Editing Ivar Aasen (section)

==Career==
[[File:Uthuslien Aasen 1891.jpg|thumb|Ivar Aasen (1891)]]
About 1846 he had freed himself from all the burden of manual labour, and could occupy his thoughts with the dialect of his native district, Sunnmøre; his first publication was a small collection of [[folk song]]s in the Sunnmøre dialect (1843). His remarkable abilities now attracted general attention, and he was helped to continue his studies undisturbed. His ''Grammar of the Norwegian Dialects'' ({{langx|da|Det Norske Folkesprogs Grammatik}}, 1848) was the result of much labour, and of journeys taken to every part of the country. Aasen's famous ''Dictionary of the Norwegian Dialects'' ({{langx|da|Ordbog over det Norske Folkesprog}}) appeared in its original form in 1850, and from this publication dates all 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'' ({{lit|people's language}}) for Norway. By 1853, he had created the norm for utilizing his new language, which he called [[Nynorsk|Landsmaal]], meaning country language.<ref name=Colliers /> With certain modifications, the most important of which were introduced later by Aasen himself,<ref name=Gosse4 /> but also through a latter [[Norwegian language struggle|policy]] aiming to merge this Norwegian language with Dano-Norwegian, this language has become ''[[Nynorsk]]'' ({{lit|New Norwegian}}), the second of Norway's two official languages (the other being ''[[Bokmål]]'', the Dano-Norwegian descendant of the [[Danish language]] used in Norway in Aasen's time). An unofficial variety of Norwegian closer to Aasen's language is still found in [[Høgnorsk]] ({{lit|High Norwegian}}). Today, some consider Nynorsk on equal footing with Bokmål, as Bokmål tends to be used more in radio and television and most newspapers, whereas Nynorsk is used equally in government<ref name=kat>{{harvnb|Katzner|2002|p=78}}</ref> work as well as approximately 17% of schools.<ref name=Hau1>{{harvnb|Haugen|2009|p=126}}</ref> Although it is not as common as its brother language, it needs to be looked upon as a viable language, as a large minority of Norwegians use it as their primary language including many scholars and authors.<ref name=Hau1 /> New Norse is both a written and spoken language.<ref name=hau>{{harvnb|Haugen|2009|p=125}}</ref>

[[Image:VFG IvarAasen01.JPG|thumb|left| Tomb of Ivar Aasen at Vår Frelsers gravlund, Oslo]]
Aasen composed poems and plays in the composite dialect to show how it should be used; one of these dramas, ''The Heir'' (1855), was frequently acted, and may be considered as the pioneer of all the abundant dialect-literature of the last half-century of the 1800s, from [[Aasmund Olavsson Vinje|Vinje]] to [[Arne Garborg|Garborg]]. In 1856, he published ''Norske Ordsprog'', a treatise on Norwegian proverbs. Aasen continuously enlarged and improved his grammars and his dictionary. He lived very quietly in lodgings in [[Oslo]] (then Christiania), surrounded by his books and shrinking from publicity, but his name grew into wide political favour as his ideas about the language of the peasants became more and more the watch-word of the popular party.<ref name=Gosse5>{{harvnb|Gosse|1911|p=5}}</ref> In 1864, he published his definitive grammar of Nynorsk and in 1873 he published the definitive dictionary.<ref name=EB>{{harvnb|Hoiberg|2010|pp=5–6}}</ref>

Quite early in his career, in 1842, he had begun to receive a grant to enable him to give his entire attention to his philological investigations; and the [[Storting]] (Norwegian [[parliament]]), conscious of the national importance of his work, treated him in this respect with more and more generosity as he advanced in years. He continued his investigations to the last, but it may be said that, after the 1873 edition of his ''Dictionary'' (with a new title:<ref name=nie/> {{langx|da|Norsk Ordbog}}), 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 on 23 September 1896, and was buried with public honours.<ref name=Gosse5/><ref>{{harvnb|Grepstad|2013}}</ref>