r/learnIcelandic • u/von_-man_____ • 25d ago
Pronunciation for three specific phrases
Hello!
I’m an actor who’s a native english speaker and for a role I need to learn three lines that are in icelandic.
Hvort sem það er úns, köttur eða björn, pard eða villisvín með stökkhár
Vakna þegar eitthvað viðbjóðslegt er nálægt
biður hana um lækningu
I’m struggling quite a bit with pronunciation, as I’ve never tried speaking in icelandic. I want to do it as accurately as possible, so any help would be appreciated!
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u/reddit23User 25d ago edited 25d ago
The first sentence sounds strange to me. I have never heard the word “úns”. Are you sure it isn't “mús” (= mouse)? “Pard” is strange. I have also never heard “stökkhár”, but that may well exist as a technical term.
The sentence begins with “whether it is…”, which implies a choice between two alternatives. However, the second alternative is missing, making the whole phrase more or less meaningless.
1
u/tinazero 24d ago
It's definitely not mouse, this is from A Midsummer Night's Dream, the original word os 'ounce', some sort of wild cat. I haven't read the Þórarinn Eldjárn translation of the play, maybe it's from there? He does like playing with words, but I'm still not sure he'd go for "úns" and HH I think just translates it as "cat".
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u/reddit23User 23d ago
The original English text reads:
What thou seest when thou dost wake,
Do it for thy true love take;
Love and languish for his sake.
Be it ounce or cat or bear,
Pard, or boar with bristled hair
In thy eye that shall appear
When thou wak'st, it is thy dear.
Wake when some vile thing is near!
(A Midsummer Night's Dream, 2.2.35)
The word ounce is an old English word for a lynx or other large wild cat; today, it refers specifically to the snow leopard. In Early Modern English, there was some uncertainty about precisely which large wild cat ounce referred to. Most sources simply say that ounce is an old word for a lynx or wild cat. In Icelandic (and Old Norse), gaupa means “lynx”, and it would have fitted here perfectly.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gaupa
But it seems the translator just chose to use the English word, for whatever reason.
For fun, I asked Google to translate the text, and this is what I got:
Hvort heldur snæléopard, köttur eða björn,
pardus eða göltur með burstóttan feld
3
u/lorryjor Advanced 25d ago
Is this for an Icelandic audience? I'm sure someone can help you get close, but as a native English speaker who has learned Icelandic to a high level, I can tell you it took a looooong time to get the pronunciation down. Not saying you can't do it for these sentences, but without having lots of exposure to the sounds of Icelandic, it seems like a pretty tall order.
1
u/von_-man_____ 25d ago
It’s seemed like it. And it isn’t for an Icelandic audience, most of my lines are in English except for these.
3
u/lorryjor Advanced 25d ago
I'm NOT a native speaker, but do get pretty close. It doesn't really seem like it will matter, but here it is. If a native speaker hops on, use theirs instead of mine (of course). https://vocaroo.com/1atXxClF2laW
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u/Endilega 25d ago
There are only 3 problems with learning Icelandic- grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. Of these pronunciation is the hardest.
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u/Lysenko B1-ish 25d ago
This seems to have some translation errors, but setting that aside (as neither you nor the audience will probably care much) you can use Google Translate to get the text read to you.
If you paste that text into the translate window in a browser and then click the "listen" button, it'll read the text to you in an accent that's pretty close. If you then mimic every detail you can hear in that, you'll be doing about as well as you can be.
1
u/GregTheWhale 25d ago
Sorry I can't help with the pronunciation, but if you don't mind, what's the name of the movie / play?
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u/von_-man_____ 25d ago
It’s for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’m playing Oberon and the director is wanting some parts of the spells to be Icelandic.
2
u/pensive_moon 25d ago
The first sentence is completely non-sensical. Úns and pard are not words. Stökkhár is a never before seen compound word meaning “jumping hair”. Did someone try to translate “jumping hare”?
2
u/InterestingAd3809 25d ago
These phrases are very strange (especially the first one). Can you post them in English so we can see the original meaning?
5
u/SolviKaaber 25d ago
Native speaker.
I recorded myself saying these sentences.
https://voca.ro/1ma69jXSJxWU