Sophus Bugge

Sophus Bugge (5 January 1833 – 8 July 1907) was a noted Norwegian philologist and linguist. His scholarly work was directed to the study of runic inscriptions and Norse philology. Bugge is best known for his theories and his work on the runic alphabet and the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda.

Elseus Sophus Bugge was born in Larvik, in Vestfold county, Norway. His ancestors had been merchants, ship owners and captains of the Larvik for several generations. Bugge was a cand.mag. (1857) and research fellow in comparative linguistics and Sanskrit (1860). He was educated in Christiania, Copenhagen and Berlin.

In 1866 he became professor of comparative philology, comparative Indo-European linguistics and Old Norse at Christiania University now the University of Oslo. In addition to collecting Norwegian folksongs and traditions and writing on Runic inscriptions, he made considerable contributions to the study of the Celtic, Romance, Oscan, Umbrian and Etruscan languages. His scientific work was of fundamental importance for the Norse philology and runic research.

In his 1880 work Studies about the origin of Nordic mythological and heroic tales, Bugge theorized that nearly all myths in Old Norse literature derive from Christian and late classical concepts. Bugge's theories were generally vehemently rejected, but have had some influence.

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