Torleiv Hannaas was a Norwegian philologist.

Born in Hornnes

Hornnes

Hornnes is a village and a former municipality in Aust-Agder county, Norway. Hornnes is located in the present-day municipality of Evje og Hornnes in the traditional district of Setesdal...

, he became professor at Bergen Museum

Bergen Museum

The Bergen Museum is a university museum in Bergen, Norway. Founded in 1825 with the intent of building large collections in the fields of culture and natural history, it became the grounds for most of the academic activity in the city, a tradition which has prevailed since the museum became part...

 in 1918. His most important publications was Norske bygder I (1921) and Norske bygder II (1926), about the dialects in Setesdal

Setesdal

Setesdal is a valley and a traditional district in Aust-Agder County in southern Norway. It consists of the municipalities of Bykle, Valle, Bygland, Iveland, and Evje og Hornnes....

 and Vest-Agder

Vest-Agder

In the 16th century, Dutch merchant vessels began to visit ports in southern Norway to purchase salmon and other goods. Soon thereafter the export of timber began, as oak from southern Norway was exceptionally well suited for shipbuilding...

. He founded the Norsk Aarbok in 1920, and is often credited for introducing the term Høgnorsk

Høgnorsk

Høgnorsk, meaning "High Norwegian", is a term for varieties of the Norwegian language form Nynorsk that reject most of the official reforms that have been introduced since the creation of Landsmål...

 in an article in 1922. He was the chairman of Noregs Mållag

Noregs Mållag

Noregs Mållag is the main organisation for Norwegian Nynorsk , one of the two official written standards of the Norwegian language. In the Norwegian language struggle, it advocates the use of Nynorsk...

from 1926 to his death.