Talk:Icelandic language/Archive 3

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

æ and Latin

Is it just a coincidence that æ is pronounced like ae in classic Latin, ie. [ai]? Samulili 20:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes. When people began writing Icelandic (Old Norse) with latin script the letter æ stood for the vowel [æ] (as it did in Old English writing and, as far as I know, in Vulgar latin æ represented a monophthong in that region as well). Later the Icelandic vowel system underwent a radical change and æ ended up as [ai]. I daresay that the speakers of Icelandic in the 15. century or so who introduced this shift were not motivated by the pronounciation of Classical Latin. Stefán 21:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Splitting up

I added a lot of empty references as an invitation. As it is, the article is little but phonology, which should be on a page of its own. Please fill in according to time and abilities. We might even divide the task. Cheers Io 19:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

To clarify. One might take the nouns, another the adverbs etc. The format would have to be uniform. Participants might present their ideas in their sandboxes. Given my spotty record I don't know, how reliable I myself might be. But my suggestion would be to describe the grammar in the historical fashion, i.e. divide nouns into a-, ô-, i- and u-classes plus the irregulars etc. Cheers Io 19:59, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

West Scandinavian?

It is stated here that the classification of icelandic language goes as follows:

  • Indo-European
    • Germanic
      • North Germanic
        • West Scandinavian
          • Icelandic

but in the North Germanic languages article there is no "West Scandinavian" subdivision... Guirro 16:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes there is, see: North_Germanic_languages#Family_tree --Bjarki 17:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


velar approximant

Does that mean the Icelandic g is more accurately transcribed as [ɰ] or [ɣ̞], i.e. lowered (phonetics)?--Sonjaaa 04:01, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The Icelandic letter g can stand for many different sounds, see above for a partial discussion. Icelandic only has one velar fricative phoneme which can either be voiced or unvoiced depending on context (I think there is a fancy linguistic word for context in this context). If you wanted to compare the Icelandic voiced velar fricative to the one in some other languages then, yes, the Icelandic one would be more accurately described as [ɣ̞] but note that we have no source which uses that symbol so probably the table should not be changed. Stefán 17:34, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm confused. You mean that you have no outside source expressing g as [ɣ̞]? Even my TeachYourself progam course on Icelandic describes g as [ɣ̞] when placed between vowels, but maybe you mean something else? Jxn 18:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Now I am confused. We have a source with a table of the Icelandic consonant system which has the voiced velar fricative given as [ɣ] (g between vowels and a couple of other contexts). Then we have this note saying that actually the voiced fricatives are not completely constrictive but rather can approach being approximants. The question is, whether this last statement means that we should use [ɣ̞] rather than [ɣ] to transcribe Icelandic and my reply was that probably we should not since the sources we have use the plain [ɣ] for their transcriptions. Are you now saying that the TeachYourself book uses the symbol [ɣ̞] with the lowering diacritic to describe the Icelandic voiced velar fricative? Stefán 19:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I think the lowering mark is hard to read on many screens and he didn't notice it.--Sonjaaa 19:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Ooops, yo've hit the nail on the head Sonjaaa, thanks! Actually, for some reason the lowering mark isn't visible at all until I copy the character into another buffer... It seems to be a font issue. (Incidentally, it's so difficult to find an aesthetically pleasing, readable font with broad enough character support--I need indic scripts and others as well. Well, I guess it's back to the drawing board.) Thanks, though! Jxn 23:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

o as a diphthong?

They often transcribe the o sound as /ɔ/ but to me it sounds like /ɔə/. Is there some truth in this?--Sonjaaa 19:36, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I have not heard of this. I know that the long and the short versions of the vowels have slightly different pronunciations, long [ɛ:] is slightly closer than short [ɛ] (if I remember correctly) and maybe the same applies to /ɔ/. Do you hear diphthongisation in both the long and short o? Stefán 20:16, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
You don't hear diphthongs here? http://www.kisa.ca/icelandic-e-o.mp3 One of the instances of o sounds almost like /U@/ to me! You're right. These are all in "long and stressed" position. For the Icelandic orthography article, I would like to distinguish these, because I definitely hear a different sound, maybe a dipthong, in the long versions of o and e.--Sonjaaa 18:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I cannot listen to mp3 from where I am at the moment. As for the discussion at [1] if you just wanted my guess (trying to listen to my own pronuncation) then I would agree with one of the posts there that kona is with an [oO] diphthong or [UO] or something like that. I cannot hear any diphthongisation in the long e but perhaps there is. In any case we need to find sources before we can start putting claims like these into articles. Stefán 21:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Icelandic orthography

