{"id":2007,"date":"2013-01-16T16:35:09","date_gmt":"2013-01-16T16:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/?p=2007"},"modified":"2013-01-17T07:18:31","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T07:18:31","slug":"getting-understood-in-iceland-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/2013\/01\/16\/getting-understood-in-iceland-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting understood in Iceland, part 2."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>“It didn’t sound anything like Icelandic.”<\/p>\n

“What didn’t?”<\/p>\n

“Well, for example Thorin’s name isn’t really pronounced like that.”<\/p>\n

Roughly a week ago we went to see Hobbit, or There and Back Again and the discussion above happened right after the movie was over. We agreed that the movie itself was awesome, but the Icelandic viewers had also been paying attention to the pronunciation of the dwarfs’ names and no wonder, since all of the dwarfs are originally Icelandic in a way!<\/p>\n

To explain it better, there’s a part in V\u00f6lusp\u00e1<\/em> (= v\u00f6lva<\/em>‘s\/seeress’ prophecy) called Dvergatal<\/em> which, as its name suggests, is all about dwarfs. It lists three dwarf family lines from the start to the end and guess how many of Thorin’s group can be found there? Answer: everyone except for Bilbo Baggins plus \u00deorin<\/em>\/Thorin himself has actually been thrown together with another dwarf whose name was Eikinskialdi<\/em> (= Oakenshield). Yes, Gandalf was also a dwarf by origin and his name, Gand\u00e1lfr<\/em> is made of the words gandr<\/em> (= magic staff) and \u00e1lfr<\/em> (= elf). Don’t be too confused about the elf-part, dwarfs were called dark-elves in old Norse. The other kind were light-elves, the difference being that one lived below and the other above the ground.<\/p>\n

The previous post about the aspirated consonants does not help much here, since English also uses aspiration and that was the main language of the movie. We’re going to have to look elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lately it’s been snowy in Reykjav\u00edk.<\/em><\/p>\n

S\u00e9rhlj\u00f3\u00f0<\/em> or tv\u00edhlj\u00f3\u00f0<\/em>, monophthong or diphthong<\/strong><\/p>\n

The difference between the two can be so small that your ears will struggle to catch it, but alas, Icelanders have had their whole lives’ worth of training in this and they have no trouble at all in hearing it. What’s worse is that using the wrong one will confuse them very thoroughly. When you’re used to hearing words being pronounced in a certain way your brain will insist that that’s the only way it will understand it and downright refuse to cooperate, and by now I can usually already tell which part of a word I didn’t say correctly just by the blank look. It’s usually a diphthong.<\/p>\n

A vs. \u00c1<\/strong><\/p>\n

This one’s relatively simple. A sounds like the vowel in “fun”, \u00e1 sounds like “ow”.<\/p>\n

E vs. \u00c9<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another easy one: e sounds like the e in “let”, \u00e9 sounds like “ye”.<\/p>\n

I vs. \u00cd<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most difficult one of them all and they’re both monophthongs. \u00cd is very sharp, like in “feel”, but i is somewhere between that sharp \u00ed and an e. It may sound like no big deal but it’s both a very difficult one to get right and also one of the most common causes of someone now understanding what I’m trying to say. However, if you pay attention to it while you speak it will eventually begin to form automatically.<\/p>\n

O vs. \u00d3<\/strong><\/p>\n

The o without an accent sounds similar to the o in “fog”, \u00f3 sounds similar to the o in “low”.<\/p>\n

U vs. \u00da<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another couple of monophthongs that are difficult to get right, u sounds similar to the German letter \u00fc, a little bit like the word “you” ends. The \u00fa sounds like the vowel in “look”<\/del>. EDIT: better words to use as an example would be f.ex. “too”, “who” or “coo”. \u00a0Thank you for the correction and the suggestion, Cristina!<\/p>\n

It may be that the best option is to go to the Google Translate and listen to both of them there.<\/p>\n

Y vs. \u00dd<\/strong><\/p>\n

Exactly as i and \u00ed. No, there’s no difference in pronunciation between i and y, or \u00ed and \u00fd. Yes, using the wrong letter in a word may cause the meaning of the word to change completely.<\/p>\n

\u00c6<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like “I”, “mind”, “why”.<\/p>\n

\u00d6<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like the article “a” but longer.<\/p>\n