# Icelandic: Eyjafjallajökull volcano [pronunciation]



## Grefsen

Over the past couple of days I've heard a lot of journalists in the U.S. struggling with the pronunciation of *Eyjafjallajökull.*  I'm curious to know what the correct way is to say the name of this volcano in Icelandic and was wondering if someone could provide a phonetic pronunciation for those of us who aren't familiar with IPA.

*Takk fyrirfram!*


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## Alxmrphi

Hi Gref,

The BBC actually created a page because of the problem, everyone who knows I'm learning Icelandic has asked me how to pronounce it! It's completely avoided on all TV / radio that I've heard, only "volcanic ash from Iceland" - even on the in depth coverage nobody is saying the word!

I didn't think this'd be covered in the US for some reason.
Anyway here's the BBC article: How to Say Eyjafjallajökull.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Alxmrphi said:


> I didn't think this'd be covered in the US for some reason.
> Anyway here's the BBC article: How to Say Eyjafjallajökull.


 
Now all the BBC need is an article on how to spell Eyjafjallajökull, and Bob's their uncle.

P.S. I don't think they should be saying the final vowel sound as oo in boot... It's more like u in umlaut.


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## Alxmrphi

Silver_Biscuit said:


> Now all the BBC need is an article on how to spell Eyjafjallajökull, and Bob's their uncle.


 
Yeah lol, they do know, but I think they conceeded the word was hard enough without having to explain what an umlaut to Brits, so adapted accordingly, at least it wasn't _ayerfyatlajoekull_ or something like that


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## Grefsen

Alxmrphi said:


> I didn't think this'd be covered in the US for some reason.
> Anyway here's the BBC article: How to Say Eyjafjallajökull.


 *Takk* for your reply and for posting this link *Alxmrphi*.  



Silver_Biscuit said:


> Now all the BBC need is an article on how to spell Eyjafjallajökull, and Bob's their uncle.


And speaking of incorrect Icelandic spellings, I haven't seen footballer *Eiður Smári Guðjohnsen's* name spelled correctly once by the British press since he joined Tottenham on loan over 6 weeks ago.


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## Alxmrphi

> And speaking of incorrect Icelandic spellings, I haven't seen footballer *Eiður Smári Guðjohnsen's* name spelled correctly once by the British press since he joined Tottenham on loan over 6 weeks ago.


 
Never heard of him! 
There's a seemingly-standard anglicising of Icelandic in English that I've seen, Þ = th and Ð as D (ð / d), so I think there's a little bet of method in the madness


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## Grefsen

Alxmrphi said:


> Never heard of him!


*Guðjohnsen* is arguably Iceland's all-time best footballer, but getting back on topic, here is an article I just found with a slightly differenct pronunciation of *Eyjafjallajökull* than the one given by the BBC:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36598435/ns/travel-news/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter



> Delays and cancelations will continue on Saturday as the ash cloud from the eruption of the volcano beneath Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH'-plah-yer-kuh-duhl) glacier moves south and east.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Alxmrphi said:


> Never heard of him!
> There's a seemingly-standard anglicising of Icelandic in English that I've seen, Þ = th and Ð as D (ð / d), so I think there's a little bet of method in the madness


 
I think that British newspapers and media in general have a policy of not using foreign characters, whether that be a real 'special character' like þ or an accented one like á. With Icelandic this is especially unfortunate. Þ into th is OK, but ð should be into th as well, surely? People haven't got a hope in hell of pronouncing Icelandic names if they think that the PM, for example, is called Johanna Sigurdardottir.
It's one of those things that annoys me, and (understandably) nobody else cares about.


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## sindridah

Yeah the only thing i have been seeing on my facebook account these days are my icelandic friends making fun of the pronunciation of Eyjafjallajökli , posting videos from british press and stuff. But anyhow icelanders are idiots


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## Silver_Biscuit

Guðjohnsen is not a standard Icelandic name... It looks like weird blend of Icelandic (Guð), English (john) and Danish (sen). But anyway, that second pronunciation you've got is less accurate. If I had to make a stab I'd write:

AY-yah-FYAH-dlah-YER-küdl (with ü as in German, and don't pronounce the r in yer). Certainly there's no p sound, and although the last bit sort of _is_ kuh-duhl, it should only be one syllable.


