page_title: Peder Syv
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Peder Syv / Work
caption_attribution_description: Dansk: Mindesten sat for peder Syv i 1921
context_page_description: Peder Pedersen Syv or in Latin Petrus Petri Septimius was a Danish philologist, folklorist and priest, known for his collections of Danish proverbs and folksongs, and his contributions to the development of Danish as a written language.
context_section_description: In Peder Syv's era, Danish was primarily a spoken language with little prestige. Latin and German were the prestige languages used in writing and in most official functions. Syv was one of a small group of scholars who worked to introduce Danish in a wider spectrum of social domains, and to establish a literature. They based their work on similar efforts undertaken in Germany, where scholars had organized themselves into language academies to promote the use of German in writing.
  In 1663, Syv published the philological treatise Nogle Betenkninger om det Cimbriske Sprog ("Some Thoughts about the Cimbrian Language"). The treatise was a programmatic defense of vernacular national languages as vehicles of literature. He argued that just as Dante Alighieri and Martin Opitz had contributed to making their local vernacular languages respectable languages for written literature, so this was to be done for the Danish language. He pointed out that for this to happen it would be necessary to write a grammar and a dictionary to produce a written standard, and to convert the orally transmitted language forms to the written medium.
  In 1685, Syv published the first grammar of Danish written in Danish (two other Latin grammars of Danish had been published in the preceding decades), named Grammatica or Den Danske Sprog-Kunst ("The Danish Language-Art") and began preparations for the first dictionary, which however was never finished. The grammar introduced Danish grammatical terminology to replace traditional latinate terms, for example, navnord (literally "name-word") replacing Latin Nomen and biord (literally "by-word") standing for adverbium.
  In the 1680s, Syv prepared and published two volumes of Aldmindelige Danske Ord-Sproge og korte Lærdomme ("Common Danish Proverbs and Short Learnings"), containing some 15,000 Danish proverbs and idioms. This work is considered a classic in Danish literature. In 1695, Syv published a collection of folksongs Tohundrede Danske Viser ("Two Hundred Danish Songs"), which reprinted 100 folksongs published in 1591 by Anders Sørensen Vedel as well as 100 other songs. The work also included songs by his friend the priest Laurids Olufsen Kok. Among the songs in the collection are versions of Elveskud (of a knight seduced by an elven maid), and the well known song Thyra Danebod written by Kok.
  Writing in 1878, Syv's biographer Frederik Winkel Horn describes him as primarily notable for his dedication to the Danish language, though not of outstanding wit. Horn notes that Syv's dictionary and grammatical writings had been influential in spite of their shortcomings, and that his main importance lay in his collections of proverbs and folksongs.
caption: Memorial stone for Peder Syv at Hellested, placed by the people of Hellested in 1921. Its caption says "The plant of youth is the fruit of old age. Philologist and proverb collector Peder Syv, priest in Hellested 1664–1702."
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