I've started working on this article. I am especially interested in the grapheme-to-phoneme conversion using narrow transcription, to help a student know exactly how to pronounce a word.--Sonjaaa 20:36, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Transliteration of Icelandic words

We should try and stick to a single scheme when we transliterate Icelandic words in IPA. What I have done is to use the symbols in the phonology section of this article. That also corresponds well with the recommendations given in this pdf. I realise that these symbols are not the end of the story about Icelandic phonology, [θ] is alveolar, the voiced fricatives may approach approximants, the long vowels may be somewhat diphthongised (we need a proper source for that claim still) etc. etc. However, the point of these transcriptions is not to give every single possible detail and it is well accepted that the IPA symbols may have a slightly different meaning from one language to another while the over all scheme is the same. Any thoughts? Stefán 23:57, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I am not suggesting we completely gloss over these issues, rather I think that the details of the phonology should be put into an Icelandic phonology article, compare for example the effort at Irish phonology (which is probably on a grander scale than we can hope for). Also, with this as our model, in the article on Icelandic orthography I feel we should use the symbols in the table we currently have, compare Irish orthography which actually uses phonems in the table. Stefán 00:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, I agree that we should stick to a single scheme but my opinion is that the scheme should be as accurate as possible. Since there is much debate as to whether þ and ð are a phoneme or two distinct ones, and /cʰ/ and /kʰ/ and /c/ and /k/, likewise, I think we should be doing this on the phonetic scale. If not, then we should at least use correct vowel symbols for vowels such as a which is pronounced [ɑ] and not [a] except in the diphthong æ [ai]. I'm not sure about the representation of the diphthongisation of long e and o, though. Vegfarandi 00:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Marking that diphthongisation may be overkill, one rarely sees it marked. Haukur 00:55, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that we should not try an stick with phonems, and these examples are the ones I would have taken to support that. I agree we should use the correct symobls for the vowels, do you have a source which says that the pronunciation of /a/ is [ɑ]? Stefán 00:56, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


For the icelandic orthography article, I'm trying to use very narrow transcription to really describe how to pronounce it to a linguist who wants to learn the language. I think that is very useful. I think having a broad transcription that doesn't show the /E/ diphthongization is cool too, but wasn't the scope I was aiming for in the orthography article. Should I rename the orthography article to something else like icelandic pronunciation?--Sonjaaa 01:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Phrases

I added the phrases section today, and worked out the IPA pronunciations the best I could using Colloquial Icelandic, Daisy L. Neijmann, Routledge, 2001. I think I’ve got it pretty accurate, but I would like it if someone could check over my transliterations, I mean with my limited knowledge of Icelandic pronunciation and IPA symbols I’m bound to have made a few mistakes. Max Naylor 11:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Icelandic grammar

I have greatly expanded this section, and, as a result, I have moved it to its own page. I would be grateful if someone could write a brief summary of grammatical concepts in Icelandic to fill out the grammar section here that basically summarises the Icelandic grammar article. Thanks. Max Naylor 10:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Very good and greatly appreciated. Your chosen examples might, of course, be altered, and the section about verbs is only half the story. But you (you, of all people being, by your name not an Icelander) deserve special credit. Now, if only we Icelanders could be as industrious!! Anyway, that was an inspiration to us all. And you have provided us with a usable table, which is not as trivial as it sounds,

Cheers Io 20:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Recent edits

I have a couple of comments on the recent edits.

