This is a list of
digraphs used in various
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 ...
s. Capitalisation involves only the first letter (''ch'' becomes ''Ch'') unless otherwise stated (''ij'' becomes ''IJ'').
Letters with diacritics are arranged in alphabetic order according to their base: is alphabetised with , not at the end of the alphabet, as it would be in
Danish,
Norwegian and
Swedish. Substantially-modified letters, such as (a variant of ) and (based on ), are placed at the end.
Apostrophe
(capital ) is used in
Bari
Bari ( , ; nap, label= Barese, Bare ; lat, Barium) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, southern Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy ...
for .
(capital ) is used in Bari for .
is used in
the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for when it appears in a
dark or ''yin'' tone. It is also often written as .
is used in
the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for
dark
is used in
the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for
dark
is used in
the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for
dark
(capital ) is used in Bari and
Hausa (in Nigeria) for , but in Niger, Hausa is replaced with .
A
is used in
Taa, where it represents the
glottalized or
creaky-voiced vowel .
is used in
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
,
Finnish and other languages with phonemic long vowels for . It is also used in some English and Scots dialects, such as
Northumbrian and
Shetlandic, to represent . It was
formerly used in Danish and Norwegian (and still is in some proper names) to represent a single vowel, which in Danish is often or , until it was replaced with the letter . There is a ligature . In
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
Romanisations such as
Jyutping
Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK), an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme. The LSHK advocates for ...
or
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 w ...
, this is used to represent , which contrasts with .
is used in
Irish, where it represents between two "broad" (
velarized
Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four dia ...
) consonants, e.g. ''Gael'' ('a
Gael
The Gaels ( ; ga, Na Gaeil ; gd, Na Gàidheil ; gv, Ny Gaeil ) are an ethnolinguistic group native to Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man in the British Isles. They are associated with the Gaelic languages: a branch of the Celtic langu ...
').
: In
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
, originally represented the
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
, before it was
monophthong
A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...
ized in the
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpar ...
period to ; in medieval manuscripts, the digraph was frequently replaced by the
ligature .
: In Modern English, Latin loanwords with are generally pronounced with (e.g. ''Caesar''), prompting
Noah Webster
Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5� ...
to shorten this to in his 1806
spelling reform
A spelling reform is a deliberate, often authoritatively sanctioned or mandated change to spelling rules. Proposals for such reform are fairly common, and over the years, many languages have undergone such reforms. Recent high-profile examples ar ...
for
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...
.
: In
German, is a variant of found in some proper names or in contexts where is unavailable.
: In
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
, is an old spelling variant of the digraph but now only occurs in names of people or (less often) places and in a few loanwords from Greek and Latin.
: In
Zhuang, is used for ( is used for ).
: In
Revised Romanization of Korean
Revised Romanization of Korean () is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. It was developed by the National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and was released to the public on 7 July 2000 by South Korea's Min ...
, is used for /ɛ/.
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for .
is used in
Taa, where it represents the breathy or
murmured . In
German and
English it typically represents a
long vowel
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
.
is used in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s, typically representing the diphthong . In
English, as a result of the
Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through ...
, the vowel of has shifted from this value to as in ''pain'' and ''rain'', while it may have a sound of in unstressed syllables like ''bargain'' and ''certain(ly)'', or in the stressed syllable of ''again(st)'' (AmE), depending on the word; while in
French, a different change, ''monophthongization'', has occurred, resulting in the digraph representing . A similar change has also occurred during the
development of Greek, resulting in and the both having the same sound; originally , later . In
German, it represents as in ''Kaiser'' (which derived from Latin ''caesar''). However, most German words use for . In the
Kernowek Standard
Kernowek Standard (KS, ''Standard Cornish''), its initial version spelt Kernowak Standard, is a variety of the spelling of revived Cornish. It has two specifications, the first of which was published as a draft proposal in March 2007, and the s ...
orthography of
Cornish, it represents , mostly in loanwords from English such as ''paint''.
is used in
Irish for between a broad and a slender consonant.
is used in
French for , as in ''aînesse'' or ''maître'' .
is used in
Irish for between a broad and a slender consonant.
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for . It has, thus, the same value as , but the latter is much more common.
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for at the end of a word, before a consonant, and before a vowel; and in
French for ( before a vowel).
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for a
stressed before a consonant.
is used in many languages to write a
nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced with ...
. In
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
it is used for before a consonant, in French it represents , and in many
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali ...
n languages it represents . In
Breton this digraph represents .
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for a
stressed before a consonant.
is used in
Tibetan Pinyin for . It is alternately written .
is used in
Walloon, for the nasal vowel .
is used in
Lakhota for the nasal vowel
is used in the
Irish for or , depending on dialect, between broad consonants. In
French, it is found in a few words such as ''paonne'' representing . In
Malagasy, it represents , and in
Piedmontese, . In
Wymysorys, it represents (also spelt ). In
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
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 f ...
, this is used to represent .
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for .
is used in
Taa, for the
pharyngealized vowel .
in
English is a result of various linguistic changes from Middle English, having shifted from to . In a number of dialects, this has merged with . It occasionally represents the diphthong , as in ''flautist''. Other pronunciations are in North American English ''aunt'' and ''laugh'', in ''gauge'', as in ''gauche'' and ''chauffeur'', and as in ''
meerschaum'' and ''restaurant''. Due to historical reasons, this is used to transcribe in several
Romanizations of Wu Chinese.
In
German and
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
, it is used for the diphthongs and respectively ( in some northern and in some southern Dutch and some Flemish dialects).
In
French, represents or sometimes . It most frequently appears in the inflectional ending marking plurals of certain kinds of words like ''cheval'' ('horse') or ''canal'' ('channel'), respectively having a plural in ''chevaux'' and ''canaux''.
In
Icelandic, it represents .
In the
Kernowek Standard
Kernowek Standard (KS, ''Standard Cornish''), its initial version spelt Kernowak Standard, is a variety of the spelling of revived Cornish. It has two specifications, the first of which was published as a draft proposal in March 2007, and the s ...
orthography of
Cornish, stands for long or short , as in ''caul'' ('cabbage') or ''dauncya'' ('to dance').
is used in
German for the diphthong in declension of native words with ''au''; elsewhere, is written as . In words where ä, u is separated in two syllables, mostly of Latin origin, is pronounced as , as in ''
Matthäus'' (one German form for ''
Matthew
Matthew may refer to:
* Matthew (given name)
* Matthew (surname)
* ''Matthew'' (ship), the replica of the ship sailed by John Cabot in 1497
* ''Matthew'' (album), a 2000 album by rapper Kool Keith
* Matthew (elm cultivar), a cultivar of the C ...
'').
was used in
French but has been replaced by the trigraph eau.
is used in
English in ways that parallel English , though it appears more often at the end of a word.
In
Cornish, represents the diphthong or .
In
Welsh, represents the diphthong .
is used in
English in ways that parallel English , though it appears more often at the end of a word. Unlike , functions almost the same as (the sound in ''key'') at the end of variant spellings of names like ''Lindsay'' and ''Ramsay''.
In
French, it is usually used to represent /ɛj/ before a vowel (as in ''ayant'') and /ɛ.i/ before a consonant (as in ''pays'').
In
Cornish, represents the sounds , , , or .
(a
split digraph) indicates an English
'long a', historically but now most commonly realised as .
is used to notate in
Hokkien
The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages ...
Pe̍h-ōe-jī.
B
is used in
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 f ...
for in languages such as
Yi, where ''b'' stands for . In
Hungarian, it represents
geminated . In English, doubling a letter indicates that the previous vowel is short (so ''bb'' represents ). In ISO romanized
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
* ...
, it is used for the fortis sound , otherwise spelled ; an example is
hobbang. In
Hadza it is the rare ejective . In several African languages it is implosive . In
Cypriot Arabic it is .
is used in
English for in a few words of Greek origin, such as ''bdellatomy.'' When not initial, it represents , as in ''abdicate.''
is used in
Bavarian and several
African languages
The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families:
* Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages (includes Bantu and non-Bantu, and possibly Mande and others) are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and South ...
for the .
is used in transcriptions of
Indo-Aryan language
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, ...
s for a
murmured voiced bilabial plosive
The voiced bilabial plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is b. The voiced bilabial stop ...
(), and for equivalent sounds in other languages. In
Juǀʼhoan, it's used for the similar
prevoiced Prevoicing, in phonetics, is voicing before the onset of a consonant or beginning with the onset of the consonant but ending before its release. In the extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for speech pathology, prevoicing is transcrib ...
aspirated plosive . In
Irish, it stands for the
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-w ...
s and , word-initially as the lenition of for example ('my boat'), ('would be'). In the
orthography used in Guinea before 1985, was used in
Pular (a
Fula language
Fula ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani or Fulah (, , ; Adlam: , , ), is a Senegambian language spoken by around 30 million people as a set of various dialects in a continuum that str ...
) for the
voiced bilabial implosive
A voiced bilabial implosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is b_<.
Features
Features of the ...
, whereas in
Xhosa,
Zulu, and
Shona, represents the implosive and represents the plosive . In some orthographies of
Dan, is and is .
is used in
Cornish for an optionally
pre-occluded ; that is, it is pronounced either or (in any position); (before a consonant or finally); or (before a vowel); examples are ''mabm'' ('mother') or ''hebma'' ('this').
is used in
Sandawe and romanized
Thai for , and in
Irish it represents as the eclipsis of .
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
for the
voiced labiodental affricate
The voiced labiodental affricate ( in IPA) is a rare affricate consonant that is initiated as a voiced labiodental stop and released as a voiced labiodental fricative .
Features
Features of the voiced labiodental affricate:
*There are tw ...
.
is used in
Shona for a
whistled sibilant
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...
cluster .
C
is used in Andean Spanish for loanwords from
Quechua or
Aymara
Aymara may refer to:
Languages and people
* Aymaran languages, the second most widespread Andean language
** Aymara language, the main language within that family
** Central Aymara, the other surviving branch of the Aymara(n) family, which today ...
with , as in ''Ccozcco'' (modern ''Qusqu)'' ('
Cuzco
Cusco, often spelled Cuzco (; qu, Qusqu ()), is a city in Southeastern Peru near the Urubamba Valley of the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cusco Region and of the Cusco Province. The city is the seventh most populous in Peru; ...
'). In many European languages, before
front vowel
A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would othe ...
s represents a sequence such as , e.g. English ''success'', French ''occire'', Spanish ''accidente'' (dialectally or ); this is not the case of
Italian, where a before a
front vowel
A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would othe ...
represents a geminated , as in ''lacci'' . In
Piedmontese and
Lombard, represents the sound at the end of a word. In
Hadza it is the glottalized click . In English internet slang, can sometimes replace the letters or at the ends of words, such as with ''thicc'', ''protecc'', ''succ'' and ''phucc''.
was used for or in Old English (''ecg'' in Old E and nglish sounded like 'edge' in Modern English, while ''frocga'' sounded like 'froga'), where both are
long consonants. It is used for the click in
Naro, and in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless dental click
The voiceless or more precisely tenuis dental click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The Doke/Beach convention, ado ...
.
is used in several languages. In English, it can represent , , , or . See article.
is used in
Manx for , as a distinction from which is used for .
is used in
Romani and the
Chechen Latin alphabet for . In the
Ossete Latin alphabet, it was used for .
is used in the
Italian for before the non-front vowel letters . In
English, it usually represents whenever it precedes any vowel other than . In
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin scree ...
, it represents whenever it precedes a vowel, and whenever it precedes a consonant (or in the end of the word), and is considered a graphic variant of
ć appearing in other situations. In Romanian, it represents . The digraph is found at the end of a word (deci, atunci, copaci) or before the letters a, o, or u (ciorba, ciuleandra); the sound made by the letter c in front of the letters e or i becomes in front of the three aforementioned vowels, making the addition of the letter i necessary.
is used in
Friulian for such as in words ''cjocolate'' . It's also used in local orthographies of
Lombard to represent derived from Latin ⟨cl⟩.
is used in many
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...
in lieu of or to indicate either a
geminated , or a with a preceding (historically)
short vowel
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
. The latter is the case with English ''tack'', ''deck'', ''pick'', ''lock'', and ''buck'' (compare ''backer'' with ''baker''). In
German, indicates that the preceding vowel is short. Prior to the
German spelling reform of 1996
The German orthography reform of 1996 (') was a change to German spelling and punctuation that was intended to simplify German orthography and thus to make it easier to learn, without substantially changing the rules familiar to users of the lang ...
, it was replaced by for syllabification. The new spelling rules allow only syllabification of the as a whole:
:*Old spelling: ''Säcke'': ''Säk-ke'' ('sacks')
:*New spelling: ''Säcke'': ''Sä-cke''
:Among the modern Germanic languages, is used mainly in
Alsatian,
English,
German,
Luxembourgish
Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; Luxembourgish: ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide.
As a standard form of ...
