Background
He was born in Bergen as a son of shipmaster and merchant Mads Christensen Nygaard (1793–1875) and Maren Behrens (1806–1875).
He was born in Bergen as a son of shipmaster and merchant Mads Christensen Nygaard (1793–1875) and Maren Behrens (1806–1875).
He finished his secondary education in 1855 and graduated from the Royal Frederick University with the candidate.philol.
Degree in 1861. He worked at Bergen Cathedral School from 1862 to 1863 and Christianssand Cathedral School 1864 to 1876, and was headmaster from 1876 to 1877. He was the headmaster of the upper secondary school in Fredrikshald from 1877 to 1894 and Drammen from 1894 to 1910. He conducted linguistic research.
Publications include Eddasprogets Syntax, in two volumes in 1865 and 1867, about the syntax in Edda, as well as Betydningen og Brugen af Verbet in 1878.
In 1887 he published the Latin-Norwegian dictionary Latinsk Ordbog together with January Johanssen and Emil Schreiner, a book which is still in use—it has been updated and reissued, last in 1998. He published Kortfattet Fremstilling af det norske Landsmaals Grammatik in 1867, a very early grammar of Landsmål.
Together with Jonathan Aars he was also a driving force behind the Norwegian orthographic reform of 1907, which marked a split between Dano-Norwegian and the new Riksmål.
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters]
He was a member of the city councils of both Christianssand, Fredrikshald and Drammen. He was a member of Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters from 1877 and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1880. He was a proponent of this written form of Norwegian, among others as a member of Vestmannalaget.