| 512 | NORWAY (Language and Literature) |
confidence. He gave the Norwegians a separate national flag, which his father had refused. In 1847 he established a Norwegian order of merit, that of St. Olaf. The general feeling of anxiety concerning Russian encroachments brought about an alliance, in November, 1855, between Norway and Sweden, England, and France. By this treaty the two Scandinavian powers, in exchange for a promise never to cede or sell territory to Russia or to any power without the consent of England and France, received a guarantee of future territorial integrity under protection of the last named powers. In 1857 King Oscar, in consequence of bad health, transmitted the government to his son Charles Louis Eugene as regent, who on the death of his father, July 8, 1859, ascended the throne with the title of Charles XV. The 50th anniversary of the union with Sweden was celebrated Nov. 4, 1864. The measures devised by the official committee (1865-'7) for permanently regulating the relations between the united kingdoms were rejected in 1870 by both countries. The principal cause of discord is the great preponderance in Norway of the peasantry, whose feelings are democratic. One of their leaders has demanded the suppression of the university of Christiania, and in 1869 a law was passed which tended in some degree to the suppression of classical education, since the peasants associate it with aristocracy. Charles XV. died Sept. 18, 1872, and was succeeded by his brother, Oscar II. , who was crowned at Drontheim.
NORWAY, Language and Literature of. The Norræna mâl, or northern language, now represented, with slight inflectional and orthographical variations, by the Icelandic, was the common language of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden from an unknown period to the 11th century. (See Iceland, Language and Literature of.) Norway retained the old tongue longer than either of the other kingdoms. The few mediæval Norwegian documents do not exhibit any important grammatical changes until about the time of the annexation of Norway to Denmark toward the close of the 14th century. But from this period a rapid transformation took place, and soon after the beginning of the 16th century the written language and the speech of the higher classes became identical with those of Denmark. Outside of the large towns and among the peasants, however, the Danish has never been the spoken tongue, but the old Norræna has been corrupted into a number of dialects, diverging more or less in their structure from their ancient original. From these dialects some philologists have attempted to construct a national tongue, and the efforts of several poets and story writers have made the movement partially successful. But still the Danish, with only dialectic differences, is the language of society, of the press, and of the pulpit, and is taught in the schools. The Norwegian dialects may be classified in three divisions, corresponding to the natural divisions of the country: the Nordenfjeld group, comprising those spoken in Drontheim and the extreme northern provinces; the Vestenfjeld group, or those spoken west of the mountains in Bergen and the western portion of Christiansand; and the Söndenfjeld group, including those spoken in southern Norway, or to the east of the mountains. Of these divisions, the second approaches the nearest to the Icelandic, while the last named, lying nearer to Christiania, has been most influenced by the Danish. All of them possess some peculiarities in common, which distinguish them from the written speech. The old diphthongs, au, ei, øy, are retained; the hard consonants k, t, and p are placed after as well as before vowels; a distinction is made between the terminations in a (ar) and those in e (er); although the genitive form of the nouns is generally lost, the old dative is often retained; the distinction between the masculine and feminine genders of substantives, nearly or quite lost in Danish and Swedish, is still marked; and the definite article (Icel. hinn, hin, hit) requires the substantive which follows it to take the definite termination also, as is still the case in Swedish but not in Danish.—Norway cannot be said to have had a distinct literature until after her union with Sweden. Before that date the writings of her poets, historians, and naturalists properly form a part of Danish literature. With the foundation of the university of Christiania in 1811, and the establishment of political independence in 1814, the records of Norwegian literature begin. For 10 or 20 years after the union it consisted chiefly of political essays, legal tracts, treatises on agriculture and manufactures, and text books for popular instruction. Among the noted publicists and economical writers are K. M. Falsen (died in 1830), Sverstrup (died in 1850), Ræder, Mariboe, Petersen, Blom, and F. Monrad. Keyser and Munch critically edited the ancient Norwegian codes of law; Schweigaard wrote commentaries upon jurisprudence; M. C. S. Aubert and Ræder treated of the principle of jury trial. Other juridical writers are P. C. Lassen, Smidt, Bull, Brandt, and L. K. Daa (born in 1809). Besides the Statistiske Tabeller annually issued by the government, J. E. Kraft published a topographical and statistical description of the kingdom (6 vols, 1820-'35); Tvethe issued his Norges Statistik in 1848; O. J. Broch's Statistisk Ordbog was published annually 1867-'72; A. N. Kjær, chief of the official statistical bureau, has produced many valuable works, among them the Statistisk Haandbog (1871); and in the department of social statistics the treatises of Eilert Sundt are well known. In physics, the discoveries of Christopher Hansteen (1784-1873), which were made known in 1819, mark the commencement of a new period in the study of the phenomena of terrestrial magnetism. In the Gæa Norvegica, of B. M. Keilhau (1797-1858), and in the account of his journey to
