Marius Nygaard (13 September 1838 – 7 February 1912) was a Norwegian educator and linguist.
Personal life
He was born in Bergen 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.[1]
He conducted linguistic research. Publications include Eddasprogets Syntax, in two volumes in 1865 and 1867, about the syntax in Edda, as well as Betydningen og Brugen af Verbet in 1878. He was a member of Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters from 1877 and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters 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.[3][4]
He published Kortfattet Fremstilling af det norske Landsmaals Grammatik in 1867, a very early grammar of Landsmål. 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 and the new Riksmål.[1]