Icelandic/Alphabet and Pronunciation

Stafróf og framburður
 * Alphabet and pronunciation

The Icelandic alphabet consists of 32 letters. There are also three letters only used for foreign words, and one deleted letter (which is sometimes still used only for foreign words). The Icelandic language uses the latin alphabet, which is the same as the English alphabet and most Western European languages. There are some letters that are not found in English, and even some letters that only Icelandic uses.

Íslenska stafrófið

Letters C, Q, and W are not part of the Icelandic alphabet, but are used in foreign words:

The final letter, Z, no longer appears in Icelandic words as of 1973, and therefore is no longer used in the Icelandic language either. However, it is still technically used only in very rare cases preserved in historic names of structures, organizations, and the like, such as Verzló (a school in Reykjavík). And words that once contained the letter Z nowadays contain the letter S.

With the exception of letters C, Q and W, these letters do appear in the Icelandic language in foreign words, unlike the deleted letter Z, which only appears in very rare cases in foreign words and therefore are also used more often than the deleted letter is.

Until 1980, the Icelandic alphabet used to consist of 36 letters and also included the 3 letters that are only used for foreign words and the deleted letter (which is still technically only used for foreign words but very rarely) (and computers still order this way):

A Á B C D Ð E É F G H I Í J K L M N O Ó P Q R S T U Ú V W X Y Ý Z Þ Æ Ö

How the letters are pronounced
Notes:


 * Icelandic words never begin with Ð, and no words end with Þ.
 * I and Y share the same pronunciation, as do Í and Ý.
 * HV is pronounced as KV, but is sometimes pronounced as Scots WH.
 * J, L, M, N, and R are voiceless before H and in most areas before K, P, and T (no English equivalent)
 * L and R are voiceless at the end of a word
 * There are no silent letters in Icelandic., though in spoken language some letters might produce a different sound than usual.
 * Double BB, DD, GG, RR, and SS are pronounced for longer than their monograph equivalents.
 * Double FF is pronounced as English F.
 * Double LL is pronounced something like tl.
 * Double MM and NN are often pronounced as pm and tn.
 * Double KK, PP, and TT are pronounced with an H to their left and pronounced for longer than their monograph equivalents.
 * If a K is followed by a t, it is pronounced similarly to a Spanish j (e.g. lukt – lantern).
 * Likewise, a P followed by a t changes into an f sound (e.g. Að skipta – to shift).
 * F in the middle of a word is often pronounced as a v (e.g. Að skafa – to shave).
 * If you are not able to type in Icelandic letters, you can substitute Ð with DH, Þ with TH, Æ with AE, and Á, É, Í, Ó, Ö, Ú, Ý with AA, EE, II, OO, OE, UU, YY.

Stress
Stress in Icelandic always falls on the first syllable.

Dialects of Icelandic
All dialects of Icelandic have assimilated into the standard spoken language, but people from Reykjavík tend to speak a little differently from people from Akureyri, Egilsstaðir, Ísafjörður and other countryside towns and villages. For example, the word for hot dog in Icelandic is pylsa; in Akureyri, they would say pil-sah but in Reykjavík you often will hear pulsa. Another example is the word for to want, langar: in Ísafjörður (the northwestern part of Iceland), you often will hear lahng-ar but in Reykjavík you will hear lángar.