This is the first complete study of the life and work of Johan Storm, one of the most admired linguists of the late nineteenth century. It presents his work on language in its entirety, covering his contributions to English philology, Romance languages and Norwegian.

Andrew Linn describes Storm’s position at the centre of a community of phoneticians, dialectologists, modern language teachers and language reformers, at a crucial period in the development of modern linguistics. He demonstrates the importance of Storm’s ideas to the emergence of language study in its modern form, to the ousting of Classics by modern languages in school and university, and to contemporary debates on the standardization of Norwegian. He also highlights the ongoing relevance of Storm’s work to the study and teaching of English and Romance languages, and to the fields of phonetics and dialectology.