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distinguished from the Danish only by occasional words and
expressions borrowed from the Norwegian speech. Such words and
expressions are found particularly in books which deal with
Norwegian nature and popular life, being especially the names of
plants and animals. Special Norwegian peculiarities of syntax
are also met with, for instance, in the books of Petter Dass, some
peculiarities of the dialects used in northern Norway. Even the
first prose writer of the Dano-Norwegian literature, Holberg, a
native of Norway, often sins against the Danish language by using
Norwegianisms; but most writers endeavoured to write as pure a
Danish as possible. This condition of things lasted until the
separation of Norway from Denmark (1814).
4. While in the writings composed in Norway in the Danish
language, we only see occasional gleams of the popular
language, we meet, about the middle of the 17th century, with a book
that has this language as its exclusive object, namely a brief
vocabulary of one particular dialect, written by a minister of the
Gospel. One hundred years later a bishop of Bergen published
another such vocabulary, and towards the end of the last
century we meet with the first feeble attempt at elucidating a country
dialect by means of the not very well known Old Norse language,
and with occasional poems in dialect. During the first half
of this century, this interest for the native dialects waned, until
towards the end of the period, the romantic tendency again
turns public attention to the life and traditions of the people.
The first edition of the Norwegian popular ballads appeared in 1840,
and it was soon followed by others. In the meantime something
had also occurred, which was likely to give to the study of the
popular language a new background. There had appeared a
dictionary and a grammar of the old Norwegian language, by which
the common basis for all the dialects of the country had been made
known. Thus the necessary basis for the works of the self-taught
genius, Ivar Aasen, was given. These works made an epoch in
the study of the Norwegian dialects. In 1848 he issued his
«Grammar of the Norwegian Popular Language» and in 1850
«Dictionary of the Norwegian Popular Language». These works
were of a purely scientific nature, without any tendency; but they
soon became of practical importance, through their proving the
essential unity of the country dialects, their organic connection,
mutually, as well as with the Old Norse. In 1853, Aasen wrote an
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