h2g2 - A Guide to Icelandic Pronunciation

Iceland is a wonderful country to visit, but many tourists are baffled by the long Icelandic place names. In fact, Icelandic has a very simple phonetic pronunciation system, so you can learn to pronounce the language very quickly, even if you haven't a clue what you are saying. This is handy for saying the place names, if for nothing else.

Icelandic has three extra letters which do not exist in modern English, although they did more than a thousand years ago:

þ is called 'Thorn'.
ð is called 'Eth'. The upper case version is Ð.
æ is called 'Aye'.



	Vowels

There are seven vowels, a, e, i, o, u, y and æ. Five of these can take an acute accent (´), which changes the pronunciation, and o can have an umlaut (¨) over it.

Letter	Pronunciation
a	as in pat (as pronounced by natives of the North of England)
á	ow as in howl
e	as in pet
i	as in pit
í	ee as in peel
o	as in pot
ó	as in pole
ö	uh sound as in German möbel or French meuble
u	as in put
ú	as in pool
ý	ee as in feet
æ	i as in fight

Note that e is always pronounced, even at the end of a word.



	Consonants

The basic pronunciation of the letters, when not in a special combination:

Letter	Pronunciation
b, d, f, k, l, m, n, p, t, v, x	as in English
g	always hard g as in get
h	sounded as a separate letter, even after p.
j	y sound as in yellow
r	slightly trilled
s	as in sit, not a z sound as in toys
þ	th as in thin
ð	th as in the
c, q, w and z	These letters do not exist in Icelandic, but are used in imported 'international' words, such as 'pizza'.

Special Combinations

While most letters are pronounced individually, there are a few combinations with special pronunciations:

Letters	Pronunciation
hv	as kv
fl	as pl
fn	as p
ll	as tl
sj	as sh in English
ng	as nk at the end of a word, as ng in the middle
ey	as a in pale
ei	as a in pale
au	as o in pole



	Some Examples

Ísland = Eess-land - the Icelandic for Iceland
Reykjavík = Rake-ya-veek - the capital
Snæfell = Snigh-fetl - Snow Mountain
Vatnajökull = Vatna-yuhktl - the big glacier that gives Iceland its name
Geysir = Gace-ir - the original Geyser
Þingvellir = Thing-vetlir - the site of the original Icelandic parliament
Eyjafjallajökull = Ay-ya-fyatla-yuhktl - that pesky volcano



	Further Reading on Iceland