Hell arrived a while ago and it is summer on Lake Myvatn, or Midge Lake. You can’t breathe without inhaling insects, so you have to wear a mask just in case a cloud of those things happen your way.
Yeah, we went to Iceland ~3 years ago and we learned beforehand to bring a mosquito net for Lake Myvatn. So this headline confuses me. The article says mosquitoes were only discovered there this month, but some random blog knew about it years ago?
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.
Hell arrived a while ago and it is summer on Lake Myvatn, or Midge Lake. You can’t breathe without inhaling insects, so you have to wear a mask just in case a cloud of those things happen your way.
Yeah, I wish I’d known what that translated to before I went there.
At least they seemed to stay away from the thermal baths area.
Yeah, we went to Iceland ~3 years ago and we learned beforehand to bring a mosquito net for Lake Myvatn. So this headline confuses me. The article says mosquitoes were only discovered there this month, but some random blog knew about it years ago?
There are biting midges, and I presume they’re very annoying, but most don’t bite and they’re all different from mosquitoes.
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???
Go The Foss.
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.
Yes, I believe the thorn had been replaced with a y when typesetting was first getting started, for some reason
Here you go:
https://youtu.be/jBufIt29CxY