The language was passing through a stage of transition. The Reformation emphasized the use of Swedish, and the reformers of religion also became reformers of the language. They endeavored to free their native tongue from foreign influence and raise it to the standards of a cultured speech by purifying its vocabulary, standardizing its spelling and enriching its literature. The years immediately following the Reformation, however, were unpropitious for “the cultivation and growth of the national language.” But Gustavus Adolphus inaugurated a new era. He advised the professors at the University of Upsala to present “the learning of the world” in Swedish, and he instructed “the antiquarian and historian of the kingdom” to collect words for a complete Swedish dictionary. Primers and other books of instruction were also issued, as a result of “the new awakening.” Scholars began to study their native language, to write in the same and to publish linguistic treatises about it. These efforts proved so successful and the language developed such regularity that three-quarters of a century later the letters, dispatches and instructions of the chancery of this period and the “Bible of 1618” were selected by a commission as the norm for “the regulation of the written language.” The Swedish language was divided into several dialects well defined within certain geographical areas. It was not taught in the schools, and there was no standard of authority; consequently even literary monuments present great variations in spelling and other respects. The colonists on the Delaware came largely from Upland and the northern provinces, and hence they spoke the dialects of these districts.[5] Before the seventeenth century Sweden had no poet of importance, and few works of literary value were produced; but in this epoch of enthusiasm for everything Swedish a list of names meets us, that have received a permanent place in the history and literature of Sweden. Bureus studied the old language, collected runes, wrote a grammar and other treatises. His disciple, Georg Stiernhjelm, composed a dictionary, tried to prove that Swedish was the mother of the Germanic languages, foreshadowed Grimm’s law, and earned the title of “the father of Swedish poetry.” Wivallius wrote lyrics of tender sweetness and a host of other authors wrote ballads and stories. Foreign novels and romances were translated and published and folk ballads were collected. These books were not read by the people in general; but it is probable that the stories soon became common property, and we may assume that at least a few of the colonists on the Delaware had some knowledge of them.