Einar Ingvald Haugen (; April 19, 1906 – June 20, 1994) was an American linguist, writer, and professor at University of Wisconsin–Madison and Harvard University.

Biography

Haugen was born in Sioux City, Iowa, to Norwegian immigrants from the village of Oppdal in Trøndelag, Norway. When he was a young child, the family moved back to Oppdal for a few years, but then returned to the United States. He attended Morningside College in Sioux City but transferred to

St. Olaf College St. Olaf College is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. It was founded in 1874 by a group of Norwegian-American pastors and farmers led by Pastor Bernt Julius Muus. The college is named after the King and the Patron Saint Olaf ...

to study with

Ole Edvart Rølvaag Ole Edvart Rølvaag (; Rølvåg in modern Norwegian, Rolvaag in English orthography) (April 22, 1876 – November 5, 1931) was a Norwegian-American novelist and professor who became well known for his writings regarding the Norwegian American imm ...

. He earned his B.A. in 1928 and immediately went on to graduate studies in Scandinavian languages under professor

George T. Flom George Tobias Flom (April 12, 1871 – January 4, 1960) was an American professor of linguistics and author of numerous reference books. Background George Tobias Flom was born in Utica, Dane County, Wisconsin. His grandfather had immigrated to ...

at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was awarded the Ph.D. in 1931. In 1931 Haugen joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he stayed until 1962. He was made Victor S. Thomas Professor of Scandinavian and Linguistics at Harvard University in 1964, and stayed here until his retirement in 1975. Haugen served as president of the Linguistic Society of America, the American Dialect Society, and the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study. Haugen was also a member of the Board of Editors of the

Norwegian-American Historical Association Norwegian-American Historical Association is a non-profit, member-supported organization dedicated to locating, collecting, preserving and interpreting the Norwegian-American experience. It publishes scholarly books and maintains a historical arc ...

. In 1972 he was awarded an honorary degree, doctor philos. honoris causa, at the

Norwegian Institute of Technology The Norwegian Institute of Technology (Norwegian: ''Norges tekniske høgskole'', NTH) was a science institute in Trondheim, Norway. It was established in 1910, and existed as an independent technical university for 58 years, after which it was m ...

, later part of the

Norwegian University of Science and Technology 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 the ...

. Haugen is credited with having pioneered American

sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It can overlap with the sociology of l ...

and being a leading scholar within the field of Norwegian-American studies, including Old Norse studies. Perhaps his most important work was ''The Norwegian language in America: A Study in Bilingual Behavior'' (). In addition to several important works within these fields, he wrote the authoritative work on the dialect of his ancestral home of Oppdal and a book entitled ''The Ecology of Language'', with which he pioneered a new field of linguistics later called

Ecolinguistics Ecolinguistics, or ecological linguistics, emerged in the 1990s as a new paradigm of linguistic research, widening sociolinguistics to take into account not only the social context in which language is embedded, but also the wider ecological conte ...

. Einar Haugen also wrote ''Norwegian English Dictionary/Norsk engelsk ordbok'' (). His last book was a biography of the Norwegian virtuoso violinist

Ole Bull Ole Bornemann Bull (; 5 February 181017 August 1880) was a Norwegian virtuoso violinist and composer. According to Robert Schumann, he was on a level with Niccolò Paganini for the speed and clarity of his playing. Biography Background Bull was ...

co-written with his daughter, Camilla Cai.

Memorials

The ''Einar and Eva Lund Haugen Memorial Scholarship'' has been established by the Norwegian-American Historical Association to honor Einar Haugen and his wife

Eva Lund Haugen Eva Lund Haugen (February 4, 1907 – October 25, 1996) was an American writer, editor and translator. Biography Eva Lund was born at Kongsvinger in Hedmark, Norway. She was twelve years old when her journalist parents emigrated to the United Stat ...

(1907–1996). Additionally, the Boston Chapter of the American-Scandinavian Foundation voted to establish the ''Einar and Eva Haugen Prize''. The prize is awarded annually to an undergraduate or graduate student for excellence in the field of Scandinavian languages and literature at Harvard University. Einar and Eva Haugen Prize
The President and Fellows of Harvard College

Selected bibliography

*''Voyages to Vinland: The First American Saga'' (1942) *''Spoken Norwegian'' (1946) * ''The Norwegian Language in America: A Study in Bilingual Behavior'' (1953) *''Bilingualism in the Americas'' (1956) *''The Semantics of Icelandic Orientation'' (1957) *''Language Conflict and Language Planning: The Case of Modern Norwegian'' (1966) *''Studies by Einar Haugen: Presented on the Occasion of his 65th birthday'' ( 1971) *''The Ecology of Language: Language Science and National Development'' (1972) *''Norwegian-English Dictionary: A Pronouncing and Translating Dictionary of Modern Norwegian'' (1974) *''The Scandinavian Languages: An Introduction to Their History'' (1976) *''Bibliography of Scandinavian Languages and Linguistics'' 1900-70 (1974) *''Scandinavian Language Structures'' (1982) *''Blessings of Babel: Bilingualism and Language Planning'' (1987) *''Immigrant Idealist: A Literary Biography of Waldemar Ager, Norwegian American'' (1989) *''Ole Bull: Norway's Romantic Musician and Cosmopolitan Patriot'' (1993)

References

Additional reading

* Lovoll, Odd S. (1999) ''The History of the Norwegian-American People'' (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press) * Gulliksen, Øyvind Tveitereid (2004) ''Twofold Identities: Norwegian-American Contributions to Midwestern Literature'' (New York City: Peter Lang Publishing Co.)

External links