The letter M can either represent a normal M sound or a breathy M sound.

Normal M

In normal situations, M has the same sound as the English M.
  • mamma, um, magi

Breathy M

The breathy M sound is pronounced without using the voice. You pronounce it by closing your lips like in a normal M, and then blowing air out of your nose with your mouth closed. In English, it is the sound you make when you do a strong “hmm”.
It appears in the following situations:[a]
  • When the next letter is a p:
    • lampi, svampur, sjampó
  • When the next letter is a t:
    • fimmti, skemmtilegur
The name of the letter is “emm”, same as in English.
Footnotes
  • a. It also appears when the next letter is a k such as in the words “rýmka, meðaumkun”, but that’s an extremely rare letter cluster so it is not worth thinking about.
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