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## Grefsen

Silver_Biscuit said:


> Guðjohnsen is not a standard Icelandic name... It looks like weird blend of Icelandic (Guð), English (john) and Danish (sen).


Thanks for pointing that out.  I just did a couple of searches to see if there were any threads in this forum dedicated to Icelandic names and this was the only link I could find:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=932379&highlight=



Silver_Biscuit said:


> But anyway, that second pronunciation you've got is less accurate. If I had to make a stab I'd write:
> 
> AY-yah-FYAH-dlah-YER-küdl (with ü as in German, and don't pronounce the r in yer). Certainly there's no p sound, and although the last bit sort of _is_ kuh-duhl, it should only be one syllable.


I was watching the news on MSNBC last night and was wondering how in the world they came up with a "p sound" in *Eyjafjallajökull.*


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## Alxmrphi

If you look on the net for "How to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull" there are a few videos, that annoying "Good Morning" team from ABC news did a little segment on it with an Icelandic interpreter, and one of the women even said that there are only 2,665 Icelandic speakers in the world, _where do they get their sources from?!?!_

Anyway, with this it's always better to hear an Icelander saying it, so search and you shall find, it's against the rules to link to videos so I haven't, but there are a lot out there with good clear, slow, repeated examples.


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## sindridah

http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/sjonvarp/index.html?media_id=48340

Here is an icelandic news video and the anchor do say Eyjafjallajökli around 10seconds in to the video "í þetta sinn er það vegna þeirra gríðarlegra áhrifa sem öskufall úr gosinu í "eyjafjallajökli" hefur á flugumferð í Evrópu"


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## Wilma_Sweden

I'd like to see the IPA transcription, if anyone can find it. Also, if you do have a link to a good, clear, slow pronunciation by an Icelander, on sound, or video other than YouTube, please PM me the link and I'll see if we can bend the rules a little. 

Please stay on topic and keep any footballers' names out of it...


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## Alxmrphi

Hi Wilma 

[ˈɛɪjaˌfjatlaˌjœːkʏtl]

There are loads of good Icelandic recordings of it (all videos) that can be found through Google (slow pronunciation as well).


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## ewie

I did hear _one_ BBC news presenter say it ~ it took him about 5 minutes


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## Nanon

I read somewhere that Eyjafjallajökull was the name of the glacier, and that the name of the volcano was Eyjafjöll. Or that Eyjafjallajökull was also known as Eyjafjöll (here) or also Eyjafjalla. If this is true, aren't we complicating things more than they should be?...


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## Silver_Biscuit

Nanon said:


> I read somewhere that Eyjafjallajökull was the name of the glacier, and that the name of the volcano was Eyjafjöll. Or that Eyjafjallajökull was also known as Eyjafjöll (here). If this is true, aren't we complicating things more than they should be?...


 
Hmm, Eyjafjöll would definitely be more than one mountain (fjall = mountain, fjöll = mountains). Jökull in Icelandic means glacier, but it also means a mountain that is high enough to be permanently covered in snow/ice. So I would guess that the Eyjafjöll are the mountain _range_ and that Eyjafjallajökull is the name of the specific mountain/volcano. So, in summary: no, I think it's best to stick to Eyjafjallajökull.

Edit: On further investigation, I don't think the volcano really has a name. It's just 'the volcano' under the glacier Eyjafjallajökull. Still best to go with the full name.


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## 0m1

I have seen it rendered [ˈɛɪjaˌfjatl̥aˌjœːkʏtl̥], with those extra dots beneat beneath the Ls; perhaps they resemble the strange clicking sound that accompanies the "TL"'s that I've have seen people make in YouTube videos on pronunciation? I'm not an IPA expert, and am still not entirely sure how to reproduce the sound, though trust me, I have tried...


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## Alxmrphi

Hi 0m1, 

Dots underneath symbols in IPA represent unvoicing, Icelandic is quite an unusual language regarding the amount of unvoiced consonants it uses (4 unvoiced nasals!!), it's probably one of the (if not_ thee_) most unvoiced language on Earth...

