Eyjafjallajökull Pronouciation

OK there's no prize for being able to correctly pronounce Eyjafjallajökull, especially the O with two dots above it, but you can have the satisfaction of knowing you tried.

Eyjafjallajökul, is of course, the naughty Iceland volcano that caused hundreds of thousands of passengers to be stranded, including many in Thailand, and billions of dollars in lost airline revenue in April.

In Icelandic, "Eyja" means island, "fjall" or "fyjöll" means mountain, and "jökull" means glacier - so "the islandmountainglacier volcano" might do the trick for those still struggling.

Here's what the BBC, guardians of the English language, came up with by way of a pronunciation: "AY-uh-fyat-luh-YOE-kuutl-uh".

For clarity, that's that is -ay as in day, -fy as in few, -oe as in French "coeur", -uu as in boot, the -tl as in atlas. The (-uh) is "a" as in ago.

It was hilarious to watch professional broadcasters skirting around pronouncing the name. When challenged, a CNN weather person said he would not attempt to pronounce the name as it would be a 'career limiting move.'

The trouble is that Eyjafjallajökull is actually not as big as nearby Katla volcano. It is overdue for an eruption - it last went off in 1918 - and it could be up to 100 times bigger than the May eruption.

Monday, 11th October 2010 at 5:46am

By Alastair Carthew, a former aviation employee, newspaper and television journalist. He is a freelance writer and consultant living on Phuket. Click here to go directly to his website: www.acprcounsel.com.