  1. As far as I know, Icelandic is not the official of Iceland. De facto it is, of course, but I don't think it has any official status. Is this wrong?
  2. How come we are saying Icelandic is spoken in the USA? Even the Gimli, Manitoba connection seems very tenuous nowadays, do we have any sources which say that Icelandic is still spoken by the Icelandic immigrants there?
  3. A couple of weeks ago, we said that Icelandic has only very mild dialect differences. This got moved, changed and removed several times and now we are saying Icelandic is a language nearly without dialects. This is perhaps saying nearly the same thing, but somehow the first seems to me a bit nicer. Comments? Stefán 17:18, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
  1. Please check Talk:Iceland#Icelandic only de facto ?
  2. Sources: [2], [3], [4], [5]
  3. This is from Icelandic: at once ancient and modern, a 16-pages pamphlet with an overview of the language from the Icelandic Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2001.
If there are any more scholar sources on these issues, they will be more than welcome. --Michkalas 17:24, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Re 2. The problem I have with these sources is that there is no date on them, so it might be that they are giving rather old information. Stefán 18:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
I do not know if they are all outdated. Ethnologue says its data on Icelandic are from 1980, old indeed. But is there any information pointing that speakers of Icelandic in US and Canada do not speak it anymore? If there is, we can make changes accordingly. --Michkalas 18:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I would say there is great reason to suppose that the ca. third generation immigrants that spoke Icelandic during the 1970 did not pass it on to the next generation. They are living in a country where English is the main language. On a general level it is well established that immigrants lose there native language a couple of generations down the line. The problem is I don't have any sources saying how this is progressing with the Icelanders, but at least that is why I am pressing for recent sources. Stefán 19:22, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any sources but just shooting from the hip I'd guess there are probably more people in Denmark who speak Icelandic than there are in Canada. Haukur 20:40, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your comments. Immigrants and their chlidren, especially in US and Canada, tend to shift to the language of their new home. Please look for updated sources and I 'll do the same. --Michkalas 21:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
This table from the 2001 Canadian census says there are 2400 Icelandic speakers in Canada, more than a half over 65 years old. Almost surely, the Icelandic speakers among the immigrant population in the USA number less. On the basis of this, I suggest we remove Canada and the USA from the list. Stefán 22:03, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Instead of trying to reference this small number of speakers in Canada, how about we say something like, In the late nineteenth century, an Icelandic speaking immigrant community formed around the town of Gimli, Manitoba. The use of Icelandic within this community is now moribund. (Also, if a thousand strong Icelandic speaking retirement community is enough for inclusion on this list, then we should include the Canary islands. </irony>) Stefán 22:35, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
[Edit conflict] This was really good and I have incorporated it in the article. Unfortunately the US census bureau in not that detailed.[6] There is no reason to remove them from the list though, as the common practice is to mention also the smaller pools of speakers in the articles. --Michkalas 22:38, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
It seems we can be more precise. I have tried to improve it along your concerns. --Michkalas 22:43, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for finding the census information from the US. From that, it is clear that there is no Icelandic speaking community similar to Gimli, Manitoba, in the US. These 5000 people seem to be spread out through the US in roughly the same proportion as the general US population. Therefore we should remove the US from the article (unless we add Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the UK at least). Stefán 14:11, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't really believe that we should. After all, when the total of people speaking Icelandic is 300,000, we cannot say 5,000 is not important. If you have information on other countries (permanent residents, not, say, students in Copenhagen) and the numbers are relatively important, please go ahead and add more places. --Michkalas 14:30, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Tada - [7] - this says there are about 8000 Icelanders living in Denmark, of which approximately 3000 are students. Haukur 14:58, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I cannot find an English version of the page. Can you? --Michkalas (talk • contribs) 15:14, 26 April 2007 (UTC).
No, I cannot. Haukur 15:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
The Danish statistics office says there are 8165 Icelandic citizens living in Denmark, see the English page here. --Bjarki 15:47, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
The problem I have with listing the USA or Denmark (or the UK and Sweden which should almost surely be added to this list if we are going to keep up the current standards) is that there is no community where Icelandic is spoken. You (Michkalas) ask for permanent residents, that is not what the US data gives, it is based on the 2000 census (as far as I can see) and they collect information on everybody who list the USA as their usual place of residence [8] thus this list will include students and people who live and work in the USA for a couple of years. The main point is, that a prerequisite for speaking Icelandic as a first language is a strong connection with Iceland, either by being raised in Iceland or living with Icelandic speaking parents but then it is also necessary to spend a significant amount of time in Iceland. Of course, people who fulfill these criteria can be found in many countries but there is nothing gained by listing them all. Stefán 19:59, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Cognates with English

I have a feeling the pronunciations in the .ogg files in this section may not be 100% accurate. I think it would be better to have a native speaker read them out, if there are any out there willing to record their pronunciation.