So the unvoiced /l/ is certainly used here, and I'm sure you did hear it, it's an accompaniment to the "_t sound_" in double* -ll-* consonants.
It's not a click (once you know it's a [t], but I can certainly understand people thinking it might be! )


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## 0m1

Ahh, I see, thanks Alxmrphi! Unvoicing of /l/ ... yeah, now I see why I've been struggling  Although actually thinking of it as being an unvoiced L helps with trying to imitate the online pronunciations, oddly. Ahh, Icelandic... do hope to learn it some day. 

And isn't Faroese really unvoiced? Or I suppose those are considered glides or at least omissions, with so many of  their Eths and Gs just simply forgotten about rather than unvoiced.

Also, is -ll- necessarily always an unvoiced L then? Because some videos/recordings just do a normal /tl/, and others a /tl̥/; I guess the latter is just most accurate?


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## Alxmrphi

Hi again 0m1,

There are some factors to be distinguished, for example loan words often have just a long [l:] (no [t] sound) like Ella [ɛl:a].
When -ll- is word-final it's always voiceless, but between vowels I've read it's supposed to be a voiced short [l] so in this example it's at the end of the word so would be unvoiced.

I don't know that much about Faroese phonology, but there are a lot of omissions in consonant clusters and I think you also get voiceless [l] in similar words, they have the [t] insertion, but I think the same phonological rules apply (short voiced [l] between vowels but voiceless when it's word final).

I think the phonological context might be a determiner in your hearing of the voiced [l] at the end of the word, if the following word is a vowel and it's fairly fast speech I imagine it isn't voiceless (it's like it's between vowels then) but if you have someone clearly pronouncing it with a bit of time before the next word, or in isolation it is supposed to be (as far as I know) voiceless.

Hope this helped!



> Ahh, Icelandic... do hope to learn it some day.


Why put it off?


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## Le Viking islandais

If someone is in trouble prouncing the double L the try to say the English name Hoddle. TO me the "ddl" sounds very much like the icelandic double L.

This is how I would write the pronunciation, for english speaking people.
Eh-ya-fia-ddl-a-yoku-ddl.


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## 0m1

Alxmrphi said:


> Hope this helped!



Thanks very much, it has!



Alxmrphi said:


> Why put it off?



Because I have to learn Latin, Greek, Persian, Finnish, Old Norse, Swedish and Danish first ;D Maybe you're right, though, I should look at my priorities..!


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## Linnets

I've read that Eyjafjallajökull is the glacier and Eyjafjöll is the volcano. Anyway this audio clip doesn't seem to be very understandable.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Linnets said:


> I've read that Eyjafjallajökull is the glacier and Eyjafjöll is the volcano. Anyway this audio clip doesn't seem to be very understandable.


 
Eyjafjöll means islands' mountain*s */ mountain*s* of the islands so it would be weird if it was the name of the volcano. I'm not saying it definitely isn't used as such by English speakers, but it doesn't make much sense in Icelandic.


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## Linnets

Silver_Biscuit said:


> Eyjafjöll means islands' mountain*s */ mountain*s* of the islands so it would be weird if it was the name of the volcano. I'm not saying it definitely isn't used as such by English speakers, but it doesn't make much sense in Icelandic.


This Wikipedia page seems to point to Fimmvörðuhálsi which seems to be again the name of an area rather than the volcano itself. Does the article on Icelandic Wikipedia contain the name of the volcano? Also note that I found (here) that _Eyjafjöll_ means "mountains of the islands", a compond of _fjöll_, plural form of _fjall_, "mountain", and_ eyja_, plural genitive case of _ey_, "island"._ Eyjafjalla_ seems to be the plural genitive form, thus "of the mountains of the islands"; _Eyjafjallajökull_ should then mean "glacier of the mountains of the islands". The question is: what is the exact name of the volcano which erupted some days ago under the Eyjafjallajökull? Eyjafjall? Simply a volcano peak with no name in the area of Eyjafjöll under the Eyjafjallajökull? The situation for its neighbour is much simpler: Katla is the name of the volcano and  Mýrdalsjökull the name of the glacier covering it.


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## 0m1

Linnets said:


> Simply a volcano peak with no name in the area of Eyjafjöll under the Eyjafjallajökull?



That's definitely the impression I've gotten from reading.


