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Icelandic language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Icelandic ( íslenska (help·info)) is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognamål.
Whilst most West European languages have greatly reduced levels of inflection, particularly in regards to noun declension, Icelandic retains an inflectional grammar comparable to that of Latin or, more closely, Old Norse and Old English. The main difference between Icelandic and Latin lies in the treatment of the verb. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and other word classes are handled in a similar way. In particular it may be mentioned that Icelandic possesses quite a few instances of oblique cases without any governing word, much like Latin (e.g., many of the various Latin ablatives have a corresponding Icelandic dative).

Icelandic
íslenska
Pronunciation:    [ˈislɛnska]
Spoken in:    Iceland, Denmark, Norway, USA[1] and Canada[2]
Total speakers:    +320,000
Language family:    Indo-European
Germanic
North Germanic
West Scandinavian
Icelandic
Writing system:    Latin (Icelandic variant)
Official status
Official language in:     Iceland
Regulated by:    Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies
Language codes
ISO 639-1:    is
ISO 639-2:    ice (B)     isl (T)
ISO 639-3:    isl
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Writing system

The Icelandic alphabet is notable for its retention of two old letters which no longer exist in the English alphabet: Þ,þ (þorn, anglicized as “thorn”) and Ð,ð (eð, anglicized as “eth” or “edh”), representing the voiceless and voiced “th” sounds as in English thin and this respectively. The complete Icelandic alphabet is:
Majuscule Forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)
A    Á    B    D    Р   E    É    F    G    H    I    Í    J    K    L    M    N    O    Ó    P    R    S    T    U    Ú    V    X    Y    Ý    Þ    Æ    Ö
Minuscule Forms (also called lowercase or small letters)
a    á    b    d    ð    e    é    f    g    h    i    í    j    k    l    m    n    o    ó    p    r    s    t    u    ú    v    x    y    ý    þ    æ    ö
It should be noted that letters with diacritics, such as á and ö, are considered to be separate letters and not variants of their derivative vowels. The letter é was officially adopted in 1929 replacing je, and z was officially abolished in 1974.

Letter names

The names of the letters are:
Letter    Name    Pronunciation in IPA    Typical sound value
Aa    a    [a]    as in the English ‘father’
Áá    á    [au̯]    the “ow” in “cow”
Bb    bé    [pjɛ]    ‘p’ with no puff of air.
Dd    dé    [tjɛ]    ‘t’ with no puff of air.
Ðð    eð    [ɛð̠]    the “th” in “the”
Ee    e    [ɛ]    “eh” like the “e” in “end”
Éé    é    [jɛ]    a shorter sounding “yeah”
Ff    eff    [ɛfː]    (same as in English sometimes, see notes)
Gg    gé    [cɛ]    (same as in English sometimes, see notes)
Hh    há    [hau̯]    (same as English)
Ii    i    [ɪ]    the “i” in “win”
Íí    í    [i]    the “ee” in “we”
Jj    joð    [jɔð̠]    said as a “y” or an aspirated “y” (see notes)
Kk    ká    [kʰau̯]    ‘k’ with a puff of air.
Ll    ell    [ɛtl̥]    (same as in English)
Mm    emm    [ɛmː]    (same as in English)
Nn    enn    [ɛnː]    (same as in English)
Oo    o    [ɔ]    the “o” in “hot” (British english)
Óó    ó    [ou̯]    “oh”
Pp    pé    [pʰjɛ]    ‘p’ with a puff of air.
Rr    err    [ɛr]    rolled, as in Spanish, but slightly more delicately
Ss    ess    [ɛs]    always an unvoiced “s” never a voiced “z” sound
Tt    té    [tʰjɛ]    ‘t’ with a puff of air.
Uu    u    [ʏ]    ‘i’ in ‘in’ but rounded.
Úú    ú    [u]    like the “ou” in “you”
Vv    vaff    [vafː]    similar to English ‘v’
Xx    ex    [ɛxs]    like the hard German “ch” followed by an s
Yy    ypsilon y    [ʏfsɪlɔn ɪ]    same as ‘i’
Ýý    ypsilon ý    [ʏfsɪlɔn i]    same as ‘í’
Zz    zeta    [sɛːta]    like ’s’, never as English ‘z’
Þþ    þorn    [θ̠ɔrn̥]    “th” as in “thing”
Ææ    æ    [ai̯]    “eye”
Öö    ö    [œ]    “e” in “end” but rounded, from the middle of the mouth