Preaspiration is an important feature of Icelandic pronunciation. Many double consonants and consonant clusters are pronounced with a glottal fricative between them and the preceding vowel. It does not occur with word-initial consonant clusters because the first segment must be a vowel.
The phrase Ekki meira, takk means No more, thanks. In the phrase, preaspiration occurs in the words ekki and takk. In the sentence Ég er svo heppinn (I am so happy), preaspiration occurs in the first syllable of the word heppinn. Preaspiration also occurs with consonant clusters. For example, in the sentence Íslenskt vatn er best (Icelandic water is the best), preaspiration occurs in the word vatn.
Preaspiration is equivalent to an [h] sound before obstruents. Though it is relatively uncommon in the languages of the world, it is common in Icelandic. Besides Icelandic, it is also prominent in Faroese and in a few dialects of Norwegian and Swedish. It is not phonemically contrastive in any language, but it is very common in Icelandic.
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