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## Der Hofnarr

Linnets said:


> This Wikipedia page seems to point to Fimmvörðuhálsi which seems to be again the name of an area rather than the volcano itself. Does the article on Icelandic Wikipedia contain the name of the volcano? Also note that I found (here) that _Eyjafjöll_ means "mountains of the islands", a compond of _fjöll_, plural form of _fjall_, "mountain", and_ eyja_, plural genitive case of _ey_, "island"._ Eyjafjalla_ seems to be the plural genitive form, thus "of the mountains of the islands"; _Eyjafjallajökull_ should then mean "glacier of the mountains of the islands". The question is: what is the exact name of the volcano which erupted some days ago under the Eyjafjallajökull? Eyjafjall? Simply a volcano peak with no name in the area of Eyjafjöll under the Eyjafjallajökull? The situation for its neighbour is much simpler: Katla is the name of the volcano and  Mýrdalsjökull the name of the glacier covering it.



Yeah I guess that's right, the name of the volcano itself is Eyjafjall. 

Nice pic:

http://eyjan.is/files/2010/04/sprengigos.jpg

If the Katla explodes… then it's KAPUTT for Europe hehe.


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## WyomingSue

I hope I'm on-topic.  I don't know any Icelandic (although I was in the Keflavik airport once), but I gave the title of the thread a whirl when I saw it, knowing only English and German (and Spanish, but obviously that was irrelevant).  So having gotten it all right except for the t sound in the ll, I have a question--(you never know when I might have to pronounce some Icelandic word)--does a double ll always have a t sound in it, or it is relative to other things?  I don't know any linguistic theories, so just explain it simply, please.


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## kepulauan

In my mind there is no way tl can be the same consonant as _ll_ is. It would sound like _Skotland_, one follows the next, even if you add some merging symbol (don't know if there is one)_. _In reality, _ll_ is an unvoiced, alveolar, *lateral plosive* and a single consonant. The closest IPA sound I've heard is ɺ , so it sounds something like jœːkʏɺ._

_Surely I'll recieve a strong worded letter from some linguist conference because of this post.
_

_According to http://www.jardvis.hi.is/page/jheyjafjallajokull the name of the volcano is the same as that of the clacier. A search for "Eyjafjall" in the land survey database turned two results, both outside the area. _Eyjafjöll_ is indeed a mountain range but it would not be entirely senseless to refer to them (_fjöllin_), _gos í Eyjafjöllum_, but this is not used now since the craters are in the old caldera on top of the dominating volcano.


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## Linnets

pollodia said:


> In my mind there is no way tl can be the same consonant as _ll_ is. It would sound like _Skotland_, one follows the next, even if you add some merging symbol (don't know if there is one)_. _In reality, _ll_ is an unvoiced, alveolar, *lateral plosive* and a single consonant. The closest IPA sound I've heard is ɺ, so it sounds something like jœːkʏɺ._
> _


From what I've heard (though I'm not an expert of Icelandic) _jökull_ should be [ˈjøːkʏtˡ] with _l__ateral release_. Notice also [øː]instead of [œ] because the stressed _ö_ should be more closed than the unstressed, short one.


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## kepulauan

Linnets said:


> From what I've heard (though I'm not an expert of Icelandic) _jökull_ should be [ˈjøːkʏtˡ] with _l__ateral release_. Notice also [øː]instead of [œ] because the stressed _ö_ should be more closed than the unstressed, short one.



Ah that's better! This it the first time I see that diacritic used, everyone uses tl from what I've seen. jœːkʏdˡ is correct then. I'm afraid ø is far off on the other hand.


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## Linnets

pollodia said:


> Ah that's better! This it the first time I see that diacritic used, everyone uses tl from what I've seen. jœːkʏdˡ is correct then. I'm afraid ø is far off on the other hand.


My phonetic books give me a rather centralized realization of long _ö_ in modern Icelandic: something like [ɵɞ]. If one wants to use more common symbols, then [øœ] could be used: in other word long _ö _is a short diphthong rather than a long stable monophthong. But, I repeat, I'm not an expert of Nordic languages.


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## sindridah

talking about the symbols in the very old icelandic letters in runic writing ?


