De Zending op Madagaskar" (The Mission in Madagascar, 1950) * ''Malgache et maanjan: Une comparaison linguistique'' (Malagasy and Ma'anyan: A Linguistic Comparison, dissertation, 1951) * ''Les débuts de l'orthographe malgache'' (The Beginnings of Malagasy Spelling, 1966) * ''Contes malgaches en dialecte sakalava'' (Malagasy Tales in the Sakalava Dialect, 1968) * ''Misjonsarbeidet og folkets kulturelle tradisjoner: Et foredrag for misjonærer'' (Missionary Work and Cultural Traditions: A Lecture for Missionaries, 1969) * ''Gassisk'' (Malagasy, 1970) * ''Proto-Austronesian'' (1973, 1977) * ''Atopazy ny masonao'' (Lift up Your Eyes, 1974) * ''Early Phonetic and Phonemic Changes in Austronesian'' (1981) * "Sorabe: revelant l'evolution du dialecte Antemoro" (Sorabe: Revealing the Evolution of the Antemoro Dialect, 1983) * "Norske misjonærers innsats i vitenskapelig arbeid" (Norwegian Missionaries' Research Efforts, 1984) * "Mahomet dans le panthéon Malgache" (Muhammad in the Malagasy Pantheon, 1984) * "Focus in Malagasy and Proto-Austronesian" (1986) * ''En dør mellom tanker: misjon og språk'' (A Door between Thoughts: Mission and Language, 1987) * "Bantu Substratum in Malagasy" (1988) * ''Norsklærer for folk med annet morsmål'' (Norwegian for Speakers of Other Languages, 1990) * "Migration from Kalimantan to Madagascar" (1991) * ''Kulturminner: døde levninger eller levende minner?'' (Cultural Heritage: Dead Remnants or Living Memories?, 2001)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dahl, Otto Christian Norwegian theologians Linguists from Norway Norwegian government scholars People from Namsos 1903 births 1995 deaths University of Oslo alumni Norwegian Lutheran missionaries Norwegian expatriates in Germany Norwegian expatriates in Madagascar Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Recipients of the King's Medal of Merit in gold Missionary linguists Lutheran missionaries in Madagascar Linguists of Austronesian languages 20th-century linguists 20th-century Lutherans