Magne Oftedal (10 March 1921 – 26 May 1985) was a Norwegian linguist who carried out a large amount of comparative research on Scottish Gaelic dialects, the Celtic languages and Spanish.
[1][2] He was born in Sandnes in the county of Rogaland in 1921 and began studying for a degree in philology at the University of Oslo, but his studies were interrupted by the Second World War and he only managed to complete his degree in 1947.
[2] Throughout his career his main focus remained the phonology and place-names of Gaelic, Welsh and Norwegian.
He became a professor at the University of Oslo after Carl Marstrander and remained there for some 30 years.
He was also an editor of the publication Lochlann – A Review of Celtic Studies between 1969 and 1974, and a member and chair of numerous bodies such as the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (from 1958) and the Norsk Forening for Språkvitenskap.