Den første norske tesaurus: Ivar Aasens Norsk Maalbunad

This article contains a discussion of the first onomasiological dictionaryfor Norwegian: Ivar Aasen’s Norsk Maalbunad (publishedposthumously in 1925). Aasen (1813–1896) was the founder of thedialect-based “Nynorsk” variety of Norwegian, and Norway’s firstadvanced dialectologist and lexicographer. Norsk Maalbunad was infact primarily intended by Aasen as an aid in his other lexicographicwork, and therefore not published by him (although completed in1876). Its model was Roget’s Thesaurus, but Aasen’s choice of wordsand their arrangement were taken from the world of Norwegian farmers,although he also coined abstract words for concepts not coveredin everyday popular speech at the time. The article analyses thestructure of Norsk Maalbunad and discusses some of the problemsAasen encountered in the development of an adequate modern vocabularyfor the new written language.