> Oh yeah, and if someone could tell me how some of the wonky characters
> you encounter in Norse and other languages like it are pronounced (I
> know the one that looks like a P but sounds like 'th' but the others
> are fairly mysterious), I would be very very grateful.
þ - like English "th" in "think"
ð - like English "th" in "feather"
æ - Old Norse, like the vowel in English "fair"
- Modern Icelandic, like English "eye"
- Old Norse only: like "ö" in German "schön". No exact English
equivalent; a bit like the vowel in English "fur" bit with the tongue
higher the lips much tighter / more tense. In the 13th century, this
vowel merged with æ.
ø - like , but short.
The "o" with a hook under it was something like the "o" in some
English pronunciations of "not" (e.g. British English "Received
Pronunciation").
Those last two also merged in the 13th century. Modern Icelandic uses
ö for the resulting vowel, which is pronounced like German "ö" in
"können" (i.e. somewhere between the vowel of English "fur" and that
of German "schön"), except that in Modern Icelandic it can be
pronounced long or short depending on what sounds follow it. Old
Norse texts are sometimes printed with this letter too.
Here is one guide to the Icelandic alphabet with information about
medieval and modern Icelandic pronunciation:
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/norol-1-X.html#Nor01_GP01
Here are two articles on Old Icelandic pronunciation with slightly
different opinions on some points:
http://www.hi.is/%7Ehaukurth/norse/articles/articles.html
This is an old book which describes the reconstructed pronunciation of
Old Norse at the time of the earliest surviving manuscripts:
Henry Sweet: Icelandic Primer:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5424
This site has information about how to type special Icelandic
characters on computers:
http://www.mentalcode.com/nl/islenska/index.page
This book has a really thorough guide to Modern Icelandic pronunciation:
Stefán Einarsson: Icelandic: Grammar, Text and Glossary
http://www.amazon.com/Icelandic-Grammar-Glossary-Stefan-Einarsson/dp/0801863570/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-8577773-7362853?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189599360&sr=1-1