4.19.10 - 7:30AM
- by
Jordan Breindel

You Try Saying Eyjafjallajökull on National TV

An Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, erupted last week, creating an enormous cloud that grounded just about every flight in Europe. The problem is, no one knows how to pronounce it.

FYI, it's ɛɪjaˌfjatlaˌjœːkʏt, which honestly looks way more confusing than the word. Let's just say that news reporters found this particular volcanic pronunciation to be difficult to grasp.

Luckily, Al Roker came to the rescue with his impeccably perfect -- sort of -- pronunciation of Eyjafjallajökull:

ABC News even brought in an expert to teach them (and you) how to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull:

That should come in handy when you host your next "pronounce Eyjafjallajökull" competition.

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Comments

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4.20.10

By Jackie

Highest Rank

I thought it was "VOLDEMORT"!

4.20.10

By jocko

Lowest Ranked

I laff y'all yo kool

4.20.10

By Edwin McCravy

Neutral

Eyjafjallajökull

It's pronounced EYE-JAFF-JALLA-JEKYLL

4.20.10

By Robert Liguori

Highest Rank

Dude... quite simply,

It's the E15 volcano.

Just like i18n for internationalization.

4.20.10

By muchogroucho

Highest Rank

supercal-afrag-alespie-expe-a-volcano

4.20.10

By Aboona Joe

Highest Rank

Even when I;m reading it, I can't figure out how to read it!

4.20.10

By B

Highest Rank

It looks like someone justs kept typing the home row letters on the keyboard.

4.21.10

By godthedeity

Neutral

It's easy to pronounce, if like me you know German and other languages, phonetics etc. the letter «j» is pronounced like an English «y» in most languages, so that isn't any challenge at all. the Ö takes practice Eyjafjallajökull, but if you've learned French, it's no problem.

4.20.10

By ollieoxen8

Neutral

Yea, right, this articule really shows you how to pronounce it.

4.20.10

By CanYouSpell?

Highest Rank

What's an "articule"?

4.20.10

By Tom

Highest Rank

What is an "articule" you ask...maybe it's an extremely cold North Pole Christmas season? Arctic yule...?

4.21.10

By cherryberry

Neutral

Lol!! Wow, you just got pwned!
[Yes, I intentionally did spell this last word on purpose :) ]

4.20.10

By ollieoxen8

Highest Rank

LOL....................

4.20.10

By dewy

Highest Rank

I was stationed in Iceland for two years, my second son was born there. The Icelandic language is very difficult to learn. Its kinda old Norse. They can read their thousand year old sagas almost like reading a modern newspaper. I think the translation of this volcanos name is "The mother of all cracks in the earth" lol

4.20.10

By Michelle

Neutral

I think you might have to be on crack to pronounce it. LOL

4.20.10

By mikew

Highest Rank

REMINDS ME OF THE "FORMER NAME" OF PRINCE....CAN'T MAKE HEADS OR TALES OF IT !!!!

4.20.10

By Alan

Highest Rank

If they worked for NBC Radio back in the 1980s not only would they have pronounced it, they would have gotten it right every time. The same for Ahmadinejad and Iran. I shudder every time I heard someone who should know better say EYE-RAN.

4.20.10

By Allsnotright

Highest Rank

"Eye-Ran" ...... wasn't that a Flock of Seagulls song from the 80's?

4.21.10

By PC bs

Neutral

Dose it really matter how you pronounce it? It makes me mad when we try to pronounce things in someones native language. Screw PC. if we keep it up we should all learn Latin and only speak Latin so we dont offend anyone but the Indians.
It would piss me off is some Middle eastern person tried to say an English word wile speaking Arabic to Arabic speaking people.