I've changed the cognate of "word" to orð, rather than verð. I believe verð is cognate to English "worth". (Old Norse and Icelandic often lose initial w's, whereas English retains them: cf. ormur "worm"). --Malfidus ~ (talk) 10:34, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm afraid this is no good. (Also note that 'móður' should be 'móðir', which is the nominative form.) I'm sorry, obviously some effort has gone into this but it's too far off the mark to have in the article. Haukur 10:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Eeek... erm... sorry. Must be my crappy pronunciation. I’ll put a request out to some of my Icelandic friends to see if they are willing to do a better set of recordings than my one. Max Naylor 13:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm working on it Maxie Boyo. --S.Örvarr.S 12:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

We’ve now got brand new pronunciations from an Icelander. Max Naylor 14:49, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

No dialects?

Really? I find that hard to believe. —Dylan Lake 15:21, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

It does say nearly. Haukur 16:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I would say that there are no dialects... barely accent differences. Although people from the north speak pretty differently compared to those from the south. But that's only different in pronunciation. I wouldn't go as far as calling it different dialects. This ain't England people (Cockney vs. Posh), as a matter of fact... we do understand each other here. --S.Örvarr.S 12:36, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
There is some dialectical variation, not only in realization of individual phonemes but also in intonation and vocabulary. There is also some variation by social class. The differences are, however, much smaller than those found in Faroese or Norwegian (or, indeed, English). Haukur 12:42, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Though not quite on the same scale, is it comparable to the linguistic differences between, say, the English working class and middle/upper class (pronunciation of /ð/, choice of Latinate vocabulary, etc.)? Max Naylor
Probably not. It's mostly a matter of morphology. People with little education have a greater tendency to e.g. decline masculine nouns ending in -ir in a way different from the accepted written norm and to inflect the verb 'vilja' differently from the accepted written norm. Things like that. Haukur 13:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
OK, is there an encylopaedic way in which we can integrate this info into the article? Max Naylor 16:45, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Not without sources and I don't have any ATM. Haukur 17:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
"People with little education have a greater tendency to e.g. decline masculine nouns ending in -ir in a way different from the accepted"? That's not a dialect. That's just some idiots who can't speak proper. I seen no need for an article about uneducated Icelanders. --S.Örvarr.S 23:22, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
"There is also some variation by social class."? Well there are formal words and informal words... I'd say that's about it. --S.Örvarr.S 23:30, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
You have this amusing way of disagreeing with me where you actually confirm everything I say. You say "people from the north speak pretty differently compared to those from the south" - and yet you would also say that "there are no dialects". And there is no variation by social class or education but there are "idiots who can't speak proper". To be honest I haven't read any study of social stratification in Icelandic so I'm just stating my own observations (not intended for the article). I'll certainly admit that there is much less class/education variation in Icelandic than there is in English but it's still there and it's not just the vocabulary. Haukur 00:25, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Last time I checked the definition of the word "dialect" was: the usage or vocabulary that is characteristic of a specific group of people. I don't think it has anything to do with pronunciation, and that would be the difference between those two groups I mentioned. I've lived on the Northern side of the isle and the Southern and the only thing that I noticed that was different (in a dialect-ish way) was that for the word "dós" they use "baukur" in the North... some dialect. --S.Örvarr.S 01:11, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be arguing over whether there are no dialects or nearly no dialects. Örvarr seems to accept there are some (very minor) differences in how people speak Icelandic, and this discussion has brought up variations in morphology, vocabulary and phonology. All of these can represent a dialect. (Look at that article if you don't believe me.) You can say these variations are so small that they cannot as a dialect or you can say that these variations are so small that they can hardly be counted as a dialect. Does it really matter which point of view you take? Stefán 02:03, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Somehow I think there should be a far greater difference there for it to be called a different dialect than just a few words, which both parties can even perfectly understand. It will only be misleading 'cause in many countries, a different dialect can mean that two people that speak in differnt dialects can not by any means communicate. What would you call the "dialect" spoken in Reykjavík and at near places? I've never heard any professor or teacher speak of dialects in the Icelandic language. --S.Örvarr.S 02:30, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
And I'd like to keep it that way. --S.Örvarr.S 02:32, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
It's true the word "dialect" can have different meanings. In Germany, when people speak of different "dialects", they mean things like Alemannic German, Bavarian German, Luxembourgish, Kölsch, and Low German, all of which are highly divergent from Standard German to the point of mutual unintelligibility. The "dialects" of Chinese are also highly divergent. In the U.S., on the other hand, speaking of different "dialects" means differences in accent (pronunciation only) combined with a few minor differences in vocabulary (do you say soda, pop, or coke?) and syntax (do you say my car needs washed? do you say movies are so violent anymore?), but nothing that severely hampers intelligibility. From the discussion above, I'd say Iceland has dialects the way the U.S. does, but not the way Germany does. (And I'd say Britain falls somewhere between the two extremes.) —Angr 07:31, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, if you must write about dialects, then make sure you do it proper. --S.Örvarr.S 03:42, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

