кхъу

A tetragraph (from the el, τετρα-, ''tetra-'', "four" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a sequence of four letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds, that do not necessarily correspond to the individual values of the letters. In German, for example, the tetragraph ''tsch'' represents the sound of the English digraph ''ch''. English does not have tetragraphs in native words (the closest is perhaps the sequence '' -ough'' in words like ''through''), but ''chth'' is a true tetragraph when found initially in words of Greek origin such as ''chthonian.''

Phonemes spelled with multiple characters often indicate that either the phoneme or the script is alien to the language. For example, the Cyrillic alphabets adapted to the Caucasian languages, which are phonologically very different from Russian, make extensive use of digraphs, trigraphs, and even a tetragraph in Kabardian ''кхъу'' for . The Romanized Popular Alphabet created for the Hmong languages includes three tetragraphs: ''nplh, ntsh,'' and ''ntxh,'' which represent complex consonants.

List of tetragraphs

Latin script

Cyrillic script

In Cyrillic script, Cyrillic used for languages of the Caucasus, there are tetragraphs as doubled digraphs used for 'strong' consonants (typically transcribed in the IPA as geminate), and also labialized homologues of trigraphs.

is used in Kabardian for , the labialized homologue of , in turn unpredictably derived from ejective .

is used in Avar language, Avar for , the 'strong' homologue of , the ejective () homologue of . It is often substituted with .

is used in Avar for . It is often substituted with .

is used in Avar for . It is often substituted with .

is used in Archi language, Archi for

is used in Archi for

is used in Archi for

is used in Archi for

is used in Archi for

is used in Archi for

is used in Archi for

Canadian syllabics

Inuktitut syllabics has a series of trigraphs for ''ŋ'' followed by a vowel. For geminate ''ŋŋ'', these are form tetragraphs with ''n'':
:ᙱ ''ŋŋi'', ᙳ ''ŋŋu'', ᙵ ''ŋŋa''
These are literally ''nnggi, nnggu, nngga''.

See also

*Digraph (orthography)
*Trigraph (orthography)
*Pentagraph
*Hexagraph
*Heptagraph
*Multigraph (orthography)
*List of Cyrillic letters
*Unigraph (orthography)

References

{{reflist

Multigraphs (orthography), 4
Tetragraphs, *