Talk:Icelandic orthography

Untitled

Under construction... please help out.--Sonjaaa 21:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Should this page be renamed to Icelandic pronunciation or Icelandic phonology?--Sonjaaa 21:57, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Should I be using [ ] or / / in this article?--Sonjaaa 22:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

If you're doing actual pronunciation and phonetic ranges of each grapheme (which seems to be what you're doing, with the focus is still very much on the orthography at this point, n'est-ce pas?), it's probably best to go with the square brackets [ ]. As for the other question, I think Icelandic orthography works for the page as it is now, but if you're going to be expanding the page to include more phonetics and stuff, then perhaps a change to Icelandic phonology would be appropriate at that time. Many of the "language phonologies" pages focus more on the phonemes and phonetic realisations, leaving orthographic representations to another article (Irish phonology and my page on Ubykh phonology are both like this).

...now look at what you've done, I want to go and create an Abkhaz phonology page now. Grr! Thefamouseccles 10:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Are the two vowels in sími "phone" the same quality?--Sonjaaa 16:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

No. It is [ˈsi:mɪ] Stefán 17:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Is bolli really [tɬ]? It sounds like [tl] to me.--Sonjaaa 02:47, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

It is [tl]. Icelandic does not have the sound [ɬ]. Stefán 04:22, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, yes it does! We ought not forget that IPA symbols to sounds is not a one to one mapping. [ɬ] is voiceless [l]. Saying that Icelandic doesn't have [ɬ] is like saying French doesn't have [p], but just voiceless [b]. Futher supporting this, I have an Icelandic textbook which gives the pronunciation of the voiceless allophone of l as welsh ll, which is [ɬ].

The example of "guirofa" under "g" doesn't seem to fit the criteria; in the > orthography, at least, it's not preceding a front vowel. It's not clear what > happens to a "g" when it is non-initial but precedes a front vowel. --Sonjaaa 17:02, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

nn

after accented vowels or diphthongs: [tn̥]

all other contexts [nː] -> finna

As the accent of "finna" is on the 1st consonant, as it usually is by icelandic words, "finna" should fall in the 1st, not 2nd case--201.95.63.180 (talk) 16:10, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

They probably meant an acute accent in spelling, not a word stress. 89.64.70.34 (talk) 20:31, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

g

beginning of word, before e, i, í, y, ý, æ, ei or ey:

[c⁼] unaspirated voiceless palatal plosive

E.g.: "gulrofa"

That doesn't make sense. The voiceless palatal explosive only appears before front vowels. What is strange, however, is that the pronunciation given by the audio sample is clearly /gylrouva/, the inexistance of voiced /g/ in Icelandic notwithstanding and the /v/ almost vanishing. -- 189.18.91.98 (talk) 15:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

ð

In the website http://icelandic.hi.is/ one can hear many examples, where the 'ð' at the end of a word is clearly voiceless pronounced or even not pronounced. -- 189.46.25.67 (talk) 01:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

k

The example for k (as opposed to c) uses the letter k before an i and a y when this is claimed to make k become /c/. An example should be found where k occurs before a back vowel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.212.106.138 (talk) 00:01, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Merge sections from phonology to orthography

The phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences are repeated in similar tables in both Icelandic orthography and Icelandic phonology. They should only be in one place, and orthography is that place. jnestorius^(talk) 23:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Seconded; these do not seem to provide any synchronic phonological insight, so they just take up space. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 16:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Merge tag

I have removed the merge tag. It has not been acted on in over a year. Pnonology is the sounds and orthography is the spelling. If this article contains phonology info then the info should be moved to the phonology article. If the phonology article has orthography info in it then that article is at fault and the tag should be on that article and the info moved into this article. Op47 (talk) 21:04, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

ng, y, ý

<ng>, <y> and <ý> are missing. Presumably <ng> is /ŋ/ or /ŋg/ as in most other Germanic languages, not /ng/? (Example þing "council".) And <y> is /y/, <ý> is /yː/ ? Hairy Dude (talk) 19:39, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

<y> and <ý> are the same as <i> and <í>, to the best of my knowledge.162.247.45.152 (talk) 18:15, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

They are. Mr KEBAB (talk) 19:16, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Changes to Page

This page is missing a lot of information, and has some inaccuracies as well. I am going to attempt to fix it up by adding what's missing and fixing any errors. There is only one source cited for this page, but I have several books on the language that I think will help. 50.53.53.161 (talk) 02:23, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Regarding voiceless sonorants

What is the difference between ⟨fnd⟩ and ⟨fnt⟩? This article indicates that it's voicing of the [m] sound, but according to Icelandic phonology, "[o]nly in initial position do the voiceless sonorants contrast with the corresponding voiced sonorants." Is this case actually a contrast of /t/ and /tʰ/, despite the fact that both are apparently unaspirated? _{(suoı̣ʇnqı̣ɹʇuoɔ · ʞlɐʇ)} nɯnuı̣ɥԀ 17:13, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

@Phinumu: They're [mt] and [m̥t]. The example illustrating the latter sequence is actually pronounced with [m̥pt], with an epenthetic [p]. Mr KEBAB (talk) 16:54, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Oh, you want to know the correct phonemic analysis. It's probably /mt/ and /hmt/. Mr KEBAB (talk) 16:56, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Final devoicing, anyone?