"Góðan daginn" or "Góða daginn"

I've always found it wrong saying "Góðan daginn" so I looked it up on "vísindavefur" (english: science web) and I found out that it was wrong.

Case Adjective Noun Adjective + Noun Adjective + Noun/article Help word(s)
nominative Góður Dagur Góður dagur Góði dagurinn hér er (here is)
accusative Góðan Dag Góðan dag Góða daginn um (about)
dative Góðum Degi Góðum degi Góða deginum frá (from)
genitive Góðs Dags Góðs dags Góða dagsins til (to)

I changed it to "Góða daginn" in the article but an Englander changed it back. What do you guys thing? I know people constantly say "Góðan daginn" but it's just not right! This discussion is aimed for native speakers of Icelandic. --S.Örvarr.S 01:32, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the idea of saying that "Góðan daginn" isn't proper Icelandic on the basis of looking up some tables of declensions is taking prescription about a mile over the top. I have never, ever, heard anybody use "Góða daginn" as a greeting in Icelandic, although it would be quite logical. See also [9]. Stefán 02:36, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Well I do hear people say "Góða daginn" but those who do are usually older than 40, those who learnt proper Icelandic (which seems to be dying today). This affection for "Góðan daginn" seems to be a new-age common mistake. I will not change the example given in the article twice but I advise those who believe it's pointless to teach bad Icelandic to foreigners, to change it. --S.Örvarr.S 03:06, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, new proposal. How about having it "Góða(n) daginn"? To indicate that both are allowed, and possible making a short explanation below. I don't think I'm asking for too much. --S.Örvarr.S 09:52, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I changed it. It's not so bad, don't you think? --S.Örvarr.S 10:08, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I have never in my life heard anyone say "Góða daginn". The two options I am aware of are "Góðan dag" and "Góðan daginn". The first is what I usually use, the second is what I think is most common. There may also (warning: original research) be a tendency for people who hear one of the options to reply with the other one, I think that sounds sort of euphonic. Haukur 10:24, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Well if you've never heard it then I guess it doesn't exist, whoever you are. --S.Örvarr.S 10:51, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
*sigh* I guess technically I could have heard it and mistaken it for "góðan daginn" which would sound almost the same. But aside from anything I may or may not have heard this just isn't in common usage and shouldn't be mentioned in the article. Haukur 11:29, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Want to make an article about misspoken words... I can give you a list of them. Take for an exmaple "morgun" (eng: morning) people seem to be obliged to say "morgum" instead. --S.Örvarr.S 14:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
'Morgum' for 'morgun' isn't necessarily a misspoken word, more likely it is an instance of sandhi. Haukur 16:51, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Saying "Góða daginn" as a greeting is not proper Icelandic. It would make the rules of grammar slightly shorter if it was but it isn't. Also, there is hardly anybody who tries to stigmatize the use of "Góðan daginn" (there is a userbox on the Icelandic wikipedia for that purpose used by a single person). Stefán 15:45, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I might add that the Science web link [10] does not say that the greeting "Góðan daginn" is wrong, as Örvarr maintains above, it rather says that it is a common speech pattern (algeng málvenja).
Now if anybody who doesn't speak Icelandic is still reading at this point, here is a quick explanation of the argument. Adjectives in Icelandic agree with the noun they describe in number, case and gender. Furthermore, adjectives have two forms, a strong one, used when the noun does not have the definite article, and a weak one, used when the noun has the definite article. Thus in "Hér er góður maður" (Here is a good man) the noun (maður) has no article and the adjective is strong (góður) but in "Hér er góði maðurinn" (Here is the good man) the noun has the article (maðurinn) and the adjective is weak (góði).
What Örvarr doesn't seem to be able to accept is that there are exceptions to this rule. Thus, when used as a greeting, "góðan daginn" we have the strong adjective (góðan) eventhough the noun (daginn the day) has the article. Another form of this greeting is "góðan dag" where the noun doesn't have the article and the adjective has the strong form. This second form is in line with the general rule. Stefán 02:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh well. --S.Örvarr.S 12:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Icelandic words examples

