The only annoying insects I’ve seen in Iceland, when visiting Goðafoss I think, seemed a good bit larger than mosquitoes. Not sure if those are midges or some other insect.
My simple, English-based understanding is that they represent two variations of the English “th” sound. Eth is voiced, softer, and similar to the “th” in “the” or “father” and Thorn is unvoiced, harsher, and similar to the “th” sound in its name “thorn” or “thank”. It’s subtle and I never remember learning about the differences in my schooling.
I’ve also noticed there is a small “movement”, here and a few other sites online, to try and bring one or both of these back, replacing “th” with one or both these characters in English posts and comments.
Edit: Pronouncing the actual name of the waterfall, the Wikipedia page has a playable pronunciation that sounds to me like “go the foss” which matches an English pronunciation of just replacing Eth with TH, but that’s just an approximation.
Neat! Thanks for sharing. I knew about the thorn and then saw on the wiki the “Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈkɔːðaˌfɔsːft]” and my brain kinda shut off lol.
Wasn’t y also a th character back in “ye olde” times for example?
English is weird.
Ah, yeah I saw a lot of insects that I presumed were mosquitoes… do they look similar?
The only annoying insects I’ve seen in Iceland, when visiting Goðafoss I think, seemed a good bit larger than mosquitoes. Not sure if those are midges or some other insect.
How is that pronounced???
I’m not a linguist nor am I Icelandic. However, when visiting I did notice that the language has this “Eth” (Ð ð) letter and [the “Thorn” Þ þ letter.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)).
My simple, English-based understanding is that they represent two variations of the English “th” sound. Eth is voiced, softer, and similar to the “th” in “the” or “father” and Thorn is unvoiced, harsher, and similar to the “th” sound in its name “thorn” or “thank”. It’s subtle and I never remember learning about the differences in my schooling.
I’ve also noticed there is a small “movement”, here and a few other sites online, to try and bring one or both of these back, replacing “th” with one or both these characters in English posts and comments.
Edit: Pronouncing the actual name of the waterfall, the Wikipedia page has a playable pronunciation that sounds to me like “go the foss” which matches an English pronunciation of just replacing Eth with TH, but that’s just an approximation.
Neat! Thanks for sharing. I knew about the thorn and then saw on the wiki the “Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈkɔːðaˌfɔsːft]” and my brain kinda shut off lol.
Wasn’t y also a th character back in “ye olde” times for example?
English is weird.
Here you go:
https://youtu.be/jBufIt29CxY