Sh is a digraph of the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...

, a combination of S and H.

European languages

Albanian

In Albanian, sh represents . It is considered a distinct letter, named shë, and placed between S and T in the

Albanian alphabet The Albanian alphabet ( sq, alfabeti shqip) is a variant of the Latin alphabet used to write the Albanian language. It consists of 36 letters: ''Note:'' The vowels are shown in bold. The letters are named simply by their sounds, followed by ë ...

Breton

Breton Breton most often refers to: *anything associated with Brittany, and generally ** Breton people ** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany ** Breton (horse), a breed **Ga ...

, sh represents . It is not considered a distinct letter and it is a variety of zh (e. g. ("older"). It is not considered as a diphthong in compound words, such as ''kroashent'' ("roundabout": ''kroaz'' ("cross") + ''hent'' ("way", "ford").

English

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

, usually represents . The exception is in

compound word In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs when ...

s, where the and are not a digraph, but pronounced separately, e.g. ''hogshead'' is ''hogs-head'' , not ''*hog-shead'' . ''Sh'' is not considered a distinct letter for

collation Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office filin ...

purposes. American Literary

braille Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are blind, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille disp ...

includes a single-cell contraction for the digraph with the dot pattern (1 4 6). In isolation it stands for the word "shall". In

Old English orthography Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th cen ...

, the sound was written . In

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...

it came to be written or ; the latter spelling has been adopted as the usual one in Modern English.

Irish

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

''sh'' is pronounced and represents the

lenition In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonority hierarchy, sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronic analysis, s ...

of ; for example "my life" (cf. ''saol'' "life").

Ladino

Judaeo-Spanish Judaeo-Spanish or Judeo-Spanish (autonym , Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew script: , Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: ), also known as Ladino, is a Romance languages, Romance language derived from Old Spanish language, Old Spanish. Originally spoken in Spain ...

, sh represents and occurs in both native words (, ‘under’) and foreign ones (''shalom'', ‘hullo’). In the

Hebrew script The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish ...

it is written ש.

Occitan

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...

, sh represents . It mostly occurs in the Gascon dialect of Occitan and corresponds with ''s'' or ''ss'' in other Occitan dialects: ''peish = peis'' "fish", ''naishença = naissença'' "birth", ''sheis = sièis'' "six". An ''i'' before ''sh'' is silent: ''peish, naishença'' are pronounced . Some words have ''sh'' in all Occitan dialects: they are Gascon words adopted in all the Occitan language (''Aush'' " Auch", ''Arcaishon'' "

Arcachon Arcachon ( ; ) is a commune in the southwestern French department of Gironde. It is a popular seaside resort on the Atlantic coast southwest of Bordeaux, in the Landes forest. It has a sandy beach and a mild climate said to be favourable for i ...

") or foreign borrowings (''shampó'' "shampoo"). For s·h, see Interpunct#Occitan.

Spanish

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

, sh represents almost only in foreign origin words, as ''flash'', ''show'', ''shuara'' or ''geisha''. Royal Spanish Academy recommends adapting in both spelling and pronunciation with s, adapting to common pronunciation in peninsular dialect. Nevertheless, in American dialects it is frequently pronounced

t͡ʃ The voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant affricate or voiceless domed postalveolar sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with , (formerly ...

Other languages

Somali

Sh represents the sound in the Somali Latin alphabet, Somali Latin Alphabet. It is considered a separate letter, and is the 9th letter of the alphabet.

Uyghur

Sh represents the sound in the Uyghur Latin script. It is considered a separate letter, and is the 14th letter of the alphabet.

Uzbek

In Uzbek, the letter sh represents . It is the 27th letter of the

Uzbek alphabet The Uzbek language has been written in various scripts: Latin, Cyrillic and Arabic. The language traditionally used Arabic script, but the official Uzbek government under the Soviet Union started to use Cyrillic in 1940, which is when widesprea ...

Romanization

In the

Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

, Wade-Giles, and

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

romanizations of

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

, sh represents retroflex . It contrasts with , which is written x in Pinyin, hs in Wade-Giles, and sy in Yale. In the Hepburn romanization of

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, sh represents . Other romanizations write as ''s'' before ''i'' and ''sy'' before other vowels.

International auxiliary languages

Ido

Ido Ido () is a constructed language derived from Reformed Esperanto, and similarly designed with the goal of being a universal second language for people of diverse backgrounds. To function as an effective ''international auxiliary language'', I ...

, sh represents .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sh (Digraph) Latin-script digraphs