Alf Sommerfelt (November 23, 1892October 12, 1965), 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 ...

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

and the first professor of

linguistics Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...

in Norway, working 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 ...

from 1931 to 1962.

Personal life

Sommerfelt was born in

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

, Norway. He married the

young adult literature Young adult fiction (YA) is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. While the genre is primarily targeted at adolescents, approximately half of YA readers are adults. The subject matter and genres of YA correlate w ...

writer Aimée Sommerfelt. He died in Nes, Norway, aged 72.

Linguistics work

Sommerfelt was a central figure in the introduction of structuralism in Norway. He had studied in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, and held lectures on Saussure,

glossematics Glossematics is a structuralist linguistic theory proposed by Louis Hjelmslev and Hans Jørgen Uldall although the two ultimately went separate ways each with their own approach. Hjelmslev’s theory, most notably, is an early mathematical metho ...

, the

Prague school The Prague school or Prague linguistic circle is a language and literature society. It started in 1926 as a group of linguists, philologists and literary critics in Prague. Its proponents developed methods of structuralist literary analysis and ...

and American structuralism. People at the Nordic institutes, on the other hand, didn't subscribe to Sommerfelt's methods, and there was little contact between them and the structuralists until the 1960s. Together with the Slavicist

Olaf Broch Olaf Broch (4 August 1867, Horten28 January 1961, Oslo) was a Norwegian linguist. He was born in Horten, and was a brother of children's writer Lagertha Broch, zoologist Hjalmar Broch, and social worker Nanna Broch. He was a professor of Slavi ...

, Sommerfelt founded the ''Norwegian association for linguistics'' in 1924, an association that would play an important part in the introduction of new linguistic theories to Norway. Sommerfelt wrote several popular introductions to linguistics. He also wrote an introductory book on general linguistics (1947), a book read by all the linguistics students at the university of Oslo, and reprinted ten years later. Sommerfelt was also one of the editors of ''Norsk riksmålsordbog'' (the Norwegian

Riksmål (, also , ) is a written Norwegian language form or spelling standard, meaning the ''National Language'', closely related and now almost identical to the dominant form of Bokmål, known as . Both Bokmål and Riksmål evolved from the Danish wri ...

dictionary).

Selected bibliography

* Sommerfelt, Alf 1921: ''Le Breton parlé a Saint-Pol-de-Leon : Phonétique et morphologie'' * Sommerfelt, Alf 1922: ''The dialect of Torr Co. Donegal.'' Videnskapsselskapets skrifter II. Hist.-filos. kl. 1-2 * Sommerfelt, Alf 1934:''Hvordan sproget blir til : en oversikt over sprogets rolle i samfundene'' Oslo : Cappelens forlag. * Sommerfelt, Alf 1947: Almen språkvitenskap : (det propedeutiske kursus).

References

* Hovdhaugen, Even, Fred Karlsson, Carol Henriksen and Bengt Sigurd 2000: ''The History of Linguistics in the Nordic Countries.'' Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sommerfelt, Alf 1892 births 1965 deaths People from Trondheim Academic staff of the University of Oslo Linguists from Norway Structuralists Norwegian people of World War II Road incident deaths in Norway 20th-century linguists