hljómaðar

Hljómaðar is a term used in Icelandic phonology to classify sounds produced with vocal fold vibration. It denotes the voiced category of sounds and is a standard label in grammars and dictionaries when describing how voicing functions in Icelandic pronunciation. The word is formed from hljóð, meaning sound, with adjectival/participial morphology and the plural ending -ar, yielding a label applied to a class of sounds.

In practice, hljómaðar covers sounds that involve vocal cord vibration during articulation. This typically includes vowels and several consonants where voicing occurs, such as b, d, g, v, and the common sonorants m, n, l, r. The exact inventory of hljómaðar can vary with phonological context, and some sounds may have different realizations or allophones depending on position and neighboring sounds.

The contrast with hljóðlausar (voiceless sounds) is central to Icelandic phonology. Voicing can be affected by processes such as assimilation and final-position devoicing, and these interactions are commonly discussed in descriptions of the language’s sound system. Vowels are generally voiced in normal speech, while certain obstruents may be devoiced in specific contexts.

Dictionaries and grammars may treat hljómaðar in sections on consonants and speech sound patterns, or when explaining pronunciation rules and spelling-phoneme correspondences. The concept helps account for how spoken Icelandic sounds map to orthography and how voicing influences phonetic realization in different linguistic environments.

See also: hljóð, hljóðlaus, raddaður, voiceless.