 The Norwegian written language at this time gradually fell into disuse and was eventually abandoned altogether in favor of written Danish, the culminating event being the translation in 1604 of Magnus the Lawmender's code into Danish.The last example found of an original Middle Norwegian document is from 1583.Norwegian dialects, however, lived on and evolved within the general population as vernacular speech, even as the educated classes gradually adopted a Dano-Norwegian "koiné" in speech.