Milli mála - 01.01.2010, Page 310

The first option is the correct pronunciation: either of the others
would sound odd, or even resemble completely different words, to
the Icelandic speaker. This means that Icelandic requires the final
consonant in this type of word to be short.28 The choice of translit-
eration for this type of sound would thus seem to depend on
whether one favours a pronunciation that seems more natural to
Icelandic speakers or one best adapted to Japanese speakers.
For case 3), nasal release, the opinions of Japanese and Ice land -
ic subjects diverged as well. Japanese subjects preferred to insert
either [t] followed by [o], or a geminate /Q/, or both. Icelandic sub-
jects chose not to insert anything. Either inserting a geminate /Q/
mora, a sound foreign to Icelandic speakers, or inserting [t] with [o]
will alter the sound considerably to their ears. The Icelandic nasal
release differs considerably from the English: in English, the nasal
sound in words such as ‘button’ [bʌtn=] and ‘garden’ [gɑ:dnn=] is syl-
labic. Each word is a two-syllable word, and the consonant with the
nasal release is always the onset of the following syllable. In con-
trast, the Icelandic nasal release does not form a syllable. a word
such as ‘barn’ [bartn] (=child) is a one-syllable word. a name like
Birna [birtna] is a two-syllable word, with [birtn] in the first sylla-
ble, and [a] in the second. The nasal release is thus shorter than in
English, making a transliteration with inserted [t] and [o] even more
unnatural to Icelandic speakers than to English speakers.29 On the
other hand, [t] accompanied by a vowel [o] is a natural process in
transliteration in Japanese. Thus, Japan ese and Icelandic speakers
have different perceptions as to which is the closest approximation
of names such as Birna: Japanese speakers would prefer [bi ru to
na], whereas Icelandic speakers would choose [bi ru na].
apart from these two categories, both Japanese and Icelandic
subjects showed more or less the same tendencies. For 2), diph-
thong [au], as represented by the letter ‘á’ in Icelandic, both tend-
TranSLITEraTIng ICELanDIC naMES InTO JaPanESE …
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28 This finding leads to an interesting question. a name such as Rebekka in Icelandic is pro-
nounced [re:behka] with pre-aspiration, which is the same as the second type of ‘-rik’ real-
izations. The Japanese transliteration of this name would be /re be Q ka/ with a geminate,
and in this case, Icelandic subjects might agree with Japanese subjects.
29 This suggests a possible transliteration of /bi Q na/, using a geminate but without the inser-
tion of /t/ and /o/. although this is not truly representative of a natural Japanese pronunci-
ation, Icelandic subjects might prefer this version due to its syllable quantity. This token
should therefore be included in the next experiment.
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