--- In norse_course@egroups.com, Deep Stream <DeepStream@...> wrote:

> 1 Double consonants: Oskar notes in his
> pronunciation guide that double consonants are
> spoken, and givens examples *where vowels are
> present on both sids of the consonant pair in the
> same word*.
>
> Does each double consonant get pronounce when the
> following vowel *is in the next word* (liason)?
> For example, does one pronounce "Hann á brand"
> like "Han_na brand"? Or would the second "n" in
> "Hann" be "lost" because it´s at the end of a
> word?

Liaison would occur; that's what we do in Icelandic today. So, "hann á
brand" would be [hAn nA: brAnd].

> 2. Long/short vowels
>
> Do two or more consonants shorten any immediately
> preceding vowels (excepting those dipthongs) in
> the same word? For example, does the double "n"
> in "hann" shorten the a in the pronoun? Would the
> first a in the sentence "hAnn á" sound "shorter"
> than the first a in the pronoun "hAna"?

No, that's only how it works in Modern Icelandic. If you have a = [A]
and á = [A:], that's not acceptable. So, "vápn" is [wA:pn], "mann" is
[mAnn], "ván" is [wA:n], and "man" is [mAn]. It's hard to do for both
you and me, yes, but unless we use Modern Icelandic pronunciation,
that's what we must do :)

> 3. -R
>
> How do you pronounce the -R at the end of words
> with no immediately preceding vowels? When you
> scan the poetic Edda, it seems that this sound
> should be made *without adding a syllable*. For
> example, "Ullr" is apparently a *one syllable*
> name. How can this work?

This is kind of debated. I and Haukur don't completely agree here...I
believe there always was a little vowel between, but he doesn't. It's
not known for sure. In any case, pronouncing -R as [@r] ([@] is the
indeterminate vowel sound that occurs in unstressed syllables in
English) is quite acceptable; then it would be pretty much like the
-er ending in English, as in "finger", only pronounced with a trilled
r. BTW, -R was spelled -r; the capital spelling belongs to modern
day romanizations of rune inscriptions :)

Óskar