Saka som stoppa skolebarninnsamlingas nasjonale ambisjoner : – om innsamlinga av stedsnavn i 1930-åra

This article presents new insights into why the big project to collect place names with the help of school children in the 1930s in Norway failed to become a national project. The project was initiated and led by Professor Gustav Indrebø, who was a pioneer in place name research in Norway.

With the help of school children, Indrebø wanted to collect place names all over Norway, but despite a promising start and a large amount of collected material, particularly from Western Norway and Southern Norway, the work stopped, and large parts of Norway never became part of the collection. Few have attempted to give explanations as to why this happened, and no one has directly investigated why the work halted.

New findings are presented and can shed light on the question. Indrebø’s strong opinions and actions in the language dispute between Nynorsk and Bokmål is an important aspect. These findings are presented in detail, before finally discussing what they can tell us about possible reasons on the halt of the project.