Starship Asterisk*

Or Gorillas.

[quote="JohnD"]

Chris, as you speak Icelandic, I bow to your knowledge and expertise![/quote][quote=" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll"]

<<In Old Norse sources, beings described as trölls dwell in [b][u][color=#0000FF]isolated mountains[/color][/u][/b], rocks, or caves, and are rarely helpful to human beings. Trölls may be ugly and slow-witted, or look and behave exactly like human beings.>> :wink: [/quote]

Chris, as you speak Icelandic, I bow to your knowledge and expertise!
John

[quote="JohnD"]Chris,
I don't teach Modern Icelandic,and unless you do, we need an expert - and here he is![/quote]
I don't teach it, but I do read it and speak it passably.

[quote]He uses as English analogues to the thorn and the eth the 'th' sounds in the words 'breath' and 'breathe', or 'worth' and 'worthy'. respectively.[/quote]
Those are perhaps not the best examples because they vary quite widely in pronunciation among English speakers.

[quote]I don't hear a 'd' in any of those words, but I am corrected. Jackson pronounces the second letter as "ed".[/quote]
I don't hear him pronounce [i]edh [/i]as "ed" at all. I hear the word end with a vocalized "th", which is the same as the "th" at the beginning of "the" if you just cut of the "uh" part of the word. We don't use that sound in English much, but it does come pretty close to a "d" (and consider that there are English accents that turn it into "d", as in "what's da matter?")

Chris,
I don't teach Modern Icelandic,and unless you do, we need an expert - and here he is!
Dr.Jackson Crawford teaches Scandanavian Languages at Berkely.
He uses as English analogues to the thorn and the eth the 'th' sounds in the words 'breath' and 'breathe', or 'worth' and 'worthy'. respectively.

I don't hear a 'd' in any of those words, but I am corrected. Jackson pronounces the second letter as "ed".
It's a bit of a saga!

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b00tW9LEGqE
John

I have a site bookmarked that has live webcams around Iceland (also 2 in Northern Norway), I generally check them at least twice a day (day & night) and have never seen the 'Northern Lights'. Anybody know why? According to a site that forecasts the 'Northern Lights' I should be able to see it now.

Just curious as this picture is very timely for me. I just booked my plane tickets for a trip to Germany this DEcember. I have a one day layover iN Reykjavik. There are companies that are selling cruises to see the Northern lights. I am hesitant to do something like that as I believe I should be able to look outside the hotel or stroll around the City and see them relatively easy- am I incorrect here? I'm certain the cruise can provide better images but I have to believe they can be seen from the City proper.

Any input would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thank you

[quote="JohnD"]As usual, the Wiki can lead you astray!

In Icelandic, the crossed 'd' letter is the 'eth'', đ, pronounced "th", so it's a mistake to pronounce that lake's name as "Kerid".
It's the same sound as the 'thorn', but for the end of words.

It should be "Kerith", even if you aren't Icelandic![/quote]
No, it shouldn't. Icelandic has two "th" sounds (as do many languages). [i]Eth[/i] represents the sort of "th" we have at the beginning of "the", which is often given as "dh". [i]Eth[/i] appears after vowels, and is best anglicized as "d". [i]Thorn[/i] (þ) represents "th" as in "with" (voiceless, unlike the voiced [i]eth[/i]). It is anglicized as "th".

[i]Keriđ[/i], to a native speaker of English, sounds much closer to "kerid" than to "kerith".

[quote="Ann"] There is a Viking rune for the "th" sound, and that rune is θ...

Ann[/quote]

θ = Theta - It's all Greek to me

Interesting image

[quote="JohnD"]As usual, the Wiki can lead you astray!

In Icelandic, the crossed 'd' letter is the 'eth'', đ, pronounced "th", so it's a mistake to pronounce that lake's name as "Kerid".
It's the same sound as the 'thorn', but for the end of words.

It should be "Kerith", even if you aren't Icelandic!
Nice picture!
John[/quote]

Right. There is a Viking rune for the "th" sound, and that rune is θ or þ. The rest of us Scandinavians have lost that pesky "th" sound, which is why you may hear Swedes say, "What is dat ding", when they want to say, "What is that thing". (If you are really unlucky, they will even say, "Vat is dat ding?"! And okay, it wouldn't surprise me if some Norwegian dialects still hang on to their θs and þs.)

And in Iceland, the θs and þs are very much a part of their language.

Fascinatingly, I think you English-speaking guys got your θ-sound from us, or at least from the Danes, when they occupied much of England and created the region known as [url=http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/schools/primaryhistory/images/vikings/viking_settlements/vk_map_settlements.jpg]Danelaw[/url] in England.

And anyway, Kerith it is!

Ann

As usual, the Wiki can lead you astray!

In Icelandic, the crossed 'd' letter is the 'eth'', đ, pronounced "th", so it's a mistake to pronounce that lake's name as "Kerid".
It's the same sound as the 'thorn', but for the end of words.

It should be "Kerith", even if you aren't Icelandic!
Nice picture!
John

If you look closely on the enlarged shot you can see a number of meteors in the image

[url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170306.html][img]https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_170306.jpg[/img] [size=150]Colorful Aurora over Iceland[/size][/url]

[b] Explanation: [/b] You don't always see a scene this beautiful when you hike to an ancient volcano -- you have to be lucky. When [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/sigurdurwilliam/]the astrophotographer[/url] realized that [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora]aurora[/url] were visible two-weeks ago, he made a night-time run for the top of the caldera to see if he could capture them also reflected in the central lake. When he arrived, he found that ... the northern lights were even brighter and more impressive than before! And [url=https://www.facebook.com/SiggiPhoto/photos/a.836573043162643.1073741863.121670627986225/867276946758919/?type=3&theater]his image[/url] of them is the featured 13-frame panoramic mosaic. The [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbzDtMoOwLI]crater lake in the center[/url] is called [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri%C3%B0]Kerid (Icelandic: Kerið)[/url] and is about 3,000 years old. The [url=https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/aurora-news-stories/index.html]aurora[/url] overhead shows impressive [url=http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/211.fall2000.web.projects/Christina%20Shaw/AuroraColors.html]colors[/url] and [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150330.html]banding[/url], with the red colors occurring higher in the [url=https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/science/atmosphere-layers2.html]Earth's atmosphere[/url] than the [url=http://cdn.playbuzz.com/cdn/86aed294-ffbe-4652-8fdf-5d51f784d06a/5620785c-0984-448b-b3ca-16c0a987f23d.jpg]green[/url]. The background sky is filled with icons of the northern night including [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris]Polaris[/url], the [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap161019.html]Pleiades star cluster[/url], and the stars that compose the handle of the [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150317.html]Big Dipper[/url].

[b][table][tr][td=left][url=http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=170305]<< Previous APOD[/url][/td] [td=center][url=http://asterisk.apod.com/view_retro.php?date=0306]This Day in APOD[/url][/td] [td=right][url=http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=170307]Next APOD >>[/url][/td][/tr][/table][/b]