 After the two countries separated in 1814, Dano-Norwegian remained the sole official language until 1885.In the early 1840s, the young linguist Ivar Aasen traveled rural areas collecting examples of the words and grammar used there.He assembled a Norwegian language based on dialects little affected by Danish and published his first grammar and dictionary of the Norwegian people's language ("Folkespråk"), in 1848 and 1850 respectively.