Pronunciation of “Sigyn”

thorraborinn:

Someone just “liked” an old post of mine where I described how to say Sigyn which is a little bit of a weird word. I did okay at answering but I didn’t really have as well a grasp on what I was talking about as I thought I did, and I said the wrong thing.

Anyway there is actual policy determined by the Íslensk Málstöð, a division of the ministry of education and culture, about the name Sigyn. It says:

Við framburð nafnsins Sigyn hefur hefð skapast fyrir því að bera g-ið fram eins og gert er í orðinu gista.

Concerning the pronunciation of the name Sigyn, it has become customary to pronounce the ‘g’ like is done in the word gista.

That is, like what is written [c] in IPA – sort of like a “k” sound but a little further forward in the mouth.

You can hear a pronunciation by a native Icelandic speaker here: http://forvo.com/search/Sigyn/

For Old Norse the g-sound would most likely have been [ɣ], like in Icelandic saga. But at the time the y would be like it is in modern Danish/Swedish/Norwegian, sort of like a u-sound but further forward in the mouth, or like an i-sound but with rounded lips.