Sophus Bugge

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Sophus Bugge (1833-1907) was a Norwegian philologist, known for his work on the runic alphabet and the Eddas.

Bugge was born at Laurvik, Norway, 5 January 1833. He was educated at Christiania, Copenhagen and Berlin, and in 1866 he became professor of comparative philology and Old Norse at Christiania University. 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. He was the author of a very large number of books on philology and folklore. His principal work, a critical edition of the elder Edda (Norroen Fornkvoedi), was published at Christiania in 1867. He maintained that the songs of the Edda and the earlier sagas were largely founded on Christian and Latin tradition imported into Scandinavian literature by way of England. His writings also include Gamle Norske Folkeviser (1858), a collection of Old Norse folk-songs; Bidrag til den aeldste skaldedigtnings historie (Christiania, 1894); Helge-digtene i den Aeldre Edda (Copenhagen, 1896, Eng. trans., The Home of the Eddic Poems, 1899); Norsk Sagafortaelling op Sagaskrivning i Island (Christiania, 1901), and various books on Runic inscriptions. He died 8 July 1907.

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.