How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Pronounce the Volcano

Thórsmörk, where I spent several happy days hiking, climbing mountains and fording streams, is a valley surrounded on three sides by mountain glaciers. One of these glaciers is Eyjafjallajökull.

You know, the glacier volcano that erupted last year? And wreaked havoc on European air traffic for a week with its spewing ash particles? And was the bane of newscasters everywhere, because no one could pronounce its convoluted Icelandic name?

I arrived in Iceland still forced to refer to it as "The Volcano Nobody Can Pronounce," but with a clear goal: Learn to pronounce the thing before my week in Iceland was up!

In fact, it only took about a day, thanks to the helpful woman at my hostel's information desk, who broke it down into syllables for me. Then I hiked around all day, periodically muttering the name to myself as practice. I'm sure my pronunciation is still terrible, but it turns out it's not too difficult to learn the syllables, at least. Try it with me:

Ey-ya, FYAT-la, YO-kutl.

Or if all else fails, follow the suggestion of my new-found hiking buddy Jethro, and call it by its literal translation: "Island Mountain Glacier."

And yes, pretty much all Icelandic place names turn out to be that charmingly literal, once you decipher the parts.