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## Alxmrphi

Sæll Sindri, þeir tala um alþjóðlega hljóðstafrófið, stafrófið sem maður notar til að tákna / skrifa hljóðin á öll túngumál, það er grein um það hérna en er ekki mjög gott (útgáfan (sem er) á íslensku er mjög stutt).. ég get ekki fundið eitthvað betra.


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## Gavril

Silver_Biscuit said:


> Jökull in Icelandic means glacier, but it also means a mountain that is high enough to be permanently covered in snow/ice.



Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but, does this mean that Mt. Everest and other comparably high mountains would be considered _jöklar_?


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## Alxmrphi

Gavril said:


> Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but, does this mean that Mt. Everest and other comparably high mountains would be considered _jöklar_?



In Icelandic I think it's fairly standard that it's called *Everestfjall* (Everest mountain) but, I wasn't aware about jökull meaning anything but glacier, so for other high (snow capped) mountains, I don't know... I'm also interested!


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## Gavril

Linnets said:


> From what I've heard (though I'm not an expert of Icelandic) _jökull_ should be [ˈjøːkʏtˡ] with _l__ateral release_. Notice also [øː]instead of [œ] because the stressed _ö_ should be more closed than the unstressed, short one.



So, Icelandic _-ll _is the plosive/stop equivalent of Welsh _ll_ (voiceless lateral fricative)?


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## Alxmrphi

Gavril said:


> So, Icelandic _-ll _is the plosive/stop equivalent of Welsh _ll_ (voiceless lateral fricative)?



Yup. (but there's a dl / tl sound inserted nearly always)

I'll report what Icelandic: Grammar, Text, Glossary says about it:

(c) Double l (ll) is pronounced as Icelandic_ dl_ (i.e. nearly _tl_) with voiced short [l] between vowels and _r,n_ with voiceless short [l̥] in final position.
Before other consonants than_ r, n _double _l _(_ll_) is pronounced as a half-long l, voiced or voiceless depending on the consonants.

So before a sibilant [s] you have _alls_ (genitive of _allur_) as [al's] (half-long voiced) but before voiceless dental plosive [t] like in _allt _(neuter of _allur_) it's [al'̥t] (half-long voiceless)
The veracity of that would have to be confirmed by an Icelander, but that's what the book says.


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## 0m1

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2264

I don't think you need anything more than that page to answer all the Eyjafjalljökull-y questions you could have!


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## kepulauan

0m1 said:


> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2264
> 
> I don't think you need anything more than that page to answer all the Eyjafjalljökull-y questions you could have!



It should answer the original question yes (enough samples for everyone). But I'm not convinced by  [tɬ] although the women in those recordings seem to sway that way because of influence from adjacent sounds.

I must conclude [ˈɛɪjafjadˡajɵkʏdˡ].

But that's just my opinion, based on the link, several recording of local news for the last days and myself. I'm not sure about ö, there are a  few possibilities. of course we are talking about extreme precision here.


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## 0m1

Mhm, it seems at least supposed to be [tɬ] doesn't it, but upon actual enunciation it fails? The Sael/Saell examples seem to far better bring out the [tɬ] sound but as you say because of surrounding consonants it's far closer to a dˡ when actually spoken


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## kepulauan

Yup, or the other way around, supposed to be [dˡ] (or maybe [tˡ], I'm no expert) but becomes [tɬ] in speech.

Either way...... anything is better than [tl].


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## Wilma_Sweden

0m1 said:


> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2264
> 
> I don't think you need anything more than that page to answer all the Eyjafjalljökull-y questions you could have!


Thanks, 0m1, that was very comprehensive information.  I found more when searching for Iceland on that site. 

Thank you everyone else, too, for IPA text and explanations. 

/Wilma

P.S. As if IPA and speech samples aren't enough, Icelandic singer/songwriter Eliza Geirsdottir Newman explains it all with a cute song, originally performed to Al Jazeera viewers after the newsreader's catastrophic attempts at pronouncing it. Thanks to Grefsen for that tip, for your amusement.


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## 0m1

Wilma_Sweden said:


> Thanks, 0m1, that was very comprehensive information.  I found more when searching for Iceland on that site.



My pleasure  Yeah that site has plenty of very ineresting stuff if you delve into it, I was rather delighted to find it!


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