Ragnar Þorsteinsson's Bible Collection

The Bible collection was donated at the opening of the National Library on December 1, 1994. The collection was donated by Ragnar Þorsteinsson (1914–1999), a teacher who had collected the Bible in various languages for half a century. The Bible collection is in 1228 languages, including languages and dialects of many small language areas. The Bible is the most translated book, and through letter clubs and Bible societies around the world, Ragnar received copies of the Bible or parts of it in the respective languages. He became acquainted with an association of young linguists who traveled around the world to study languages and dialects of various kinds. They most often wrote down the Gospel of Mark, had their translations printed, and sent them to Ragnar annually. He himself has classified his Bibles by language family and includes a detailed card index to the collection. It describes the language group of the Bible and then the sub-group, as well as how many people are considered speakers of the language in question and in which area it is spoken. Ragnar's interest in Bibles was purely linguistic and not religious; he used them to compare languages and dialects.