Samnorsk is a written standard of the Norwegian language that was proposed between the 1930s and the 1950s as a way to bridge the gap between the existing varieties. In the 20th century, Norway had two different standards: RiksmÃÂ¥l (a variety of modern-day BokmÃÂ¥l) and LandsmÃÂ¥l (a variety of modern-day Nynorsk). A spelling reform in 1917 was conducted under the direction of king Haakon VII. This was the first attempt to combine both BokmÃÂ¥l and Nynorsk at that time.
In 1951, the Norwegian Parliament decided to create a language council that was supposed to work with getting BokmÃÂ¥l and Nynorsk closer to each other. But the debate became heated and controversial, mainly because words in RiksmÃÂ¥l were supposed to become more "Norwegianized", angering a lot of those who supported the more "Danicized" RiksmÃÂ¥l spelling standard. What was optional in the 1917 reform became mandatory in the 1938 reform. Among the variations was the use of -a in definite articles of feminine words (such as melket becoming mjølka).