Bjarne Berulfsen

Bjarne Berulfsen (March 27, 1906 – October 9, 1970) was a Norwegian philologist and professor, best known for establishing the Friends of Folk Song Club (Norwegian: Visens venner) in 1946 and for writing many books translated into several languages.

Bjarne Berulfsen

Berulfsen was born in Solum, Norway (now Skien).[1] He passed his university admission exam (examen artium) in 1925 and then received a candidatus philologiæ degree in historical linguistics in 1932. He taught at Christian High School (Norwegian: Kristelig Gymnasium) in Oslo, and then became the principal of the Oslo Commerce School in 1936.[1] He received his PhD in 1949[1] with the dissertation Kulturtradisjon fra en storhetstid (Cultural Tradition from a Golden Age), which was based on private correspondence from the 15th century,[2] and he was also hosted at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1958. He was appointed a lecturer at the University of Oslo in 1960,[1] then a senior lecturer, and finally a professor of Norwegian linguistics in 1967 at the university's Faculty of Humanities, where he worked until his death.[1]

Berulfsen served on the Educational Coordination Committee (Norwegian: Samordningsnemnda for skoleverket) from 1947 onward and later on the Norwegian Language Council (Norwegian: Norsk Språknemnd), initially as its chairman in 1965.[3] He was the father of the journalist Torkjell Berulfsen and also wrote lyrics and performed them while playing piano. Together with others, Berulfsen showed how Norwegian folk tales influenced the Bokmål written standard in separating from the prevailing written language: Danish influenced by Latin and German.[4]