The Word Archives

The Norwegian Dictionary (Norsk Ordbok)

The card file consists of approximately three million entries with key words organized alphabetically in accordance with the 1938 standard. Each entry contains excerpts from Nynorsk literature, journals and newspapers. In addition, information about dialects is provided by native speakers all around the country. A facsimile has been made of each entry, allowing the electronic retrieval of its image. Basic information related to each entry, for example the key word (the word or phrase defined or illustrated by the entry - when standardized according to the 1938 standard), the grammar (which part of speech the key word corresponds to) and the source (the source of the information on the entry). More information about Norsk Ordbok..
In charge of project section: Professor Lars Vikør, Section for Norwegian Lexicography and Dialectology in the Department for Scandinavian Languages and Comparative Literature, University of Oslo. Contact person for the Nynorsk project section: Karl Johan Sæth
IT manager: Lars Jørgen Tvedt

The Norwegian Dictionary (Norsk Ordbok) - additions after 1990

After the Documentation project was launched, new entries have been recorded in the card file. These new entries eventually will be incorporated in the card-file database, but, in the mean time, they are stored in a separate database for new acquisitions.
In charge of project section: Professor Lars Vikør, Section for Norwegian Lexicography and Dialectology in the Department for Scandinavian Languages and Comparative Literature, University of Oslo Contact person for the Nynorsk project section: Karl Johan Sæth, k.j.sath@dokpro.uio.no.
IT manager: Christian-Emil Ore

The Dictionary of Dialect Words from the Trøndelag Region (Trønderordboka)

In 1981 a project was initiated at the Department of Scandinavian Studies and Comparative Literature, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, which was aimed at compiling a dictionary of the Trøndelag dialects. A total of approximately 180000 entries has been collected giving examples of the variations of the Trøndelag dialect. The examples have been collected from literature and from the spoken language. The entries are of the same type as those contributing to the Norwegian Dictionary (Norsk Ordbok). They consist of a key word, information about or examples of how the word is used, and information about the source of the recorded information.
In charge of project section: Professor Emeritus Arnold Dalen, the Department of Scandinavian Studies and Comparative Literature, NTNU
Contact person: Tor Erik Jenstad
IT manager: Lars Jørgen Tvedt

a name="new">The New Words Database

The New Words Archives at the Section for Norwegian Lexicography and Dialectology in the Department for Scandinavian Languages and Comparative Literature at the University of Oslo, contains quotations from newspapers, journals and magazines. There are approximately 300000 quotes from 174 different sources. The compilation of this database has been going on for several decades, so the term "new word" should be interpreted in an historical perspective. The word was new, or had acquired a new meaning, or had come to be used in a different way at the time of registration.

This edition of the New Words Database consists of 116005 quotes, the majority of which are from the years 1968 to 1972. However, the oldest entries are from 1920 while the most recent ones are from 1994. The number of quotations will gradually increase as more of the material is processed. In each citation one or more of the words are selected (excerpted) and dealt with (this edition offers a total of 195744 excerpts).
The excerpted words are transformed to their basic form and provided with a code for grammatical function (part of speech) and other relevant codes. Simple words (including derivatives and composites) are marked with a single code for grammatical function while composite words are given codes for both word elements although it is the last element that determines the grammatical function of the composite word. One hundred four different auxiliary codes provide information about morphology, phraseology, imagery, etc.
In charge of project section: Professor Dag Gundersen, Department of Scandinavian Languages and Comparative Literature (INL), University of Oslo Contact person at INL: Anne Engø, anne.engo@inl.uio.no.
IT manager: Christian-Emil Ore



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Updated 15 June, 1998 by Andreas Østby