ABSTRACT
The oldest existing manuscripts indicate that, by the twelfth century at the latest, this linguistic paradise had become a thing of the past. The Christianization of Iceland around the year 1000brought about a great need to translate allsorts of religious texts into a language that the new converts could under stand. According to the First Grammatical Treatise, an Icelandic work on grammar dating back to the middle of the twelfth century , 'translations of holy works' existed in Iceland at the time. To judge from existing fragments and the earliest extant works , these would have primarily been expositions and other interpre tative writings , rather than actual translations in the modem sense. It is also possible that accounts of the lives of some saints existed in Icelandic by 1 150.
