Аннотация:Abstract: Attitude towards multilingualism has undergone significant changes throughout the world because of liberal ideas’ widespread in the second half of the twentieth century. Nowadays, it is important to take into consideration the experience gained by countries where multilingualism is enshrined in law and positive experience in intercultural and interlanguage interactions has been accumulated. Thus, this article involves historical causes of bilingualism and detailed description of the current sociolinguistic situation in Norway. Norwegian path to bilingualism lay through the struggle for national independence and self-determination. The country attempted to create its own language that led to the creation of two Norwegian languages - Danish-Norwegian (bokmål) and New Norwegian (nynorsk).Keywords: bokmål, nynorsk, riksmål, landsmål, samnosk.