,
Scots,
Swedish, and other
West Germanic languages
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided int ...
in
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populou ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
and
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
. Similarly, is used for the same purpose in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
,
Danish,
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
,
Icelandic,
Norwegian, and other West Germanic languages in the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Neth ...
and
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the ...
. Compare the word ''nickel'', which is the same in many of these languages except for the customary or spelling. The word is ''
nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...
'' in English and Swedish, ''
Nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...
'' in German, and ''
nikkel'' in Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, Icelandic and Norwegian.
:It was also used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless dental click
The voiceless or more precisely tenuis dental click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The Doke/Beach convention, ado ...
(equivalent to ).
:It is also used in
Cornish for at the end of a syllable after a short vowel; only in loanwords (mostly from English) in the
Standard Written Form
The Standard Written Form or SWF ( kw, Furv Skrifys Savonek) of the Cornish language is an orthography standard that is designed to "provide public bodies and the educational system with a universally acceptable, inclusive, and neutral orthograp ...
(SWF),
more widely in
Kernowek Standard
Kernowek Standard (KS, ''Standard Cornish''), its initial version spelt Kernowak Standard, is a variety of the spelling of revived Cornish. It has two specifications, the first of which was published as a draft proposal in March 2007, and the s ...
.
is used in
English for in a few words of Greek origin, such as ''
cnidarian
Cnidaria () is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic animals found both in freshwater and marine environments, predominantly the latter.
Their distinguishing feature is cnidocytes, specialized cells that th ...
.'' When not initial, it represents , as in ''acne.''
is used in
Seri for a
labialized velar plosive, . It is placed between and in
alphabetical order
Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the position of the characters in the conventional ordering of an alphabet. It is one of the methods of collation. In mathematics, a lexicographical order is ...
.
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
for .
is used in the
Hungarian for a
voiceless postalveolar affricate
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 , (former ...
, . It is considered a distinct letter, named ''csé'', and is placed between and in
alphabetical order
Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the position of the characters in the conventional ordering of an alphabet. It is one of the methods of collation. In mathematics, a lexicographical order is ...
. Examples of words with cs include ''csak'' ('only'), ''csésze'' ('cup'), ''cső'' ('pipe'), ''csípős'' ('peppery').
is used in
English for in a few words of Greek origin, such as ''ctenoid.'' When not initial, it represents , as in ''act''.
is used in languages such as
Nahuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have small ...
(that is, based on
Spanish or
Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes. The diaeresis w ...
) for . In Nahuatl, is used before a vowel, whereas is used after a vowel.
is used in modern scholarly editions of Old English for the sound , which was spelled , or in manuscripts. In Middle English these were all replaced by Latin .
is used in
Esperanto
Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international commun ...
as an unofficial surrogate of , which represents .
is used in
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin scree ...
for as in ('hello'). In
Kashubian, represents . In
French and
Catalan, historical contracted to the
ligature , and represents the sound . In
Hungarian, it was formerly used for the sound , which is now written .
D
is used in
Naro for the click , and in
Juǀʼhoan for the
prevoiced ejective
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some l ...
.
is used in
English to indicate a with a preceding (historically) short vowel (e.g. ''jaded'' has a "long a" while ''ladder'' has a "short a"). In
Welsh, represents a
voiced dental fricative
The voiced dental fricative is a consonant sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the ''th'' sound in ''father''. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is eth, or and was taken from the Old En ...
. It is treated as a distinct letter, named ''èdd'', and placed between and in
alphabetical order
Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the position of the characters in the conventional ordering of an alphabet. It is one of the methods of collation. In mathematics, a lexicographical order is ...
. In the ISO romanization of
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
* ...
, it is used for the fortis sound , otherwise spelled ; examples are ''
ddeokbokki'' and ''
bindaeddeok''. In
Basque, it represents a
voiced palatal plosive , as in ''onddo'', ('mushroom'). In several African languages it is implosive .
Latin delta (ẟ, lowercase only) is represented by "dd" in
Modern Welsh
The history of the Welsh language ( Welsh: ''Hanes yr iaith Gymraeg'') spans over 1400 years, encompassing the stages of the language known as Primitive Welsh, Old Welsh, Middle Welsh, and Modern Welsh.
Origins
Welsh evolved from British, the ...
.
is used in
English for in certain contexts, such as with ''judgement'' and ''hedge''
is used in the
Albanian,
Swahili, and revived
Cornish for the
voiced dental fricative
The voiced dental fricative is a consonant sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the ''th'' sound in ''father''. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is eth, or and was taken from the Old En ...
. The first examples of this digraph are from the
Oaths of Strasbourg
The Oaths of Strasbourg were a military pact made on 14 February 842 by Charles the Bald and Louis the German against their older brother Lothair I, the designated heir of Louis the Pious, the successor of Charlemagne. One year later the Treat ...
, the earliest French text, where it denotes the same sound developed mainly from intervocalic Latin -''t''-.
In early traditional Cornish (
yogh
The letter yogh (ȝogh) ( ; Scots: ; Middle English: ) was used in Middle English and Older Scots, representing ''y'' () and various velar phonemes. It was derived from the Insular form of the letter ''g''.
In Middle English writing, taile ...
), and later , were used for this purpose.
Edward Lhuyd
Edward Lhuyd FRS (; occasionally written Llwyd in line with modern Welsh orthography, 1660 – 30 June 1709) was a Welsh naturalist, botanist, linguist, geographer and antiquary. He is also named in a Latinate form as Eduardus Luidius.
Life ...
is credited for introducing the grapheme to Cornish orthography in 1707 in his ''Archaeologia Britannica''. In
Irish it represents the
voiced velar fricative
The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in various spoken languages. It is not found in Modern English but existed in Old English. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , ...
or the
voiced palatal approximant
The voiced palatal approximant, or yod, is a type of consonant used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j, and in the Americanist phonetic ...
; at the beginning of a word it shows the
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
of , for example ''mo dhoras'' ('my door' cf. ''doras'' 'door').
:In the
pre-1985 orthography of Guinea, was used for the
voiced alveolar implosive
The voiced alveolar implosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The IPA symbol is lowercase letter ''d'' with a rightward hook protru ...
in
Pular. It is currently written . In the orthography of
Shona it is the opposite: represents , and . In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. On their arrival, Latin script became a standard for transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details ...
, represents a dental stop, .
:In addition, is used in various romanization systems. In transcriptions of
Indo-Aryan language
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, ...
s, for example, it represents the
murmured voiced dental plosive
The voiced alveolar, dental and postalveolar plosives (or stops) are types of consonantal sounds used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar p ...
, and for equivalent sounds in other languages. In
Juǀʼhoan, it's used for the similar
prevoiced Prevoicing, in phonetics, is voicing before the onset of a consonant or beginning with the onset of the consonant but ending before its release. In the extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for speech pathology, prevoicing is transcrib ...
aspirated plosive . In the
romanization of Arabic
The romanization of Arabic is the systematic rendering of written and spoken Arabic in the Latin script. Romanized Arabic is used for various purposes, among them transcription of names and titles, cataloging Arabic language works, language ...
, it denotes , which represents in
Modern Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; occasionally, it also re ...
.
is used in
Faroese,
French and many French-based orthographies for . In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. On their arrival, Latin script became a standard for transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details ...
such as
Warlpiri,
Arrernte, and
Pitjantjatjara, it represents a postalveolar stop such as or ; this sound is also written , , , or . It is also formerly used in Indonesian as .
is used in
Hmong
Hmong may refer to:
* Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand
* Hmong cuisine
* Hmong customs and culture
** Hmong music
** Hmong textile art
* Hmong language, a continuum of closely related t ...
’s
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has ...
for . In
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest fe ...
, it represents , and in
Xhosa it represents . In
Hadza it is ejective .
is used in
Tlingit
The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ), for (in Alaska, is used instead).
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated and
nasally released .
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
nasally released . In
Cornish, it is used for an optionally
pre-occluded ; that is, it is pronounced either or (in any position); (before a consonant or finally); or (before a vowel); examples are ''pedn'' ('head') or ''pednow'' ('heads').
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated .
is used for the click in
Naro.
is used in
Malagasy for . See . It is used in
Fijian for 'ndr' nasalized ().
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
prevoiced ejective
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some l ...
.
is used in
German,
Swedish, and
Sandawe orthography as well as the romanization of
Thai for . In
Irish it represents as the eclipsis of .
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
for the
voiced dental affricate
A voiced alveolar affricate is a type of affricate consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are several typ ...
.
is used in some
Zapotecan languages
The Zapotecan languages are a group of related Oto-Manguean languages which descend from the common proto-Zapotecan language spoken by the Zapotec people during the era of the dominance of Monte Albán.
The Zapotecan language group contains th ...
for a
voiced postalveolar fricative
A voiced postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses term ''voiced postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describes the voiced postalveol ...
. (It is placed between and in
alphabetical order
Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the position of the characters in the conventional ordering of an alphabet. It is one of the methods of collation. In mathematics, a lexicographical order is ...
.) In
Juǀʼhoan it is used for the
prevoiced Prevoicing, in phonetics, is voicing before the onset of a consonant or beginning with the onset of the consonant but ending before its release. In the extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for speech pathology, prevoicing is transcrib ...
uvularized plosive .
is used in
Xhosa for . In
Shona, it represents . In
Tagalog
Tagalog may refer to:
Language
* Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines
** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language
** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language
* Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Ta ...
it is used for . In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. On their arrival, Latin script became a standard for transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details ...
such as
Warlpiri,
Arrernte, and
Pitjantjatjara, it represents a postalveolar stop such as or . This sound is also written , , , , or .
is used in several languages, often to represent . See article.
is used in the
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin scree ...
and
Sorbian alphabets for , the
voiced alveolo-palatal affricate, as in ''dźwięk'' . is never written before a
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (l ...
( is used instead, as in ''dziecko'' 'child').
is used in the
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin scree ...
for a
voiced retroflex affricate
The voiced retroflex sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , sometimes simplified to or . It occurs in such languages a ...
(e.g. 'jam').
is used in
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia a ...
,
Slovak,
Lithuanian, and
Latvian to represent . See article.
E
is used in
Taa, where it represents the
glottalised or
creaky vowel .
is used in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s. In
English, usually represents the monophthong as in ''meat''; due to a
sound change
A sound change, in historical linguistics, is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic cha ...
that happened in Middle English, it also often represents the vowel as in ''sweat''. Rare pronunciations occur, like in ''break'', ''great'', ''steak'', and ''yea'', and in the archaic ''
ealdorman
Ealdorman (, ) was a term in Anglo-Saxon England which originally applied to a man of high status, including some of royal birth, whose authority was independent of the king. It evolved in meaning and in the eighth century was sometimes applied ...
''. When followed by r, it can represent the standard outcomes of the previously mentioned three vowels in this environment: as in ''beard'', as in ''heard'', and as in ''bear'', respectively; as another exception, occurs in the words ''hearken'', ''heart'' and ''hearth''. It often represents two independent vowels, like (''seance''), (''reality''), (''create''), and or (''lineage''). Unstressed, it may represent (''ocean'') and or (''Eleanor''). In
Romanian, it represents the diphthong as in ''beată'' ('drunk female'). In
Irish, represents between a slender and a broad consonant. In
Old English
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 c ...
, it represents the diphthong . is also the transliteration of the rune of the
Anglo-Frisian Futhorc
Anglo-Saxon runes ( ang, rūna ᚱᚢᚾᚪ) are runes used by the early Anglo-Saxons as an alphabet in their writing system. The characters are known collectively as the futhorc (ᚠᚢᚦᚩᚱᚳ ''fuþorc'') from the Old English sound va ...
.
is used in
Irish for between a slender and a broad consonant.
is used in
Irish for between a slender and a broad consonant.
represents a long mid vowel in a number of languages. In
English, represents as in ''teen''. In
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
and
German, represents (though it is pronounced in majority of northern Dutch dialects). In the
Cantonese Romanisation
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
, it represents as in English, or for characters which might be pronounced as in
other dialects. In
Bouyei, is used for plain , as stands for .
is used in
Taa for the
murmured vowel . In the
Wade-Giles transliteration of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language o ...
, it is used for after a consonant, as in ''yeh'' . In
German, represents , as in ''Reh''.
This digraph was taken over from
Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. H ...
, where it represented . It usually represents a
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
. In
Modern German
New High German (NHG; german: Neuhochdeutsch (Nhd.)) is the term used for the most recent period in the history of the German language, starting in the 17th century. It is a loan translation of the German (). The most important characteristic o ...
, is predominant in representing , as in ''Einstein'', while the equivalent digraph appears in only a few words. In
English, can represent many sounds, including , as in ''vein'', as in ''seize'', as in ''heist'', as in ''heifer'', as in ''enceinte'', and or as in ''forfeit''. See also
I before e except after c. In southern and western
Faroese dialects, it represents the diphthong , while in northern and eastern dialects, it represents the diphthong . In
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
, represents in
Greater Lisbon, so do and , but or in Brazil, East Timor, Macau, rest of Portugal, and Portuguese-speaking African countries,
In
Welsh, represents . In
Irish and
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well ...
, it represents before a slender consonant. In
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
and
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
, represents . In
French, represents , as in ''seiche''.
is used In
Hepburn romanization of the
Japanese language
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ...
to transcribe the sound .
is used in
French for , as in ''reître'' .
is used in
Irish for between slender consonants.
is used in
Swedish in some short words, such as ''leja'' or ''nej'' .
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for at the end of a word and before a consonant. In French orthography, it can represent /ɑ̃/.
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for at the end of a word.
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for at the end of a word and before a consonant.
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for at the end of a word followed or not by an as in ''hífen'' or ''hifens''; and for before a consonant within a word. In
French, it represents or .
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for before a consonant.
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for before a consonant.
is used in
Irish for ( in 4 words) between a slender and a broad consonant. In the
Jyutping
Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK), an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme. The LSHK advocates for ...
romanization of
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
, it represents , an allophone of , while in the
Cantonese Romanisation
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
, it represents . In the
Revised Romanization of Korean
Revised Romanization of Korean () is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. It was developed by the National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and was released to the public on 7 July 2000 by South Korea's Min ...
, represents the
open-mid back unrounded vowel
The open-mid back unrounded vowel or low-mid back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , graphically a rotated lowercase "v" ...
, and in
Piedmontese it is . In
English is a rare digraph without a single pronunciation, representing in ''
feoff'', ''jeopardy'', ''leopard'' and the given name ''Geoffrey'', in ''people'', in ''
yeoman
Yeoman is a noun originally referring either to one who owns and cultivates land or to the middle ranks of servants in an English royal or noble household. The term was first documented in mid-14th-century England. The 14th century also witn ...
'' and in the archaic ''
feodary'', while in the originally Gaelic name
MacLeod it represents . However, usually it represents two vowels, like in ''leotard'' and ''galleon'', in ''stereo'' and, in ''
geodesy
Geodesy ( ) is the Earth science of accurately measuring and understanding Earth's figure (geometric shape and size), orientation in space, and gravity. The field also incorporates studies of how these properties change over time and equival ...
'', and, uniquely, in ''
geoduck''.
is used in
Taa for the
pharyngealized vowel .
is found in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s, most commonly for the diphthong . Additionally, in
English, represents as in ''neuter'' ( in yod-dropping accents); however, the ''eu'' in "maneuver/manoeuvre" always represents even in most non yod-dropping accents. In
German, it represents as in ''Deutsch''; and in
French,
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
,
Breton, and
Piedmontese, it represents . In
Cornish, it represents either long and short or long and short .
In
Yale romanization of Cantonese
The Yale romanization of Cantonese was developed by Gerard P. Kok for his and Parker Po-fei Huang's textbook ''Speak Cantonese'' initially circulated in looseleaf form in 1952 but later published in 1958. Unlike the Yale romanization of Mandar ...
it represents , while in the
Cantonese Romanisation
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
, it represents . In
Wugniu romanization of
Wu Chinese
The Wu languages (; Wu romanization and IPA: ''wu6 gniu6'' [] (Shanghainese), ''ng2 gniu6'' [] (Suzhounese), Mandarin pinyin and IPA: ''Wúyǔ'' []) is a major group of Sinitic languages spoken primarily in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Zhejiang Provin ...
, it represents sounds ranging from to , depending on the lect. In
Sundanese and
Acehnese, it represents as in ''beureum'' ('red'). In the
Revised Romanization of Korean
Revised Romanization of Korean () is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. It was developed by the National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and was released to the public on 7 July 2000 by South Korea's Min ...
, it represents .
is used in
French for , as in ''jeûne'' .
is used in
English for as in ''few'' and ''flew''. An exception is the pronunciation in ''sew'', leading to the
heteronym ''sewer'',(, 'drain') vs ''sewer'' (, 'one who sews'). In
Cornish, it stands for .
is used in the
Kernowek Standard
Kernowek Standard (KS, ''Standard Cornish''), its initial version spelt Kernowak Standard, is a variety of the spelling of revived Cornish. It has two specifications, the first of which was published as a draft proposal in March 2007, and the s ...
orthography of
Cornish to refer to a sound that can be either or . This distribution can also be written .
is used in
English for a variety of sounds, including in ''they'', in ''key'', and in ''geyser''. In
Faroese, it represents the diphthong . In
Cornish, it represents the diphthong or .
(a
split digraph) indicates an English
'long e', historically but now most commonly realised as .
is used for in
Hokkien
The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages ...
Pe̍h-ōe-jī.
F
which may be written as the single unit: ff, is used in
English and
Cornish for the same sound as single , . The doubling is used to indicate that the preceding vowel is (historically) short, or for
etymological
Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the form of words and ...
reasons, in
latinism
A Latinism (from lat-med, Latinismus) is a word, idiom, or structure in a language other than Latin that is derived from, or suggestive of, the Latin language. The Term ''Latinism'' refers to those loan words that are borrowed into another lan ...
s. Very rarely,
may be found word-initially in English, such as in proper names (e.g.,
Rose ffrench,
Jasper Fforde). In
Welsh, represents , while represents . In Welsh, is considered a distinct letter, and placed between and in
alphabetical order
Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the position of the characters in the conventional ordering of an alphabet. It is one of the methods of collation. In mathematics, a lexicographical order is ...
. In medieval
Breton, vowel nasalisation was represented by a following . This notation was reformed during the 18th century, though proper names retain the former convention, which leads to occasional mispronunciation. For ff as a single unit see:
Typographic ligature
In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes or letters are joined to form a single glyph. Examples are the characters æ and œ used in English and French, in which the letters 'a' and 'e' are joined for the first ...
and Unicode FB00 (U+FB00) in
Latin script in Unicode
Over a thousand characters from the Latin script are encoded in the Unicode Standard, grouped in several basic and extended Latin blocks. The extended ranges contain mainly precomposed letters plus diacritics that are equivalently encoded with c ...
and
Unicode equivalence
Unicode equivalence is the specification by the Unicode character encoding standard that some sequences of code points represent essentially the same character. This feature was introduced in the standard to allow compatibility with preexisting ...
is used in
Irish and
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well ...
for the
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
of . This happens to be silent, so that in Gaelic corresponds to no sound at all. For example, the Irish phrase ('how long') is pronounced , where is the lenited form of ('long').
in used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized .
G
is used in
Uzbek to represent .
is used in some
African languages
The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families:
* Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages (includes Bantu and non-Bantu, and possibly Mande and others) are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and South ...
for a
voiced labial-velar plosive
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
, .
is used in languages, such as
Xhosa and
Zulu, for the click . In
Irish, it indicates the
eclipsis of and represents .
is used in
French for before as in ''geôle'' .
is used in
English for before , and (exampleː ''doggy''). It is also used in
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 f ...
for in languages such as
Yi. In
Central Alaskan Yup'ik, it represents . In
Greenlandic , it represents . In the ISO romanization of
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
* ...
, it is used for the fortis sound , otherwise spelled (e.g. ''
ggakdugi''). In
Hadza it is ejective . In
Italian, before a
front vowel
A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would othe ...
represents a geminated , as in ''legge'' . In
Piedmontese and
Lombard, is an etymological spelling representing an at the end of a word which is the unvoicing of an ancient .
is used in several languages. In English, it can be silent or represent or . See article.
is used in
Vietnamese for in northern dialects and in the southern ones. In
Italian, it represents before the non-front vowel letters .
is used in
Albanian for the
voiced palatal plosive , though for
Gheg
Gheg (also spelled Geg; Gheg Albanian: ''gegnishtja'', Standard sq, gegërishtja) is one of the two major varieties of Albanian, the other being Tosk. The geographic dividing line between the two varieties is the Shkumbin River, which winds i ...
speakers it represents . In the
Arbëresh dialect, it represents the
voiced velar plosive
The voiced velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages.
Some languages have the voiced pre-velar plosive, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototyp ...
. In
Norwegian and
Swedish represents in words like ''gjorde'' ('did'). In
Faroese, it represents . It is also used in the
Romanization of Macedonian
The romanization of Macedonian is the transliteration of text in Macedonian from the Macedonian Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin alphabet. Romanization can be used for various purposes, such as rendering of proper names in foreign contexts, or fo ...
as a Latin equivalent of
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking cou ...
. Also, it's used in
Friulian to represent (whilst is one of the pronunciations of the letter ⟨z⟩). It can be found in some local orthographies of
Lombard to represent derived from Latin ⟨gl⟩. Before the letter
Đ was introduced into
Gaj's Latin alphabet
Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sh-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sh-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing Ser ...
in 1878, the digraph ⟨gj⟩ had been used instead; and it remained in use till the beginning of the 20th century.
is used in
Sandawe and the romanization of
Thai for ; in
Limburgish
Limburgish ( li, Limburgs or ; nl, Limburgs ; german: Limburgisch ; french: Limbourgeois ), also called Limburgan, Limburgian, or Limburgic, is a West Germanic language spoken in the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg and in the neig ...
it represents . Modern Greek uses the equivalent digraph
γ κ for , as
γ is used for ~ .
is used in
Italian and some African languages for .
is used in
English for in a few words of Greek origin, such as ''phlegm'' and ''paradigm.'' Between vowels, it simply represents , as in ''paradigmatic.''
is used in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
, where it represented in the classical period. Latin
velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
-
coronal sequences like this (and also ) underwent a
palatal mutation to varying degrees in most
Italo-Western
Italo-Western is, in some classifications, the largest branch of the Romance languages. It comprises two of the branches of Romance languages: Italo-Dalmatian and Western Romance. It excludes the Sardinian language and Eastern Romance.
Italo ...
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
. For most languages that preserve the spelling (such as
Italian and
French), it represents a
palatal nasal
The voiced palatal nasal is a type of consonant used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase letter ''n'' with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bott ...
, and is similarly used in
Romanization
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, ...
schemes such as
Wugniu for . This was not the case in
Dalmatian and the
Eastern Romance languages
The Eastern Romance languages are a group of Romance languages. Today, the group consists of the Daco-Romance subgroup, which comprises the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian), Aromanian language and two other related minor languages, Megleno-R ...
where a different mutation changed the velar component to a
labial consonant
Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. The two common labial articulations are bilabials, articulated using both lips, and labiodentals, articulated with the lower lip against the upper teeth, b ...
as well as the spelling to .
:In
English, represents initially (see
/gn/ reduction) and finally (i.e. ''gnome, gnu, benign, sign''). When it appears between two syllables, it represents (e.g. ''signal''). In
Norwegian and
Swedish, represents in monosyllabic words like ''agn'', and between two syllables, ''tegne''. Initially, it represents , e.g. Swedish ''gnista'' .
was used in several Spanish-derived orthographies of the Pacific for . It is one of several variants of the digraph , and is preserved in the name of the town of
Sagñay,
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
.
is used in
Piedmontese for .
is used in languages, such as
Xhosa and
Zulu, for the click . In the
Taa language
Taa , also known as ǃXóõ (also spelled ǃKhong and ǃXoon; ), is a Tuu language notable for its large number of phonemes, perhaps the largest in the world. It is also notable for having perhaps the heaviest functional load of click conson ...
, it represents .
is used in
Xhosa for .
is used in
English,
Spanish,
French,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
and
Catalan for before front vowels ( in English and French) where a "soft g" pronunciation (English ; Spanish ; French, Portuguese and Catalan ) would otherwise occur. In English, it can also be used to represent . In the
Ossete Latin alphabet, it is used for .
is used in
Spanish and
Catalan for before front vowels where the digraph would otherwise represent .
is used for in
Standard Zhuang
Standard Zhuang ( autonym: , , (pre-1982: ; Sawndip: ); ) is the official standardized form of the Zhuang languages, which are a branch of the Northern Tai languages. Its pronunciation is based on that of the Yongbei Zhuang dialect of Shua ...
and in
Bouyei. In the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
it is used for the labialized fricative .
is used in various languages for , and in
Dene Suline it represents .
, capital (or ), is used in
Tlingit
The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ), for (in Alaska); in Canada, this sound is represented by .
is used in languages, such as
Xhosa and
Zulu, for the click . In
Esperanto
Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international commun ...
, it is an unofficial surrogate of , which represents .
is used in
Hungarian for a
voiced palatal plosive . In Hungarian, the letter's name is ''gyé.'' It is considered a single letter, and
acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
s keep the digraph intact. The letter appears frequently in Hungarian words, such as the word for "Hungarian" itself: ''magyar''. In the old orthography of
Bouyei, it was used for .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
voiced alveolar click
The voiced (post)alveolar click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is or ; a symbol abandoned by the IPA but still preferre ...
.
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
voiced dental click
The voiced dental click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is or ; a symbol abandoned by the IPA but still preferred by some ...
.
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
voiced lateral click
The voiced lateral click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is or ; a symbol abandoned by the IPA but still preferred by som ...
.
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
voiced palatal click
The voiced palatal click is a click consonant found among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is or . Variations of the latter include and .
Features
Features of the ...
.
H
is used in
Xhosa to write the
murmured glottal fricative , though this is often written ''h.'' In the
Iraqw language
Iraqw (;) is a Cushitic language spoken in Tanzania in the Arusha and Manyara Regions. It is expanding in numbers as the Iraqw people absorb neighbouring ethnic groups. The language has many Datooga loanwords, especially in poetic language. Th ...
, ''hh'' is the
voiceless epiglottal fricative
The voiceless epiglottal or pharyngeal trill, or voiceless epiglottal fricative,John Esling (2010) "Phonetic Notation", in Hardcastle, Laver & Gibbon (eds) ''The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences'', 2nd ed., p 695. is a type of consonantal sound, use ...
, and in
Chipewyan
The Chipewyan ( , also called ''Denésoliné'' or ''Dënesųłı̨né'' or ''Dënë Sųłınë́'', meaning "the original/real people") are a Dene Indigenous Canadian people of the Athabaskan language family, whose ancestors are identified ...
it is a velar/uvular . In
Esperanto orthography, it is an official surrogate of , which represents .
is used in the
Italian dialect of Albanian for . In
Faroese, it represents either or , and in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, it represents . In
Icelandic it is used to denote .
is used for or in various alphabets, such as the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has ...
used to write
Hmong
Hmong may refer to:
* Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand
* Hmong cuisine
* Hmong customs and culture
** Hmong music
** Hmong textile art
* Hmong language, a continuum of closely related t ...
() and
Icelandic (). See also
reduction of Old English /hl/.
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has ...
used to write
Hmong
Hmong may refer to:
* Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand
* Hmong cuisine
* Hmong customs and culture
** Hmong music
** Hmong textile art
* Hmong language, a continuum of closely related t ...
, where it represents the sound .
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has ...
used to write
Hmong
Hmong may refer to:
* Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand
* Hmong cuisine
* Hmong customs and culture
** Hmong music
** Hmong textile art
* Hmong language, a continuum of closely related t ...
, where it represents the sound . It is also used in
Icelandic to denote the same phoneme. See also
reduction of Old English /hn/.
is used for in
Bouyei. In
Icelandic it is used for . See also
reduction of Old English /hr/.
is used in the
Wade-Giles transcription of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language o ...
for the sound , equivalent to
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 f ...
''x.''
is used primarily in the
Classical Nahuatl
Classical Nahuatl (also known simply as Aztec or Nahuatl) is any of the variants of Nahuatl spoken in the Valley of Mexico and central Mexico as a ''lingua franca'' at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. During the ...
language, in which it represents the sound before a vowel; for example, ''Wikipedia'' in Nahuatl is written ''Huiquipedia''. After a vowel, is used. In the
Ossete Latin alphabet, ''hu'' was used for , similar to French ''roi.'' The sequence ''hu'' is also found in Spanish words such as ''huevo'' or ''hueso;'' however, in Spanish this is not a digraph but a simple sequence of silent ''h'' and the vowel ''u.''
is used
Faroese and
Icelandic for (often ), generally in
wh-words, but also in other words, such as Faroese ''hvonn''. In the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
it is used for the supposed fricative .
is used in modern editions of
Old English
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 c ...
for , originally spelled or (the latter with the
wynn
Wynn or wyn (; also spelled wen, ƿynn, and ƿen) is a letter of the Old English alphabet, where it is used to represent the sound .
History The letter "W"
While the earliest Old English texts represent this phoneme with the digraph , ...
letter). In its descendants in modern English, it is now spelled (see there for more details). It is used in some orthographies of
Cornish for .
is used in
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 f ...
for in languages such as
Yi ( alone represents the fricative ), and in
Nambikwara it is a
glottalized . In
Esperanto orthography, it is an unofficial surrogate of , which represents .
is used in
Hepburn romanization of the
Japanese language
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ...
to transcribe the sound , which is the syllable ''hi'' before a ''y''-vowel, such as ''hya'', ''hyu'', and ''hyo'', which appear in Chinese loanwords.
I
is used in
Taa to represent the
glottalized or
creaky vowel .
is used in
Irish for the diphthong .
is used in
English, where it usually represents the sound as in ''pries'' and ''allied'' or the sound as in ''priest'' and ''rallied''. Followed by an ''r'', these vowels follow the standard changes to and , as in ''brier'' and ''bier''. Unique pronunciations are in ''sieve'', in ''friend'' and in ''lingerie''. Unstressed it can represent , as in ''spaniel'' and ''conscience'', or or as in ''mischief'' and ''hurriedly''. It also can represent many vowel combinations, including in ''diet'' and ''client'', in ''diester'' and ''quiescent'', in ''alien'' and ''skier'', in ''oriental'' and ''hygienic'', and in British ''medieval''.
:In
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
and
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
, represents the
tense vowel . In
German, it may represent the lengthened vowel as in ''Liebe'' (love) as well as the vowel combination as in ''Belgien'' (Belgium). In
Latvian and
Lithuanian, the is considered two letters for all purposes and represents , commonly (although less precisely) transcribed as . In
Maltese, is a distinct letter and represents a long
close front unrounded vowel
The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound that occurs in most spoken languages, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by the symbol i. It is similar to the vowel sound in the English w ...
, or . In
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 f ...
it is used to write the vowel in languages such as
Yi, where ''e'' stands for . In
Old English
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 c ...
was one of the common diphthongs, the
umlauted version of "ea" and "eo". Its value is not entirely clear, and in Middle English it had become /e/.
is used in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
for .
is used in
Catalan for in the
coda.
, is used in
Taa to represent the breathy or
murmured vowel . It is also used in
Tongyong Pinyin
Tongyong Pinyin () was the official romanization of Mandarin in Taiwan between 2002 and 2008. The system was unofficially used between 2000 and 2002, when a new romanization system for Taiwan was being evaluated for adoption. Taiwan's Ministry ...
and
Wade-Giles transcription for the fricative vowels of Mandarin Chinese, which are spelled ''i'' in
Hanyu 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 ...
.
is used in many languages such as Finnish (example:Riikka, Niinistö, Siitala, Riikkeli), Italian (example:Riina), Estonian (example:Riik), Scots (example:Auld Nii, Iisay), with phonemic long vowels for .
is used in
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
for . See article.
is used in
French for , historically , as in ''ail'' "garlic".
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for .
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for before a consonant.
is used in many languages to write a
nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced with ...
. In
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
before a consonant, and in many
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali ...
n languages, it is , while in French it is .
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for before a consonant.
is used in
French to write a vowel sound that was once followed by a historical ''s'', as in ''vous vîntes'' "you came".
is used in
Lakhota for the nasal vowel .
is used in
Irish for , , and between a slender and a broad consonant.
is used in
Irish for between a slender and a broad consonant.
is used in
Taa to represent the
pharyngealized vowel .
is used in
Irish for between a slender and a broad consonant. In Mandarin
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 f ...
, it is after a consonant. (In initial position, this is spelled ''you.'')
is used in
Irish for between a slender and a broad consonant.
is used in
Welsh and
Cornish for the diphthong or .
is used in
Catalan for (Eastern Catalan) or (Western Catalan) after a vowel.
(a
split digraph) indicates an English
'long i', historically but now most commonly realised as .
J
is used in
Walloon to write a consonant that is variously , or , depending on the dialect. In
Tongyong pinyin
Tongyong Pinyin () was the official romanization of Mandarin in Taiwan between 2002 and 2008. The system was unofficially used between 2000 and 2002, when a new romanization system for Taiwan was being evaluated for adoption. Taiwan's Ministry ...
, it represents , written ''zh'' in standard pinyin. ''Jh'' is also the standard transliteration for the
Devanāgarī
Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...
letter झ .
In
Esperanto
Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international commun ...
, it is an official surrogate of , which represents .
is used in
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 f ...
for in languages such as
Yi. In romanized
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
* ...
, it represents the fortis sound . In
Hadza it is ejective .
is used as a letter of the
Seri alphabet, where it represents a
labialized velar fricative
A velar fricative is a fricative consonant produced at the velar place of articulation. It is possible to distinguish the following kinds of velar fricatives:
*Voiced velar fricative, a consonant sound written as in the International Phonetic Al ...
, . It is placed between
J and
L in
alphabetical order
Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the position of the characters in the conventional ordering of an alphabet. It is one of the methods of collation. In mathematics, a lexicographical order is ...
.
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
for .
is used in
Esperanto
Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international commun ...
as an unofficial surrogate of , which represents .
K
is used for in southern African languages such as
Setswana
Tswana, also known by its native name , and previously spelled Sechuana in English, is a Bantu language spoken in Southern Africa by about 8.2 million people. It belongs to the Bantu language family within the Sotho-Tswana branch of Zon ...
and
Sotho. For instance, the
Kalahari is spelled ''Kgalagadi'' in Setswana.
, in transcriptions of
Indo-Aryan and
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...
, represents the
aspirated voiceless velar plosive
The voiceless velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k.
The sound is a very ...
(). For most other languages, it represents the
voiceless velar fricative
The voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English, e.g. in ''lo ...
, for example in transcriptions of the letter () in standard Arabic, standard Persian, and Urdu, Cyrillic ''
Х'', ''х'' (kha), Spanish ''j'', as well as the Hebrew letter
kaf () in instances when it is
lenited. When used for transcription of the letter () in
Sephardic Hebrew
Sephardi Hebrew (or Sepharadi Hebrew; he, עברית ספרדית, Ivrit S'faradít, lad, Hebreo Sefardíes) is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice. Its phonology was influenced by ...
, it represents the
voiceless pharyngeal fricative
The voiceless pharyngeal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is an h-bar, , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is X\. In the transc ...
. In Canadian
Tlingit
The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ), it represents , which in Alaska is written ''
k.'' In the
Ossete Latin alphabet, it was used for .
is used
Swedish and
Norwegian for or . See also . In
Faroese, it represents .
is used in romanized
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
* ...
for the
fortis sound , in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for ejective , and in
Cypriot Arabic for .
is used in
Zulu to write a sound variously realized as or .
is used in
Yélî Dnye doubly articulated and
nasally released .
is used in English to write the word-initial sound (
formerly pronounced /kn/) in some words of Germanic origin, such as ''knee'' and ''knife.'' It is used in
Yélî Dnye for
nasally released .
is used as a letter in some
African languages
The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families:
* Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages (includes Bantu and non-Bantu, and possibly Mande and others) are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and South ...
, where it represents a
voiceless labial-velar plosive
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...
.
is used in
Xhosa for .
is used in
Cornish for either or .
is used in
Purépecha for . It also had that value in the
Ossete Latin alphabet.
is used for in some dialects of
Zhuang.
is used in various languages for the
labialized velar consonant
A labialized velar or labiovelar is a velar consonant that is labialized, with a -like secondary articulation. Common examples are , which are pronounced like a , with rounded lips, such as the labialized voiceless velar plosive and labial ...
, and in
Dene Suline (Chipewyan) for . Used informally in English for
phonemic spelling
A phonemic orthography is an orthography (system for writing a language) in which the graphemes (written symbols) correspond to the phonemes (significant spoken sounds) of the language. Natural languages rarely have perfectly phonemic orthographi ...
of ''
qu'', as in ''
kwik'' (from ''quick''), ultimately from
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
.
is used in Alaskan
Tlingit
The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ), for , which in Canada is written ''
khw.''
in used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized , and in
Juǀʼhoan for the
ejective
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some ...
.
is used in
Tibetan Pinyin for .
is used in
Esperanto
Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international commun ...
for , equivalent to Polish .
L
, in
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 ...
,
Gallo, and
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
, represents a
palatal lateral approximant
The voiced palatal lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a rotated lowercase letter (not to be confused with lower ...
. In many
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large num ...
it represents a
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral fricatives is , ...
. In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. On their arrival, Latin script became a standard for transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details ...
it represents a dental lateral, . In the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh (), abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself l ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language o ...
, initial indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in , which is otherwise spelled . In
Middle Welsh
Middle Welsh ( cy, Cymraeg Canol, wlm, Kymraec) is the label attached to the Welsh language of the 12th to 15th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This form of Welsh developed directly from Old Welsh ( cy, Hen G ...
it was sometimes used to represent the sound as well as , in
modern Welsh
The history of the Welsh language ( Welsh: ''Hanes yr iaith Gymraeg'') spans over 1400 years, encompassing the stages of the language known as Primitive Welsh, Old Welsh, Middle Welsh, and Modern Welsh.
Origins
Welsh evolved from British, the ...
it has been replaced by . In
Tibetan, it represents the
voiceless alveolar lateral approximant
The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral fricatives is , a ...
, as in ''
Lhasa
Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Region in Southwest China. The inner urban area of Lhasa ...
''.
is a letter in some
Slavic language
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ea ...
s, such as the Latin orthographies of
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia a ...
, where it represents a
palatal lateral approximant
The voiced palatal lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a rotated lowercase letter (not to be confused with lower ...
. For example, the word ''ljiljan'' is pronounced .
Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj (; born Ludwig Gay; hu, Gáj Lajos; 8 August 1809 – 20 April 1872) was a Croatian linguist, politician, journalist and writer. He was one of the central figures of the pan-Slavist Illyrian movement.
Biography
Origin
He was born ...
first used the digraph in 1830; he devised it by analogy with a
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking cou ...
digraph, which developed into the
ligature . In
Swedish it represents /j/ such as in Ljus.
:The sound is written in Italian, in Castilian Spanish and Catalan as , in Portuguese as , in some Hungarian dialects as , and in
Latvian as . In
Czech and
Slovak, it is often transcribed as ; it is used more frequently in the latter language. While there are dedicated Unicode codepoints, U+01C7 (LJ), U+01C8 (Lj) and U+01C9 (lj), these are included for backwards compatibility (with legacy encodings for Serbo-Croatian which kept a one-to-one correspondence with Cyrillic Љљ) and modern texts use a sequence of Basic Latin characters.
and are used in several languages. See article.
is used in
Asturian for a sound that was historically but which is now an affricate, .
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
for .
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated .
is used for in
Arrernte.
in used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized .
is used in
Hungarian. See article.
M
, in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, represents or . It is used in
Irish to indicate the
eclipsis of and represents ; for example 'our boat' (cf. 'boat'). The Irish digraph is capitalized mB, for example 'in Dublin'. In English, ''mb'' represents when final, as in ''lamb'' (see
reduction of /mb/). In
Standard Zhuang
Standard Zhuang ( autonym: , , (pre-1982: ; Sawndip: ); ) is the official standardized form of the Zhuang languages, which are a branch of the Northern Tai languages. Its pronunciation is based on that of the Yongbei Zhuang dialect of Shua ...
and in
Bouyei, is used for .
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated and
prenasalized .
, in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, represents or .
is used in
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 f ...
for in languages such as
Yi, where the more common digraph is restricted to . It is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated and
prenasalized .
, in
Irish, stands for the
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
of and represents or ; for example or 'my mother' (cf. 'mother'). In
Welsh it stands for the
nasal mutation of and represents the
voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...
; for example 'my head' (cf. 'head'). In both languages it is considered a sequence of the two letters and for purposes of alphabetization. In
Shona,
Juǀʼhoan and several other languages, it is used for a
murmured . In the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh (), abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself l ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language o ...
, initial ''mh-'' indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in , which is otherwise spelled ''m-.'' In several languages, such as
Gogo, it's a voiceless .
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has ...
used to write
Hmong
Hmong may refer to:
* Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand
* Hmong cuisine
* Hmong customs and culture
** Hmong music
** Hmong textile art
* Hmong language, a continuum of closely related t ...
, where it represents the sound .
is used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for glottalized . It is used in
Cornish for an optionally
pre-occluded ; that is, it is pronounced either or (in any position); (before a consonant or finally); or (before a vowel); examples are ('mother') or ('this').
is used in English to write the word-initial sound in a few words of Greek origin, such as ''mnemonic.'' When final, it represents , as in ''damn'' or as in ''hymn'', and between vowels it represents /m/ as in ''damning'', or as in ''damnation'' (see
/mn/-reduction). In
French it represents , as in and .
, in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, represents or . Modern Greek uses the equivalent digraph
μ π for , as
β is used for . In
Mpumpong of
Cameroon
Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the ...
, is a plain .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for a
pharyngealized or perhaps
creaky .
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated and
prenasalized .
, in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, represents or .
is used for in
Arrernte.
is used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized .
N
is used in
Xhosa and
Shona for . Since is not a letter in either language, is not technically a digraph.
is used in
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 f ...
for in languages such as
Yi. It is also used in
Fula in Guinea for (written as mb in other countries).
is used in various alphabets. In the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has ...
used to write
Hmong
Hmong may refer to:
* Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand
* Hmong cuisine
* Hmong customs and culture
** Hmong music
** Hmong textile art
* Hmong language, a continuum of closely related t ...
, it represents the sound . In
Tharaka it is . In
Xhosa and
Zulu it represents the click .
, in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, represents or , and capitalized . It is used in
Irish for the
eclipsis of , and represents , for example in ''ár ndoras'' "our door" (cf. ''doras'' "door"). In this function it is capitalized , e.g. ''i nDoire'' "in
Derry
Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. ...
". In
Standard Zhuang
Standard Zhuang ( autonym: , , (pre-1982: ; Sawndip: ); ) is the official standardized form of the Zhuang languages, which are a branch of the Northern Tai languages. Its pronunciation is based on that of the Yongbei Zhuang dialect of Shua ...
and in
Bouyei, is used for .
, equivalent to for or . In
Rangi ''nf'' is while ''mf'' is .
, in
Sino-Tibetan languages
Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages ...
, as in
English and several other
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
an and derived orthographies (for example
Vietnamese), generally represents the
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Engl ...
. It is considered a single letter in many
Austronesian languages (
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the ...
,
Tagalog
Tagalog may refer to:
Language
* Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines
** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language
** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language
* Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Ta ...
,
Tongan,
Gilbertese
Gilbertese or taetae ni Kiribati, also Kiribati (sometimes ''Kiribatese''), is an Austronesian language spoken mainly in Kiribati. It belongs to the Micronesian branch of the Oceanic languages.
The word ''Kiribati'', the current name of the ...
,
Tuvaluan,
Indonesian,
Chamorro),
Welsh, and
Rheinische Dokumenta
The Rheinische Dokumenta () is a phonetic writing system developed in the early 1980s by a working group of academics, linguists, local language experts, and local language speakers of the Rhineland.
It was presented to the public in 1986 by the ...
, for
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Engl ...
; and in some
African languages
The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families:
* Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages (includes Bantu and non-Bantu, and possibly Mande and others) are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and South ...
(
Lingala,
Bambara,
Wolof) for
prenasalized ().
:For the development of the pronunciation of this digraph in English, see
NG-coalescence and
G-dropping.
:
Finnish uses the digraph 'ng' to denote the phonemically long
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Engl ...
in contrast to 'nk' , which is its "strong" form under
consonant gradation
Consonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation (mostly lenition but also assimilation) found in some Uralic languages, more specifically in the Finnic, Samic and Samoyedic branches. It originally arose as an allophonic alternation be ...
, a type of
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
. Weakening produces an
archiphonemic "velar fricative", which, as a velar fricative does not exist in Standard Finnish, is assimilated to the preceding , producing . (No is involved at any point, despite the spelling 'ng'.) The digraph 'ng' is not an independent letter, but it is an exception to the
phonemic principle
A phonemic orthography is an orthography (system for writing a language) in which the graphemes (written symbols) correspond to the phonemes (significant spoken sounds) of the language. Natural languages rarely have perfectly phonemic orthograph ...
, one of the few in standard Finnish.
:In
Irish ''ng'' is used word-initially as the
eclipsis of and represents , e.g. ''ár ngalar'' "our illness" (cf. ). In this function it is capitalized ''nG'', e.g. ''i'' nG''aillimh'' "in Galway".
:In Tagalog and other
Philippine languages
The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (language ...
, ''ng'' represented the prenasalized sequence during the Spanish era. The velar nasal, , was written in a variety of ways, namely "n͠g", "ñg", "gñ" (as in
Sagñay), and—after a vowel—at times "g̃". During the standardization of Tagalog in the early part of the 20th century, ''ng'' became used for the velar nasal , while prenasalized came to be written ''
ngg.'' Furthermore, ''ng'' is also used for a common
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...
particle pronounced , to differentiate it from an adverbial particle ''nang.''
:In
Uzbek, it is considered as a separate letter, being the last (twenty-ninth) letter of the
Uzbek alphabet. It is followed by the
apostrophe
The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes:
* The marking of the omission of one ...
(''tutuq belgisi'').
is used in
Central Alaskan Yup'ik to write the voiceless nasal sound .
, or more precisely , was a digraph in several Spanish-derived orthographies of the Pacific, such as
Tagalog
Tagalog may refer to:
Language
* Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines
** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language
** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language
* Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Ta ...
and
Chamorro, where it represented the sound , as opposed to ''ng'', which originally represented . An example is Chamorro ''agan͠gñáijon'' (modern ''agangñaihon)'' "to declare". Besides ''ñg'', variants of ''n͠g'' include ''gñ'' (as in
Sagñay), ''ng̃'', and a ''g̃'', that is preceded by a vowel (but not a consonant). It has since been replaced by the trigraph or (see above).
is used for in Swahili and languages with Swahili-based orthographies. Since is not a letter in Swahili, is technically a digraph, not a
trigraph.
is used in several languages. See article.
in
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin scree ...
, it usually represents whenever it precedes a vowel, and whenever it precedes a consonant (or in the end of the word), and is considered a graphic variant of
ń appearing in other situations. (In some cases it may represent also before a vowel; for a better description, when, see
the relevant section in the article on Polish orthography).
is a letter in the Latin orthographies of
Albanian,
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia a ...
.
Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj (; born Ludwig Gay; hu, Gáj Lajos; 8 August 1809 – 20 April 1872) was a Croatian linguist, politician, journalist and writer. He was one of the central figures of the pan-Slavist Illyrian movement.
Biography
Origin
He was born ...
, a Croat, first used this digraph in 1830. In all of these languages, it represents the
palatal nasal
The voiced palatal nasal is a type of consonant used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase letter ''n'' with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bott ...
. For example, the Croatian and Serbian word ''konj'' (''horse'') is pronounced . The digraph was created in the 19th century by analogy with a digraph of
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking cou ...
, which developed into the
ligature . While there are dedicated Unicode codepoints, U+01CA (NJ), U+01CB (Nj) and U+01CC (nj), these are included for backwards compatibility (with legacy encodings for Serbo-Croatian which kept a one-to-one correspondence with Cyrillic Њњ) and modern texts use a sequence of Basic Latin characters.
:In
Faroese, it generally represents , although in some words it represent , like in ''banjo''. It is also used in some languages of
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
and
Oceania
Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million as ...
where it represents a
prenazalized voiced postalveolar affricate or
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
, or . In
Malagasy, it represents .
:Other letters and digraphs 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 ...
used for spelling this sound are (in
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin scree ...
), (in
Czech and
Slovakian), (in
Spanish), (in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
and
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 ...
), (in
Italian and
French), and (in
Hungarian, among others).
is used in many
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages.
Th ...
like
Lingala,
Tshiluba, and
Kikongo
Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon and Angola. It is a tonal language. It was spoken by many of those who were taken from th ...
, for or . In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. On their arrival, Latin script became a standard for transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details ...
such as
Warlpiri,
Arrernte, and
Pitjantjatjara, it distinguishes a prenasalized velar stop, , from the nasal .
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated .
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated .
is used in
Irish for the
Old Irish
Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writt ...
"
fortis sonorants" ("broad", i.e. non-palatalized or
velarized
Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four dia ...
) and ("slender", i.e.
palatalized) in non-initial position. In modern
Irish, the "broad" sound is , while the slender sound can be any of , , or , depending on dialect and position in the word. In
Spanish historical has contracted to the
ligature and represents the sound . In the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh (), abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself l ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language o ...
, final ''-nn'' indicates a falling tone on a syllable ending in , which is otherwise spelled ''-n.'' It is used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for glottalized . In
Piedmontese, it is in the middle of a word, and at the end. In
Cornish, it is used for an optionally
pre-occluded ; that is, it is pronounced either or (in any position); (before a consonant or finally); or (before a vowel); examples are ''penn'' ('head') or ''pennow'' ('heads').
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has ...
used to write
Hmong
Hmong may refer to:
* Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand
* Hmong cuisine
* Hmong customs and culture
** Hmong music
** Hmong textile art
* Hmong language, a continuum of closely related t ...
, where it represents the sound .
is used in various alphabets. In the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has ...
used to write
Hmong
Hmong may refer to:
* Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand
* Hmong cuisine
* Hmong customs and culture
** Hmong music
** Hmong textile art
* Hmong language, a continuum of closely related t ...
, it represents the sound . In
Xhosa and
Zulu it represents the click . In the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh (), abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself l ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language o ...
, final ''-nq'' indicates a falling tone on a syllable ending in , which is otherwise spelled ''-ng.''
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has ...
used to write
Hmong
Hmong may refer to:
* Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand
* Hmong cuisine
* Hmong customs and culture
** Hmong music
** Hmong textile art
* Hmong language, a continuum of closely related t ...
, where it represents the sound . In the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
it is .
, in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, represents or .
is a letter present in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
where it represents or . Modern Greek uses the equivalent digraph
ν τ for , as
δ is used for .
, equivalent to for or .
is used in
Igbo for , and in
Arrernte for .
is used for the click in
Xhosa and
Zulu, and in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized .
is used in several languages for . See article.
, in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, represents ~ , ~ , ~ , or ~ .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
alveolar nasal click .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
dental nasal click .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
lateral nasal click
The lateral nasal click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is or ; a symbol abandoned by the IPA but still preferred by some ...
.
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
palatal nasal click .
is used for medial in
Piedmontese.
Ŋ
⟨ŋm⟩, a letter was used in
Anii.
O
is used for and in
Uzbek, with the preferred typographical form being (Cyrillic ). Technically it is not a digraph in Uzbek, since is not a letter of the Uzbek alphabet, but rather a typographic convention for a diacritic. In handwriting the letter is written as .
It is also used in
Taa, for the
glottalized or
creaky vowel .
is used in
English, where it commonly represents the sound as in ''road'', ''coal'', ''boast'', ''coaxing'', etc. 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 ...
, where the digraph originated, it represented , a pronunciation retained in the word ''broad'' and derivatives, and when the digraph is followed by an "r", as in ''soar'' and ''
bezoar''. The letters also represent two vowels, as in ''koala'' , ''
boa
Kwon Bo-ah (; born November 5, 1986), known professionally as BoA, is a South Korean singer, songwriter, dancer, record producer and actress. One of the most successful and influential Korean entertainers, she has been dubbed the " Queen of K- ...
s'' , ''
coaxial
In geometry, coaxial means that several three-dimensional linear or planar forms share a common axis. The two-dimensional analog is ''concentric''.
Common examples:
A coaxial cable is a three-dimensional linear structure. It has a wire condu ...
'' , ''oasis'' , and ''doable'' . In
Malagasy, it is occasionally used for .
is found in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s. In
English, it represents the sound as in ''hoe'' and sometimes the sound as in ''shoe''. It may also represent the sound in
AmE #REDIRECT AME
{{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page ...
pronunciation of ''
Oedipus
Oedipus (, ; grc-gre, Οἰδίπους "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus accidentally fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereb ...
'', ''(o)esophagus'' (also in
BrE), and ''(o)estrogen'', in ''boehmite'' (AmE) and surnames like ''
Boehner'' and ''
Groening'' (as if spelled ''Bayner'' and ''Gray/Greyning'' respectively), and in ''foetus'' (BrE and
CoE) and some speakers' pronunciation of ''Oedipus'' and ''oestrogen''.
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
and
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
''oe'' is , as in ''doen''; it also represented the same phoneme in the
Indonesian language
Indonesian ( ) is the official and national language of Indonesia. It is a standardized variety of Malay, an Austronesian language that has been used as a lingua franca in the multilingual Indonesian archipelago for centuries. Indonesia i ...
before the
1972 spelling reform.
Ligatured to in
French, it stands for the vowels (as in ) and (as in ). It is an alternative way to write or in German or Scandinavian languages when this character is unavailable. In
Cantonese Pinyin
Cantonese Pinyin (, also known as ) is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Rev. Yu Ping Chiu (余秉昭) in 1971, and subsequently modified by the Education Department (merged into the Education and Manpower Bureau since 2003) ...
it represents the vowel , while in the
Jyutping
Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK), an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme. The LSHK advocates for ...
romanisation of
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
it represents , and in
Zhuang it is used for ( is used for ). In
Piedmontese, it is . In the
Kernewek Kemmyn
Kernewek Kemmyn (Common Cornish or "KK") is a variety of the revived Cornish language.
Kernewek Kemmyn was developed, mainly by Ken George in 1986, based upon George's earlier doctoral thesis on the phonological history of Cornish. It takes muc ...
orthography of
Cornish, it is used for a phoneme which is long, mid-length, and short.
is used in
French to write the vowel sound in a few words before what had historically been an ''s'', mostly in words derived from ' "stove". The diacriticless variant, , rarely represents this sound except in words related to ' (rarely spelt ).
is used in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
for the vowel .
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for . It is used in plural forms of some words ended in , such as ''
anão–anões'' and ''
campeão–campeões.''
is used in
Taa, for the breathy or
murmured vowel .
is used in various
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s. In
English, ''oi'' represents the sound as in ''coin'' and ''join''. In
French, it represents , which was historically – and still is in some cases – written "oy." In
Irish it is used for between a broad and a slender consonant. In
Piedmontese, it is .
is used in
Irish for between a broad and a slender consonant.
is used in
French to write before what had historically been an ''s'', as in ''boîtier'' or ''cloître.''
is used in
Irish for between a broad and a slender consonant.
is used in
Piedmontese for .
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for , and in French to write .
is used in
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all ...
for before a consonant.
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for before a consonant, and in French to write .
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for before a consonant.
is used in
Tibetan Pinyin for . It is alternately written
oin.
is used in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s. In
English, ''oo'' commonly represents sounds which historically descend from the
Middle English pronunciation . After the
Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through ...
, this came to typically represent as in "m''oo''n" and "f''oo''d". Subsequently, in a handful of common words like "g''oo''d" and "fl''oo''d" the vowel was shortened to /u/, and after the
Middle English – split, these became and respectively. Like 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 ...
, the digraph's pronunciation is in most other languages. In
German and
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
, the digraph represents . In
Cornish, it represents either or .
Is used in
Taa,for the
pharyngealized vowel .
, in
Daighi tongiong pingim, represents
mid central vowel
The mid central vowel (also known as schwa) is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a rotated lowercase letter e.
While the ''Handbook of t ...
or
close-mid back rounded vowel
The close-mid back rounded vowel, or high-mid back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .
Close-mid back protruded vowel
The cl ...
in
Taiwanese Hokkien
Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about ...
.
[董峰政, "Taiwanese Tong-iong Pingim Dictionary", 臺南市寧南語言文化協會, Tainan City, Jul 2006.]
is used in
English for the
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
, as in ''out'' . This spelling is generally used before consonants, with being used instead before vowels and at the ends of words. Occasionally ''ou'' may also represent other vowels – as in ''trouble'', as in ''soul'', as in ''would'', as in ''group'', or as in the alternate American pronunciation of ''coupon''. The ''ou'' in ''out'' originally represented , as in French, and its pronunciation has mostly changed as part of the
Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through ...
. However, the sound was kept before p.
In
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
represents in the Netherlands or in Flanders. In
Cornish, it represents , , or .
In
French, it represents the
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (l ...
, as in ''vous'' "you", or the
approximant consonant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce ...
, as in ''oui'' "yes".
In
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
this digraph stands for the
close-mid back rounded vowel
The close-mid back rounded vowel, or high-mid back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .
Close-mid back protruded vowel
The cl ...
or for the falling
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
, according to dialect.
is used In
Hepburn romanization of the
Japanese language
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ...
to transcribe the sound .
is used in
French to write the vowel sound before what had historically been an ''s'', as in ''soûl'' "drunk" (also spelt ''soul'').
, in
English, usually represents the sound as in ''coward'', ''sundowner'', and ''now'' or the sound, as in ''froward'', ''landowner'', and ''know''. An exceptional pronunciation is in ''knowledge'' and ''
rowlock''. There are many English
heteronyms distinguished only by the pronunciation of this digraph, like: ''bow'' (front of ship or weapon), ''bower'' (a dwelling or string player), ''lower'' (to frown or drop), ''mow'' (to grimace or cut), ''row'' (a dispute or line-up), ''shower'' (rain or presenter), ''sow'' (a pig or to seed), ''tower'' (a building or towboat). In
Cornish, this represents the diphthong
or ;
before vowels, it can also represent .
is used in the
Kernowek Standard
Kernowek Standard (KS, ''Standard Cornish''), its initial version spelt Kernowak Standard, is a variety of the spelling of revived Cornish. It has two specifications, the first of which was published as a draft proposal in March 2007, and the s ...
orthography of
Cornish to refer to a sound that can be either or . This distribution can also be written .
is found in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s. In
English and
Faroese, oy represents the diphthong . Examples in English include ''toy'' and ''annoy''. In
Cornish, it represents the diphthong ; in the words ''oy'' ('egg') and ''moy'' ('much'), it can also be pronounced .
is an obsolete digraph once used in
French.
is used in
Norwegian for .
(a
split digraph) indicates an English
'long o', historically but now most commonly realised as .
P
in
German represents a labial affricate . It can be initial (''Pferd'', 'horse'), medial (''Apfel'', 'apple'), or final (''Knopf'', 'button'). Where it appears in English, usually in names or words recently derived from German, it is ordinarily simplified to such as
Pfizer
Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered on 42nd Street in Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in 1849 in New York by two German entrepreneurs, Charles Pfiz ...
.
, in English and some other languages, represents , mostly in words derived from
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
. The Ancient Greek letter
phi
Phi (; uppercase Φ, lowercase φ or ϕ; grc, ϕεῖ ''pheî'' ; Modern Greek: ''fi'' ) is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet.
In Archaic and Classical Greek (c. 9th century BC to 4th century BC), it represented an aspirated voice ...
originally represented (an
aspirated ''p'' sound), and was thus transcribed into
Latin orthography as , a convention that was transferred to some other Western European languages. The Greek pronunciation of later changed to /f/, and this was also the sound adopted in other languages for the relevant loanwords. Exceptionally, in English, represents in the name ''
Stephen
Stephen or Steven is a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; ...
'' and some speakers' pronunciations of ''
nephew''.
In
Irish and
Welsh it reprsents the
Lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
/
Aspirate mutation of .
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has ...
used to write Hmong, where it represents the sound .
is used for in
Arrernte.
is used in English for an initial sound in words of Greek origin such as ''pneumatic.'' When not initial, it represents the sequence , as in ''apnea.''
is used in romanized
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
* ...
for the fortis sound , and in
Cypriot Arabic for .
is used in English for an initial sound in words of Greek origin such as ''psyche.'' When not initial, it represents the sequence , as in ''ellipse.'' It is also used in
Shona to write a
whistled sibilant
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...
cluster .
is used in several languages for in words of Greek origin, where it was . An example in English is ''
pterosaur
Pterosaurs (; from Greek ''pteron'' and ''sauros'', meaning "wing lizard") is an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order, Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 ...
'' , and an exception is ''ptarmigan'' , which is
Gaelic, not Greek. When not initial, ''pt'' represents the sequence , as in ''apt.''
is used for in
Arrernte.
is used in
Cypriot Arabic for .
Q
is used to write the click in
Naro. It was used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless alveolar click .
is used in various alphabets. In
Quechua and the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has ...
used to write
Hmong
Hmong may refer to:
* Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand
* Hmong cuisine
* Hmong customs and culture
** Hmong music
** Hmong textile art
* Hmong language, a continuum of closely related t ...
, it represents the sound . In
Xhosa, it represents the click .
was used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless alveolar click (equivalent to ).
is used in
Piedmontese for .
is used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for ejective . In
Hadza it is the glottalized click .
is used in
Catalan,
French,
Galician,
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 ...
,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
and
Spanish for before the vowel letters ''e, i'', where the letter ''c'' represents the sound (
Castilian Spanish
In English, Castilian Spanish can mean the variety of Peninsular Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain, the standard form of Spanish, or Spanish from Spain in general. In Spanish, the term (Castilian) can either refer to the Spanish langua ...
and most of
Galicia) or (
Catalan,
French,
American Spanish,
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 ...
and
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
). This dates to
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
''qu'', and ultimately the
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
labialized velar consonant
A labialized velar or labiovelar is a velar consonant that is labialized, with a -like secondary articulation. Common examples are , which are pronounced like a , with rounded lips, such as the labialized voiceless velar plosive and labial ...
; in English this sound instead became written primarily as
''wh'', due to
Grimm's law
Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC. First systematically put forward by Jacob Grim ...
changing > (written ''hw''), and Middle English spelling change switching ''hw'' to ''wh''. In English, it represents in words derived from those languages (e.g., ''
quiche
Quiche ( ) is a French tart consisting of pastry crust filled with savoury custard and pieces of cheese, meat, seafood or vegetables. A well-known variant is quiche Lorraine, which includes lardons or bacon. Quiche may be served hot, warm or ...
''), and in other words, including borrowings from Latin (e.g., ''
quantity
Quantity or amount is a property that can exist as a multitude or magnitude, which illustrate discontinuity and continuity. Quantities can be compared in terms of "more", "less", or "equal", or by assigning a numerical value multiple of a uni ...
''). In
German, where the /w/ sound evolved into /v/, it is used to represent /kv/ in both native Germanic words and Latin borrowings. In the
Ossete Latin alphabet, it was used for . In
Vietnamese it is used to represent the or sound. In Cornish, it represents the sound.
is used for glottalized in
Bouyei.
is used in some languages for the sound . In
Mi'kmaq
The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Miꞌkmaw'' or ''Miꞌgmaw''; ; ) are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands, indigenous to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec as well as the no ...
it is used for . In the
Kernowek Standard
Kernowek Standard (KS, ''Standard Cornish''), its initial version spelt Kernowak Standard, is a variety of the spelling of revived Cornish. It has two specifications, the first of which was published as a draft proposal in March 2007, and the s ...
and
Standard Written Form
The Standard Written Form or SWF ( kw, Furv Skrifys Savonek) of the Cornish language is an orthography standard that is designed to "provide public bodies and the educational system with a universally acceptable, inclusive, and neutral orthograp ...
orthographies for Revived Cornish, and in
William Jordan's 1611 ''Creation of the World'', it is used for .
is used for glottalized in
Bouyei.
R
is used in the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. On their arrival, Latin script became a standard for transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details ...
such as
Warlpiri,
Arrernte, and
Pitjantjatjara for a retroflex stop, . In
Norwegian and
Swedish it represents
voiced retroflex plosive, .
is used in
English for
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
words
transliterated
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → o ...
through
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
. Examples include "rhapsody", "rhetoric" and "rhythm". These were pronounced in Ancient Greek with a
voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...
"r" sound, , as in
Old English
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 c ...
. The digraph may also be found within words, but always at the start of a word component, e.g., "polyrhythmic".
German,
French, and
Interlingua
Interlingua (; ISO 639 language codes ia, ina) is an international auxiliary language (IAL) developed between 1937 and 1951 by the American International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). It ranks among the most widely used IALs and is ...
use ''rh'' in the same way. is also found in
Welsh where it represents a
voiceless alveolar trill (), that is a voiceless "r" sound. It can be found anywhere; the most common occurrence in English from Welsh is in the slightly respelled given name "Rhonda". In
Wade-Giles transliteration, is used for the syllable-final rhotic of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language o ...
. In the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh (), abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself l ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language o ...
, initial ''rh-'' indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in , which is otherwise spelled ''r-.'' In
Purépecha, it is a
retroflex flap
The voiced retroflex flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r`.
Features
Features of the voi ...
, .
is used in the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. On their arrival, Latin script became a standard for transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details ...
such as
Warlpiri,
Arrernte, and
Pitjantjatjara, as well in
Norwegian and
Swedish, for a retroflex lateral, written in the
IPA. In
Greenlandic, it represents as the result of an assimilation of a consonant cluster with a uvular consonant as the first component.
is used in
Inuktitut
Inuktitut (; , syllabics ; from , "person" + , "like", "in the manner of"), also Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces ...
for .
represents the retroflex nasal in
Warlpiri,
Arrernte, and
Pitjantjatjara (see
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. On their arrival, Latin script became a standard for transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details ...
), as well in
Norwegian and
Swedish. In
Greenlandic, it represents . In
Inuktitut
Inuktitut (; , syllabics ; from , "person" + , "like", "in the manner of"), also Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces ...
, it represents .
is used in
Greenlandic for as the result of an assimilation of a consonant cluster with a uvular consonant as the first component.
is used in
English for . It normally appears in words of
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
or
Romance origin, and "rrh" in words of ancient
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
origin. It is quite a common digraph. Some words with "rr" are relatively recent
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s from other languages; examples include ''
burro'' from
Spanish. It is often used in impromptu pronunciation guides to denote either an
alveolar tap Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit.
Uses in anatomy and zoology
* Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs
** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte
** Alveolar duct
** Alveolar macrophage
* Ma ...
or an
alveolar trill
The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ...
. It is a letter 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 ...
.
In several European languages, such as
Catalan,
Spanish,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
or
Albanian, "rr" represents the
alveolar trill
The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ...
(or the
voiced uvular fricative
The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , an inverted small uppercase letter , or in broad transcription if rho ...
in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
) and contrasts with the single "r", which represents the
alveolar tap Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit.
Uses in anatomy and zoology
* Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs
** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte
** Alveolar duct
** Alveolar macrophage
* Ma ...
(in Catalan and Spanish a single "r" also represents the alveolar trill at the beginning of words or syllables). In Italian and Finnish, "rr" is a
geminated (long) consonant . In
Central Alaskan Yup'ik it is used for . In
Cornish, it can represent either , , or .
was equivalent to and stood for (modern ''
ř'') in medieval
Czech. In
Greenlandic, it represents as the result of an assimilation of a consonant cluster with a uvular consonant as the first component. In
Norwegian and
Swedish, it represents
voiceless retroflex fricative
The voiceless retroflex sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is which is a Latin letter s combined with a retroflex hook ...
, .
is used in Australian Aboriginal languages such as
Warlpiri,
Arrernte, and
Pitjantjatjara, as well in
Norwegian and
Swedish, for a retroflex stop .
is used for in
Arrernte.
is used in
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin scree ...
and
Kashubian for a
voiced retroflex fricative
The voiced retroflex sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is z`. Like all the retrof ...
, similar to English ''
zh'' as in ''Zhivago''. Examples from Polish are ' "March" and ' "river". represents the same sound as , but they have a different origin. used to be pronounced the same way as Czech () in older Polish, but the sounds
merged, and the
orthography
An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word, word breaks, Emphasis (typography), emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the ...
still follows etymology. When preceded by a
voiceless consonant
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
(''ch'', ''k'', ''p'', ''t'') or
end of a word,
devoices to , as in ' ("before", ).
S
is used in
Italian for before the front vowel letters ''e, i''. It is used for in Catalan, Spanish, French, English, Occitan and Brazilian Portuguese (e.g. French/English ''reminiscence'', Spanish ''reminiscencia'', Brazilian Portuguese ''reminiscência'', Catalan ''reminiscència'', Occitan ''reminiscéncia''); in European Portuguese this changed to in the early 20th century, although in careful speech it can be . However, it represents in modern pronunciations of ''crescent'' in
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
and non-
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source o ...
Commonwealth English
The use of the English language in current and former member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations was largely inherited from British colonisation, with some exceptions. English serves as the medium of inter-Commonwealth relations.
Many r ...
. In
Old English
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 c ...
it usually represented .
is used in
French for in a few verb forms such as simple past ''acquiesça'' . It is also used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
as in the imperative/conjunctive form of verbs ending with ''scer'': ''crescer'' ''cresça''. Still pronounced in
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all ...
, in
European Portuguese
European Portuguese ( pt, português europeu, ), also known as Portuguese of Portugal (Portuguese: português de Portugal), Iberian Portuguese (Portuguese: português ibérico), and Peninsular Portuguese (Portuguese: português peninsular), refer ...
this changed to in the early 20th cent.ury, although in careful speech it can be
is used in
Piedmontese for .
is used in several languages. In English, it represents . See
separate article. See also ſh
below
Below may refer to:
* Earth
* Ground (disambiguation)
* Soil
*Floor
* Bottom (disambiguation)
*Less than
* Temperatures below freezing
* Hell or underworld
People with the surname
*Ernst von Below (1863–1955), German World War I general
*Fred ...
, which has the capitalized forms SH and ŞH.
is used in English for in words such as ''fusion'' (see
yod-coalescence). In
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin scree ...
, it represents whenever it precedes a vowel, and whenever it precedes a consonant (or in the end of the word), and is considered a graphic variant of
ś appearing in other situations. In
Welsh is used for the sound as in ''siocled'' ('chocolate').
is used
Swedish to write the
''sje'' sound (see also ) and in
Faroese,
Danish,
Norwegian and
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
to write
Voiceless postalveolar fricative
A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describes the voiceles ...
.
is used in
Swedish to write the
''sje'' sound . It takes by rule this sound value before the front vowels (''e, i, y, ä'' and ''ö'') word or root initially (as in ''sked'' (spoon)), while normally representing in other positions. In Norwegian and Faroese, it is used to write
voiceless postalveolar fricative
A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describes the voiceles ...
(only in front of ''i'', ''y'', ''ei'' and ''øy''/''oy'').
is used in
Iraqw and
Bouyei to write the
lateral fricative
A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English ''L'', as in ''L ...
. ''(Sl'' is used in the French tradition to transcribe in other languages as well, as in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
.)
is used in
German for as in ''Spaß'' instead of using schp.
is used in
Kosraean for .
is used in
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 f ...
for in languages such as
Yi. For its use in the Wade–Giles system of Romanization of Chinese, see
Wade–Giles → Syllabic consonants. In English, typically represents in the first ''ss'' of ''possess'' and its derivatives ''possessed'', ''possesses'', ''possession'', ''possessive'' and '' possessor'', ''brassiere'', ''dessert'', ''dissolution'' and its derivatives ''dissolved'', ''dissolves'' and ''dissolving'', ''
Missoula
Missoula ( ; fla, label= Séliš, Nłʔay, lit=Place of the Small Bull Trout, script=Latn; kut, Tuhuⱡnana, script=Latn) is a city in the U.S. state of Montana; it is the county seat of Missoula County. It is located along the Clark Fork ...
(
County
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
)'', ''
Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas to ...
(an)'', ''scissors'', and pronunciations of ''
Aussie'' outside the United States. In other languages, such as
Catalan,
Cornish,
French,
Italian,
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 ...
,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
and
Central Alaskan Yup'ik, where transcribes between vowels (and elsewhere in the case of Yup'ik), is used for in that position ( in Italian and also in some cases in Cornish
). In romanized
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
* ...
, it represents the fortis sound . In
Cypriot Arabic it is used for .
Also to note, there are spellings of words with as opposed to them with just one , varied in different types of English. For the word ''focus'', in British English the 3rd person singular, the past participle and the present participle are spelled with (i.e. ''focusses'', ''focussed'' and ''focussing'') whereas in American English and usually Canadian and Australian English they are spelled with one (i.e. ''focuses'', ''focused'' and ''focusing'').
is used in
German for as in ''Stadt'' instead of using scht (or cht). In some parts of northern Germany, the pronunciation (as in English) is still quite common in the local dialect.
is used in
Shona to write the
whistled sibilant
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...
. This was written
ȿ from 1931 to 1955.
in used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized , and in
Esperanto orthography it is an unofficial surrogate of , that represents .
is used to write the sound in
Malay and
Tagalog
Tagalog may refer to:
Language
* Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines
** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language
** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language
* Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Ta ...
.
is used in several languages. See article.
and are used in
Piedmontese for the sequence .
and are used in
Piedmontese for the sequence .
T
is used for the palatal click in
Naro, and to write the affricate in
Sandawe,
Hadza and
Juǀʼhoan.
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
for the
voiceless dental affricate
is used for in
Naro. In
Catalan, it represents .
is used in several languages. In English, it can represent , or . See article. See also:
Pronunciation of English th.
, before a vowel, is usually pronounced in French and in German.
is used in
Norwegian and
Faroese words like ''tjære''/''tjøra'' ('tar') for (Norwegian) and (Faroese). In the closely related
Swedish alphabet
The Swedish alphabet ( sv, Svenska alfabetet) is a basic element of the Latin writing system used for the Swedish language. The 29 letters of this alphabet are the modern 26-letter basic Latin alphabet (A through Z) plus Å, Ä, and Ö, in t ...
, it represents , as in ''tjära'' . It is also the standard written form of the sound in
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
and was likewise used in Dutch-based orthographies that used to apply for languages in Indonesia and Surinam. In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. On their arrival, Latin script became a standard for transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details ...
such as
Warlpiri,
Arrernte, and
Pitjantjatjara, it represents a
postalveolar stop,
transcribed in the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
as or depending on voicing. This sound is also written , , , , or . In Catalan it represents .
In
Juǀʼhoan it is used for the
ejective
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some ...
affricate .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the uvularized
ejective
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some ...
.
is used in various orthographies for the affricate .
is used in the transcription of
Athabascan languages
Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific Co ...
for a lateral affricate or .
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated and
nasally released . In Catalan, it's used to represent , that can result not geminated as well, , as in ''setmana'' (pronounced in standard Catalan and in
Valencian
Valencian () or Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and unofficially in the El Carche comarca in Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance language also known as Catal ...
).
is used for a prestopped nasal in
Arrernte, and for the similar in
Yélî Dnye.
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated .
generally represents a sound like a
retroflex
A retroflex ( /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal ( /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the ha ...
version of English "ch" in areas of German influence, such as
''Truk'' lagoon, now spelled . For instance, in
Malagasy it represents . In southern
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...
s of
Vietnamese, represents a
voiceless retroflex affricate . In the northern dialects, this sound is pronounced , just like what represents. was formerly considered a distinct letter of the
Vietnamese alphabet
The Vietnamese alphabet ( vi, chữ Quốc ngữ, lit=script of the National language) is the modern Latin writing script or writing system for Vietnamese. It uses the Latin script based on Romance languages originally developed by Portuguese ...
, but today is not.
is used in the
Basque, where it represents an
apical
Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to:
* Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology)
*Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features lo ...
voiceless alveolar affricate
A voiceless alveolar affricate is a type of affricate consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are several ty ...