I'm very surprised to find that the description in the article not only ignores but implicitly denies the obligatory phrase-final voiceless pronunciation of fricatives ([v],[ð],[ɣ]), even though the recorded pronunciation examples clearly display it. Árnason (2011) certainly does mention final devoicing of fricatives, and, less consistenly, of sonorants (p.237), as a "pervasive postlexical effect that takes place before a pause", using the example of dag pronounced as [ta:x].--91.148.130.233 (talk) 02:11, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Regarding /ɲ/

The Icelandic phonology article lists /ɲ/ as a phoneme, but there is no mention of it here, could it be added? --MIGUELbM 15:56, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

@Mbartelsm: I added it as an allophone, like [ŋ]; I don't see it being mentioned as a phoneme in Icelandic phonology. — Eru·tuon 18:35, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

ðþ-combination

The overview on all the sounds and their correspondence to the alphabet is very well-made, but I can't seem to find an answer anywhere on how to pronounce the name "Friðþjófur" because there is no rule given on how to pronounce the <ðþ>. It would be really great if that information could be added (since that name is the basis to my name and I'd really like to know how it is supposed to be pronounced...) --Lajos vH (talk) 10:02, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

@Lajos vH: I think it would be pronounced /ˈfrɪθˌθjou̯ʏr/, with ð pronounced as voiceless because it's before the voiceless consonant þ. The table says ð is pronounced as /θ/ before a voiceless consonant; that would apply to ðþ just as it applies to the example in the table, maðkur. — Eru·tuon 18:48, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

@Lajos vH and Erutuon: [ˈfrɪθˌθjouʏr] doesn't look like a correct transcription to me. Apart from /ʏ/, I'd expect the vowels to be long, so [ˈfrɪːθˌθjouːʏr]. Also, Icelandic [ð] is often an approximant, so speakers might have a sequence of a voiced approximant followed by a voiceless fricative, which is far from impossible. Many speakers of southern accents of Dutch are able to say [ɦɛi̯ ʝ̊eːu̯t] (= [ɦɛj ʝ̊eːwt]) for hij geeuwt (he yawns/is yawning) without a problem. I wouldn't provide [ˈfrɪːθˌθjouːʏr] as a neutral transcription if the first part of the compound would normally be [ˈfrɪːð]. I'd rather write it [ˈfrɪːðˌθjouːʏr] Mr KEBAB (talk) 16:58, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, the table does say that ð is voiceless before voiceless consonants and a pause, so maybe you are right about that. That would also prevent Frið from being pronounced [ˈfrɪːð] instead of [ˈfrɪːθ]. Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:27, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: Right, the vowels would be long phonetically. The transcription I made was phonemic, though. Phonetic is probably better here. — Eru·tuon 22:20, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@Erutuon: I assumed you meant the latter from the start. Phonemic transcriptions require us to write /θ/ anyway since voicing isn't contrastive. Mr KEBAB (talk) 22:26, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: Oops, you're right, my reasoning only made sense if the transcription was supposed to be phonetic. — Eru·tuon 23:04, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

There are two examples here

https://islenskordabok.arnastofnun.is/ord/13601

https://islenskordabok.arnastofnun.is/ord/13604

Press [Framburður] to hear it Mashfighter (talk) 15:08, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Double "n"

According to the table, it's always different from a single "n". Why, then, is there a separate article "N-rule", starting with "In Icelandic orthography, the n-rules are rules for determining when one letter n or two consecutive n's should be written, a difference that sometimes affects the pronunciation." (emphasis mine)? 176.221.123.116 (talk) 16:39, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

I and Y

Is there a reason for i/y (and also í/ý) being pronounced the same? Is there a historical reason for it? Mats (talk) 08:40, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

@Masseman: History of Icelandic § Middle Icelandic (1350–1550) says that /y, yː/ lost their rounding and merged with /i, iː/, but I'm not sure if that's what you mean by a reason. — Eru·tuon 18:40, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

That's correct. I think he just wanted to know the origin of this orthographic inconsistency. Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:00, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

hn

Shouldn't "hn" be listed in the table as well? --OosWesThoesBes (talk) 20:37, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

x

Does X start a word in Icelandic? Many people say no, but what about the word xýlófón?Bhinegar (talk) 19:42, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

The standard spelling is sílófónn although there are occasional uses of xýlófónn. – Thjarkur (talk) 19:46, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Only a few loan words. I am pretty sure that no etymologically Icelandic word starts with x. Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson (talk) 20:33, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

ufsilon y?

Spanish and French Wikipedia say the name of Y is "ufsilon y", not "y". Is that what we should have written? Hurlebatte (talk) 19:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, as "y" sounds the same as "i" and "ý" the same as "í". Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson (talk) 23:02, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Is transliteration of eth really d? Or dh after all?

Is not the transliteration of eth given as dh rather than d?Redav (talk) 08:58, 13 May 2024 (UTC)