Eight? or Eitt? or Einn?

One of the first, tiny little baby step towards learning Icelandic is the realization that the English word for the numeral 8 and the Icelandic word for the numeral 1 are pronounced exactly the same. This is not only in the case of the neuter form of the Icelandic word (eitt) but also in the less obvious masculine form einn, because of the truncation modern Icelandic pronunciation gives to a final nn combination (well, it sounds not quite like eitt, but for an English speaker they are virtually identical). After 30 years of familiarity with these homophones, I can still occasionally get confused. I wonder if Icelanders get similarly confused when an English speaker says they "ate".

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Unknown said…
Eureka! This is exactly the post I needed to find on my second day of learning Icelandic. The pronunciation of einn was the worst kind of puzzle - my ears couldn't figure it out. Many thanks!
May 24, 2009 at 4:55 PM
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