I have redone what Max Naylor first attempted, that is, the recordings of a few Icelandic words. Enjoy. --S.Örvarr.S 14:50, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, your Icelandic is certainly a lot better but your English is rather worse. For example you have pre-aspiration in the word 'apple'. I personally don't see any point in reading the English cognates at all. Haukur 19:07, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
The English is fine and perfectly reasonable. Trust me, I’m an Englishman. The purpose of the sound samples is to demonstrate the similarities between the cognate words when they are spoken aloud—not to achieve phonological perfection. Fussing over minor imperfections—such as the preaspiration before ‘apple’—is pretentious, pedantic and irritating. Max Naylor 10:59, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Hehe, I see my popularity has gone down a bit :) Anyway, I think the English Wikipedia sort of assumes that the readers know English so I don't see any point in pronouncing English words for them. It's especially strange when the English pronunciation offered has features not actually found in English. One of the differences between the pronunciation of 'apple' and 'epli' is that one has preaspiration and the other doesn't. Offering a recording which masks this difference is even less helpful than offering a redundant, accurate one. Haukur 23:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I think Haukur makes a good argument here. There's simply no point in annoying those who do care about accuracy in pronunciation. Comparison should be of native pronunciations and the usefulness of those sound files is seriously degraded by the presence of accented English, even if it's perfectly understandable. We could just as well solve this by using separate files pronounced by native English-speakers (which already exist[11][12][13]).
By the way, why aren't we cleaning up the examples section? The consensus for any language article aspiring is that examples should be of good literature (whether prose or poetry) rather than tourist phrases. "Where is the bathroom?" is no way to be considered encyclopedic.
Peter Isotalo 12:22, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I see nothing wrong with tourist phrases. All the other articles, that I've read, about languages use tourist phrases as examples. And I doubt that the cognate examples annoy anybody except for my nemesis. --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson 23:37, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Tourist phrases are the equivalent of trivia sections in articles on other topics. They're usually the first thing to go when an article starts moving towards GA or FA candidacy. At least when it comes to language that actually have a literary tradition. Using cognates as illustrations is all fine and well, but they're not presented in an ideal way. Brushing valid pointers about them off as mere hostility (or whatever that nemesis-comment is supposed to mean) is hardly a constructive way to deal with them.
Peter Isotalo 06:46, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

T-V distinction

Contrary to what the article stated, this does exist (Þér - yður - yður - yðar) still today. Updated accordingly. Polished a few meanings of the neologisms. Asgrrr 22:22, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Modern Icelandic sure does have T-V distinction but it's not in every-day-practise and that should be mentioned. --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson 13:40, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Danish influence

I feel there is a need to update this section ("History"). It would be more correct to say that the net effect of danish influence is little; actually in the time of Rasmus Rask Icelandic was under threat in urban Iceland, and indeed Rask's efforts reversed this trend. Danish "contamination" persisted into the 20th century, but has since subsided. Asgrrr 22:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Example table

I propose minor changes to the content of the example table.

