AASEN, IVAR (1813-1896), Norwegian philologist and lexi cographer, was born at Aasen i Orsten, in Sondmore, Norway, Aug. 5,1813, the son of a small peasant-farmer. Gradually, by dint of infinite patience and concentration, the young peasant became master of many languages, and began the scientific study of their structure. His first publication was a small collection of f olk songs in the Sondrnore dialect (1843). The Grammar of the Norwegian Dialects (1848) and the Dictionary of the Norwegian Dialects (185o) prepared the way for the wide cultivation of the popular language in Norwegian, since Aasen really did no less than construct, out of the different materials at his disposal, a popular language or definite folke-maal for Norway.
With certain modifications, the most important of which were introduced later by Aasen himself, this artificial language is that which has been adopted ever since by those who write in dialect, and which later enthusiasts have once more endeavoured to impose upon Norway as her official language in the place of Dano Norwegian. Aasen composed poems and plays in the composite dialect and continued to enlarge and improve his grammars and his dictionary. He lived quietly in lodgings in Christiania, but his name grew into wide political favour as his ideas about the language of the peasants became more and more the watchword of the popular party.
Quite early in his career (1842), he had begun to receive a stipend to enable him to give his entire attention to his philo logical investigations; and the Storting—conscious of the national importance of his work—treated him with more gener osity as he advanced in years. After the 1873 edition of his Dictionary, he added but little to his stores. Ivar Aasen holds perhaps an isolated place in literary history as the one man who has invented, or at least selected and constructed, a language which has pleased so many thousands of his countrymen that they have accepted it for their schools, their sermons and their songs. He died in Christiania, Sept. 23, 1896.