 As a result, the development of modern written Norwegian has been subject to controversy related to nationalism, rural versus urban, Norway's literary history, dialect versus standard language, spelling reform, and orthography.In the United Kingdoms of Denmark and Norway (1536–1814), the official languages were Danish and German.The urban Norwegian upper class spoke ""dansk-norsk"", Dano-Norwegian, a form of Danish with Norwegian pronunciation and other minor local differences while the majority of the population spoke their local and regional dialects.