# Old Norse: Freyr



## mamboney

Hello!
I hope that someone can help me with the correct pronunciation of two characters from Nordic mythology.

*1. Freyr 
*Is it:
_   Frier_ (like English fry +er)
_Frare_ (like English F + rare/Fr + air)
_Frayer_ (like English  'prayer'  but with an  F)
   or is it something else entirely?
[...]

Any help would be greatly appreciated!


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## Sardokan1.0

I think that the E must be pronounced like in TEN, and the Y pronounced separated from the E, the accent should be on the E, and the R must be rolled.

FRË-YR


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## berndf

mamboney said:


> like English


I am afraid that is a suboptimal way to approach the question. The least wrong of your analogies is:


mamboney said:


> like English 'prayer' but with an F


But _prayer_ has two syllables, _Freyr_ only one. If I had to describe it in terms of an analogy to English I would describe it as "Like English _frail_ buy with an _r"._ -- A rolled _r_ that is, both of them.

About the final -_r_: This is etymologically a rhoticized voiced _s_, a phenomenon that is common to North and West Germanic. In Old Norse, this process was probably not yet completed. The exact pronunciation is not known but it must have been somewhere in the middle between a voiced _s_ and a rolled _r_.


Sardokan1.0 said:


> the accent should be on the E


_-ey- _is a diphthong and the syllable nucleus. I don't think it makes phonological sense in Nordic languages to split the stress of a long vowel or diphthong. But I could be wrong.


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## jazyk

_Prayer_ has one syllable: Prayer definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary


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## berndf

Predominantly, yes. But the OP must have thought of the bi-syllabic variant [ˈpɹeɪ.əɹ], which is not infrequent in the US. Otherwise the contrast to


mamboney said:


> _Frare_ (like English F + rare/Fr + air)


wouldn't make any sense.

But you are right: my simple, unqualified statement "... _prayer_ has two syllables" is not correct. Sorry for that.


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