Knud Knudsen and the question of purism

Language purism is often associated with opposition towards foreign linguistic elements, most typically foreign vocabulary. Most definitions therefore include the dichotomy of foreign versus domestic and/or national and/or un-national. This article takes a look at the Norwegian language reformer Knud Knudsen (1812–1895) and his arguments for excluding most (but not all) foreign words. This leads to a specification of the term foreign, and a description of various arguments for categorizing certain elements as unwanted.