Current:

Translation Phrase IPA
Icelandic íslenska /islɛnska/
Hello Halló /halːou/
What’s your name? Hvað heitir þú? /kʰvaθ heiːtɪr θu/
My name is Magnús. Ég heiti Magnús. /jɛːɣ heiːtɪ maknus/
How are you? Hvað segirðu? /kʰvaθ seij:ɪrðʏ/
Good day Góðan daginn. /kouðan tajːɪn/
Good evening Gott kvöld. /kɔht kʰvœlt/
Good night Góða nótt. /kouða nouht/
Good-bye Bless. /plɛs/
Thank you Þakka þér fyrir. /θahka ðjɛr fɪːrɪr/
That það /θaθ/
How much does it cost? Hvað kostar það? /kʰvaθ kɔstar ða(θ)/
Yes Já /jau/
No Nei /nei/
Where is the bathroom? Hvar er salernið? /kʰvar ɛ:r saːlɛrtnɪθ/
Do you speak English? Talar þú ensku? /tʰa:lar θu ɛnskø/
I don't understand Ég skil ekki. /jɛːɣ scʰɪːl ɛhcɪ/
Excuse me Afsakið. /afsacɪθ/
I don't know Ég veit ekki. /jɛɣ vɛit ɛhkɪ/

My idea:

Translation Phrase IPA
Icelandic íslenska /islɛnska/
Hello Halló /halːou/
What’s your name? Hvað heitir þú? /kʰvaθ heiːtɪr θu/
My name is Magnús. Ég heiti Magnús. /jɛːɣ heiːtɪ maknus/
How are you? Hverning hefur þú það?
Good day Góðan daginn. /kouðan tajːɪn/
Good evening Gott kvöld. /kɔht kʰvœlt/
Good night Góða nótt. /kouða nouht/
Good-bye Bless. /plɛs/
Thank you Þakka þér.
That það /θaθ/
How much does it cost? Hvað kostar það mikið?
Yes Já /jau/
No Nei /nei/
Where is the bathroom? Hvar er salernið? /kʰvar ɛ:r saːlɛrtnɪθ/
Do you speak English? Talar þú ensku? /tʰa:lar θu ɛnskø/
I don't understand Ég skil ekki. /jɛːɣ scʰɪːl ɛhcɪ/
Excuse me Afsakið. /afsacɪθ/
I don't know Ég veit ekki. /jɛɣ vɛit ɛhkɪ/

I reckon it's alright to have the translation a bit more literal. Hverning hefur þú það? is a phrase just none less than Hvað segir þú? so that should be alright. And it's not that common to say Þakka þér fyrir, most people simply use "Takk" meaning "Thanks" but others might say Þakka þér. The last example is not a matter of usage, since both are completely acceptable and therefor used. It's just a matter of having it a bit more literal as I said. --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson 14:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The tourists phrases will be removed if the article ever goes through any serious screening process. Spending time tweaking those tables will not be a constructive improvement of the article in the long run.
--Peter Isotalo 01:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to see what you have in mind. --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson 15:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
The phrases were added à la German language. I don’t see how they are irrelevant to the article, and with the relative lack of interest from users I think that their presence is of no concern. Max Naylor 18:01, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
German language is a former GA, and with good reason, and hence not a good comparison. It would most likely fail a nomination if it was submitted in its current state. It has five tables, some of which are gigantic, where one would suffice.
Use excerpts from Icelandic prose or poetry instead, Stefán. Preferably with a translation and a reading. There's a wealth of literature out there and it tells so much more about Icelandic than "Do you speak English?" ever will.
Peter Isotalo 06:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Tourist phrases are simple, therefor it's easy to see the meaning of each word, because each sentence is almost word for word as in English. But with poems, especially those which take use of Icelandic's most dymanic structure, it is impossible for someone who doesn't speak the language at all, to see any sense out of them. --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson 02:08, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
The point of an encyclopedic article is not to teach people foreign languages, but to inform them about foreign languages. There Wikibooks for that specific purpose. Choosing the most primitive of phrases just to make sure that non-speakers can imitate them also has the very real downside of being a terribly poor representation of actual Icelandic.
Peter Isotalo 00:38, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Well I guess you've got to start collecting poems then. I don't personally care nor know anything about them. --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson 04:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)