Alf Torp (September 27, 1853 – September 26, 1916) 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

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

. He is most known for his work with

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...

and Nordic language history and meaning of

ancient language An ancient language is any language originating in times that may be referred to as ancient. There are no formal criteria for deeming a language ancient, but a traditional convention is to demarcate as "ancient" those languages that existed prior t ...

Biography

Alf Torp was born in

Stryn Stryn is a municipality in the county of Vestland, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Nordfjord. The administrative center of the municipality is the village of Stryn. The municipality is located along the innermost part of t ...

Sogn og Fjordane Sogn og Fjordane (; English: "Sogn and Fjordane") was, up to 1 January 2020, a county in western Norway, when it was merged to become part of Vestland county. Bordering previous counties Møre og Romsdal, Oppland, Buskerud, and Hordaland, the cou ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. He became cand. philol. in 1877 at the

Bergen Cathedral School Bergen Cathedral School (Norwegian: ''Bergen Katedralskole'', Latin: ''Schola Cathedralis Bergensis'', formerly known as Bergens lærdeskole and Bergen latinskole and colloquially known as Katten) is an upper secondary school in Bergen, Norway. Loc ...

. He was a student of

Sophus Bugge Elseus Sophus Bugge (5 January 1833 – 8 July 1907) was a Norwegian philologist and linguist. His scholarly work was directed to the study of runic inscriptions and Norse philology. Bugge is best known for his theories and his work on the runic ...

, and during a stay in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

in 1878-80 a student of

Georg Curtius Georg Curtius (April 16, 1820August 12, 1885) was a German philologist and distinguished comparativist. Biography Curtius was born in Lübeck, and was the brother of the historian and archeologist Ernst Curtius. After an education at Bonn and ...

and

Ernst Windisch Ernst Wilhelm Oskar Windisch (4 September 1844, Dresden30 October 1918, Leipzig) was a German classical philologist and comparative linguist who specialised in Sanskrit, Celtic and Indo-European studies. In his student days at the University of L ...

. In 1881 he got his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

with the dissertation ''Die Flexion des Pali in ihrem Verhältnis zum Sanskrit''. He taught 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 1883 and in 1894 he became professor in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

and

comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness ...

. He published numerous papers about the inscriptions in various languages including

Etruscan __NOTOC__ Etruscan may refer to: Ancient civilization *The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy *Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization **Etruscan architecture **Etruscan art **Etruscan cities ** Etrusca ...

, Phrygian,

Venetic Venetic is an extinct Indo-European language, usually classified into the Italic subgroup, that was spoken by the Veneti people in ancient times in northeast Italy (Veneto and Friuli) and part of modern Slovenia, between the Po Delta and ...

, Lycian and Hittite. In 1905, he was appointed Knight of 1 Class of Order of St. Olav 1905 Among many other works, in 1903-06 he published ''Etymologisk ordbog over det norske og det danske sprog'' (Etymological dictionary of the Norwegian and Danish languages) together with Norwegian linguist,

Hjalmar Falk Peterolsen Groth Hjalmar Seierstedt Falk (April 2, 1859 – November 2, 1928) was a Norwegian linguist and philologist. Early life and education Falk was born in Vang. He started his university studies in 1876 and graduated with an education ...

(1859-1928). It was the only Norwegian

etymological dictionary An etymological dictionary discusses the etymology of the words listed. Often, large dictionaries, such as the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' and ''Webster's'', will contain some etymological information, without aspiring to focus on etymology. E ...

for nearly a hundred years, until it was replaced in 2000 ''Våre arveord - etymologisk ordbok'' by Harald Bjorvand and

Fredrik Otto Lindeman Fredrik Otto Lindeman (born 3 March 1936) is a Norwegian linguist. He is professor emeritus in historical linguistics at University of Oslo. Lindeman works mainly with Indo-European languages. He has given his name to Lindeman's law, an Indo-Europ ...

. ''Etymologisk ordbok'', Harald Bjorvand & Frederik Otto Lindemann: Våre arveord. Oslo 2000
/ref>

Selected works

* ''Die Flexion des Pali in ihrem Verhältnis zum Sanskrit'', 1881 * ''Vokal- og Konsonantstammer'', 1889 * ''Zu den phrygischen Inschriften aus römischer Zeit'', 1894 * ''Zum Phrygischen'', 1896 * ''Indogermanische Forschungen'', 1897 * ''Etruskische Monatsdaten'', 1902 * ''Bemerkungen zu der etruskischen Inschrift von S. Maria di Capua'', 1905 * ''Gamalnorsk ordavleiding'', 1909 * ''Nynorsk etymologisk ordbok'', 1919

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Torp, Alf 1853 births 1916 deaths People from Stryn Linguists from Norway Norwegian lexicographers People educated at the Bergen Cathedral School Norwegian expatriates in Germany Leipzig University alumni Members of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala