Marius Nygaard (13 September 1838 – 7 February 1912) was a Norwegian educator and linguist.

Personal life

He was born in

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula o ...

as a son of shipmaster and merchant Mads Christensen Nygaard (1793–1875) and Maren Behrens (1806–1875). On the maternal side he was a first cousin of Johan Diederich Behrens. Nygaard married Elise Martin (1842–1923) in August 1863 in Bergen. They had the son

William Martin Nygaard William Martin Nygaard (6 February 1865 – 19 December 1952) was a Norwegian publisher and politician. Personal life Nygaard was born in Kristiansand as the son of educator and linguist Marius Nygaard (1838–1912) and his wife Elisabeth "Elise ...

, a notable politician and book publisher. Marius Nygaard was also a grandfather of Mads Wiel Nygaard and judge Marius Nygaard, and a great-grandfather of

Agnes Nygaard Haug Agnes Margrete Nygaard Haug (born 27 August 1933) is a Norwegian judge. She was born in Oslo as a daughter of Supreme Court Justice Marius Nygaard (1902–1978) and Eva Julie Johanne Christensen (1906–2000). Her great-grandfather was the acade ...

Kristen Nygaard Kristen Nygaard (27 August 1926 – 10 August 2002) was a Norwegian computer scientist, programming language pioneer, and politician. Internationally, Nygaard is acknowledged as the co-inventor of object-oriented programming and the programming ...

and

William Nygaard William Nygaard (born 16 March 1943) is the retired head of the Norwegian publishing company Aschehoug. He was also chairman of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. He has two children. Business career From 1974 to 2010, he was the chief pub ...

Career

finished Finished may refer to: * ''Finished'' (novel), a 1917 novel by H. Rider Haggard * ''Finished'' (film), a 1923 British silent romance film * "Finished" (short story), a science fiction short story by L. Sprague de Camp See also *Finishing (disa ...

his secondary education in 1855 and graduated from the

Royal Frederick University 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 ...

with the cand.philol. degree in 1861. He worked at Bergen Cathedral School from 1862 to 1863 and Christianssand Cathedral School 1864 to 1876, and was headmaster from 1876 to 1877. He was the headmaster of the upper secondary school in Fredrikshald from 1877 to 1894 and

Drammen Drammen () is a city and municipality in Viken, Norway. The port and river city of Drammen is centrally located in the south-eastern and most populated part of Norway. Drammen municipality also includes smaller towns and villages such as Konne ...

from 1894 to 1910. He was a member of the

city council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...

s of both Christianssand, Fredrikshald and Drammen. He conducted linguistic research. Publications include ''Eddasprogets Syntax'', in two volumes in 1865 and 1867, about the syntax in

Edda "Edda" (; Old Norse ''Edda'', plural ''Eddur'') is an Old Norse term that has been attributed by modern scholars to the collective of two Medieval Icelandic literary works: what is now known as the ''Prose Edda'' and an older collection of poems ...

, as well as ''Betydningen og Brugen af Verbet'' in 1878. He was a member of

Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters ( da, Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab, DKNVS) is a Norwegian learned society based in Trondheim. It was founded in 1760 and is Norway's oldest scientific and scholarly institution. The ...

from 1877 and 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 ...

from 1880. In 1887 he published the Latin-Norwegian dictionary ''Latinsk Ordbog'' together with Jan Johanssen and Emil Schreiner, a book which is still in use—it has been updated and reissued, last in 1998.Entry
for ''Latinsk-norsk ordbok'' (4th ed., 1998) at BIBSYS He published ''Kortfattet Fremstilling af det norske Landsmaals Grammatik'' in 1867, a very early grammar of

Landsmål Nynorsk () () is one of the two written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language ( no, Landsmål) parallel to the Dano-Nor ...

. He was a proponent of this written form of Norwegian, among others as a member of Vestmannalaget. Together with Jonathan Aars he was also a driving force behind the Norwegian orthographic reform of 1907, which marked a split between

Dano-Norwegian Dano-Norwegian ( Danish and no, dansk-norsk) was a koiné/mixed language that evolved among the urban elite in Norwegian cities during the later years of the union between the Kingdoms of Denmark and Norway (1536/1537–1814). It is from thi ...

and the new

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 ...

. He was decorated with the

Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a ci ...

in 1890, and died in February 1912 in Oslo, Kristiania.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nygaard, Marius 1838 births 1912 deaths Schoolteachers from Bergen University of Oslo alumni Linguists from Norway Nynorsk Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Writers from Kristiansand Østfold politicians Politicians from Drammen Language reformers