. It contrasts with , which is
laminal
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
. In
Hausa, represents an alveolar ejective fricative or affricate ), depending on dialect. It is considered a distinct letter, and placed between and in
alphabetical order
Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the position of the characters in the conventional ordering of an alphabet. It is one of the methods of collation. In mathematics, a lexicographical order is ...
. It is also used in
Catalan for . It is also used in
Hausa Boko.
The
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 w ...
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 v ...
use for an
unaspirated
In linguistics, a tenuis consonant ( or ) is an obstruent that is voiceless, unaspirated and unglottalized.
In other words, it has the "plain" phonation of with a voice onset time close to zero (a zero-VOT consonant), as Spanish ''p, t, ch, ...
voiceless alveolar affricate
A voiceless alveolar affricate is a type of affricate consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are several ty ...
. Wade-Giles also uses for the aspirated equivalent . These are equivalent to
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 f ...
and , respectively. 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 dia ...
uses for a
voiceless alveolar affricate
A voiceless alveolar affricate is a type of affricate consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are several ty ...
). In native Japanese words, this sound only occurs before , but it may occur before other vowels in
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s. Other romanization systems write as . in
Tagalog
Tagalog may refer to:
Language
* Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines
** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language
** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language
* Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Ta ...
is used for . The sequence occurs in English, but it has no special function and simply represents a sequence of and . It occurs word-initially only in some
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s, such as ''
tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explo ...
'' and ''
tsar
Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word '' caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the t ...
''. Most English-speakers do not pronounce a in such words and pronounce them as if they were spelled and or , respectively.
was used in medieval
Basque for a
voiceless postalveolar affricate
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 , (former ...
; this is now represented by .
is used in
Basque for , and in romanized
Kabyle for . In romanized
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
* ...
, it represents the fortis sound , in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) it is ejective , and in
Cypriot Arabic, it represents .
is used for in
Arrernte.
is used in
Basque,
Catalan and some indigenous languages of
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
, for a
voiceless postalveolar affricate
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 , (former ...
. In
Nambikwara it represents a
glottalized . In
Juǀʼhoan it is used for the
uvularized-release .
is used in the
Hungarian alphabet
The Hungarian alphabet () is an extension of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Hungarian language.
The alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, with several added variations of letters. The alphabet consists of the 26 letters of the IS ...
for , a
voiceless palatal affricate; in Hungarian, digraphs are considered single letters, and
acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
s keep them intact. In Xhosa, represents and the similar in the Algonquian
Massachusett orthography. In
Shona, it represents . In Tagalog it represents . In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. On their arrival, Latin script became a standard for transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details ...
such as
Warlpiri, and
Arrernte, it represents a postalveolar stop, either voiceless or voiced . (This sound is also written , , , , and ). In
Cypriot Arabic, it represents .
is used in
Basque,
German and
Nahuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have small ...
for the
voiceless alveolar affricate
A voiceless alveolar affricate is a type of affricate consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are several ty ...
). In Basque, this sound is
laminal
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
and contrasts with the
apical
Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to:
* Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology)
*Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features lo ...
affricate represented by . It is also used in Catalan to represent the
voiced alveolar affricate
A voiced alveolar affricate is a type of affricate consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are several typ ...
.
In
Juǀʼhoan it is used for the
ejective
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some ...
affricate .
For its use in the Wade–Giles system of Romanization of Chinese, see
Wade–Giles → Syllabic consonants.
U
is used in
Taa for the
glottalized or
creaky vowel .
is used in
Nahuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have small ...
for before a consonant. Before a vowel, is used.
is found in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s. In
English, represents /ju/ or /u/ as in ''cue'' or ''true'', respectively. In
German, it is equivalent to
Ü, and as such may appear in proper names of people, representing or . In the
Cantonese Romanisation
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
, it represents in a non-initial position.
is used in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
to represent .
is used in
Central Alaskan Yup'ik for .
is used in
Taa for the breathy or
murmured vowel . In
Nahuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have small ...
, it is used for before a consonant. Before a vowel, is used.
in
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
stands for the diphthong . In
Irish and
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well ...
, it is after a
velarized
Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four dia ...
(broad) consonant, and in Irish, it is used for between a broad and a slender consonant. In
German, it represents the diphthong , which appears only in
interjection
An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling or reaction. It is a diverse category, encompassing many different parts of speech, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curse ...
s such as ''"pfui!"''. In
English, it represents the sound in ''fruit'', ''juice'', ''suit'' and ''pursuit''. However, in many English words, this does not hold. For example, it fails in words where the ''u'' in ''ui'' functions as a modifier of a preceding ''g'' (forcing ''g'' to remain rather than shifting to in ''guild'', ''guilt'', ''guilty'', ''sanguine'', ''
Guinea
Guinea ( ),, fuf, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫, italic=no, Gine, wo, Gine, nqo, ߖߌ߬ߣߍ߫, bm, Gine officially the Republic of Guinea (french: République de Guinée), is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the we ...
'', etc.), doing the same with ''c'' (in words like ''circuit'' and ''biscuit''), or in cases of unusual etymological spelling or syllable separation (e.g. ''build'', ''suite'', and ''intuition''). It represents /ai/ in ''guide''. In Mandarin
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 f ...
, it is after a consonant. (In initial position, this is spelled ''wei.'') In
Cantonese Romanisation
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
, it represents or . In
French, it is not a digraph, but a predictable sequence , as in ''h''ui''t'' "eight". In
Scots it represents the vowel in words such as bluid (blood), duin (done), muin (moon) and spuin (spoon) and is used similarly in Northumbrian and Cumbrian.
is used in
Irish for between a broad and a slender consonant.
is used in
Irish for between a broad and a slender consonant.
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for , and in
French to write (only before a consonant and at the end of a word).
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for before a consonant.
is used in many languages to write a
nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced with ...
. In
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
before a consonant, and in many
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali ...
n languages, it is , while in French it is , or among the younger generation . In
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 f ...
, is spelled ''un'' after a consonant, ''wen'' initially.
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
for before a consonant.
is used in
Tibetan Pinyin for .
is used in
Lakhota for the nasal vowel .
is used in
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 f ...
to write the vowel in languages such as
Yi, where ''o'' stands for .
is used in
Taa, for the
pharyngealized vowel .
is used in
Central Alaskan Yup'ik for , and in
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 f ...
to write the
trilled vowel in languages such as
Yi.
is used in
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
for . In languages with phonemic long vowels, it may be used to write .
occurs in
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
, as in (''yours''), duwen (''to push'') . It is used in
Cornish for the sound
or .
is used in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
for .
is used in
Esperanto
Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international commun ...
as an unofficial surrogate of , which represents .
(a
split digraph) indicates an English
'long u', historically , also .
V
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
for the
labiodental flap .
was used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless palatal click .
represents in
Shona. It was also used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
aspirated palatal click
The palatal or palato-alveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found, as components of words, only in southern Africa. The tongue is nearly flat, and is pulled back rather than down as in the postalveolar clicks, making a sharper sound ...
.
was used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless palatal click (equivalent to ).
was used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
palatal nasal click .
is used in
Central Alaskan Yup'ik for .
is used in
Quechua.
W
is used in
English to represent
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bra ...
, the continuation of the
PIE labiovelar (which became in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
and the
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
). Most English question words begin with this digraph, hence the terms ''
wh-word'' and ''
wh-question''. In Old English, /hw/ was spelled or , and only the former was retained during the
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 ...
period, becoming during the gradual development of the letter during the 14th-17th centuries. In most dialects it is now pronounced , but a distinct pronunciation realized as a
voiceless w sound,
� is retained in some areas:
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
, central and southern
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...
, the southeastern
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
, and (mostly among older speakers) in
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country ...
. In a few words (''who'', ''whose'', etc.) the pronunciation used among almost all speakers regardless of geography is /h/. For details, see
Pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩
The pronunciation of the digraph in English has changed over time, and still varies today between different regions and accents. It is now most commonly pronounced , the same as a plain initial , although some dialects, particularly those of ...
.
In
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the ...
, represents or more commonly , with some regional variations approaching or . In the
Taranaki
Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont.
The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth ...
region, for some speakers, this represents a glottalized . In
Xhosa, it represents , a murmured variant of found in loan words. In
Cornish, it represents .
is used in
English for words which formerly began , now
reduced to /r/ in virtually all dialects.
is used in Mandarin
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 f ...
to write the vowel in initial position, as in the name ''
Wuhan
Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city a ...
.'' It is sometimes found with this value in Romanized Korean as well, as in
hanwu. In
Cantonese Romanisation
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
, it is used to represent in an initial position or in a non-initial position.
is used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for glottalized .
is used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized .
X
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
for the labialized fricative .
is used to write the click in
Naro. It was used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless lateral click .
, in
Albanian, represents the sound of the
voiced postalveolar affricate consonant , as in the surname ''Hoxha'' . In
Zulu and
Xhosa it represents the
voiceless aspirated alveolar lateral click , for example in the name of the language ''
Xhosa'' . In
Walloon to write a consonant that is variously , , , depending on the dialect. In Canadian
Tlingit
The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ), it represents , which in Alaska is written ''x̱.''
is used in English for in words such as ''flexion''. (It is equivalent to plus the digraph , as in ''action''.)
was used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless lateral click (equivalent to ).
is used as a letter of the
Seri alphabet, where it represents a
labialized uvular fricative, . It is placed between
X and
Y in
alphabetical order
Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the position of the characters in the conventional ordering of an alphabet. It is one of the methods of collation. In mathematics, a lexicographical order is ...
.
is used in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Por ...
in the word ''exsudar'' in
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all ...
. In
European Portuguese
European Portuguese ( pt, português europeu, ), also known as Portuguese of Portugal (Portuguese: português de Portugal), Iberian Portuguese (Portuguese: português ibérico), and Peninsular Portuguese (Portuguese: português peninsular), refer ...
this digraph changed to in the early 20th century and the word came to be pronounced as
was used in the
Ossete Latin alphabet for .
is used in the
Kurdish and the
Tlingit language
The Tlingit language ( ; ''Lingít'' ) is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada and is a branch of the Na-Dene language family. Extensive effort is being put into revitalization programs in Southeast Alaska to rev ...
for .
is used in Alaskan
Tlingit
The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ), for , which in Canada is written ''
xhw.''
is used in
Hadza for the glottalized click , and in
Cypriot Arabic for .
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has ...
used to write
Hmong
Hmong may refer to:
* Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand
* Hmong cuisine
* Hmong customs and culture
** Hmong music
** Hmong textile art
* Hmong language, a continuum of closely related t ...
, where it represents the sound .
Y
used in various languages. In some languages such as English it is used as an such as in bye or dye. In most languages, it is used as an sound, such as in yellow.
was used in the
pre-1985 orthography of Guinea, for the "ejective y" or
palatalized glottal stop
The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents th ...
() in
Pular (a
Fula language
Fula ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani or Fulah (, , ; Adlam: , , ), is a Senegambian language spoken by around 30 million people as a set of various dialects in a continuum that str ...
). In the current orthography it is now written
ƴ. In
Xhosa it is used for the sound . In a handful of Australian languages, it represents a "dental semivowel".
is used in Mandarin
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 f ...
to write the vowel when it forms an entire syllable.
is used in
Yanyuwa for a pre-
velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
stop, .
is used in
French to write the vowel sound ( before another vowel), as in ''thym'' "thyme".
is used in
French to write the vowel sound in some words of Greek origin, such as ''syncope'' "syncope".
is used in
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 f ...
to write the
trilled vowel in languages such as
Yi.
is used in romanized Chinese to write the vowel . In Mandarin
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 f ...
it is used for in initial position, whereas in Cantonese
Jyutping
Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK), an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme. The LSHK advocates for ...
it is used for in non-initial position. In the
Yale romanization of Cantonese
The Yale romanization of Cantonese was developed by Gerard P. Kok for his and Parker Po-fei Huang's textbook ''Speak Cantonese'' initially circulated in looseleaf form in 1952 but later published in 1958. Unlike the Yale romanization of Mandar ...
and
Cantonese Romanisation
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
, it represents in an initial position and in a non-initial position. (See
jyu.)
is used for in
Arrernte and for
doubly articulated in
Yélî Dnye. It is used in
Cornish for the diphthongs ,
, or .
in used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized .
is used in some languages such as
Finnish to write the long vowel . In Haida (Bringhurst orthography) it is glottalized .
(a
split digraph) indicates an English
'long y' (equivalent to ).
Z
represents the
voiced postalveolar fricative
A voiced postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses term ''voiced postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describes the voiced postalveol ...
(), like the in ''pleasure'', in
Albanian and in
Native American orthographies such as
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest fe ...
. It is used for the same sound in some English-language dictionaries, as well as to transliterate the sound when represented by
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking cou ...
and
Persian into English, but is rarely seen in English words, appearing primarily in foreign borrowings (eg ''muzhik'') and slang (eg ''zhoosh''). as a digraph is rare in European languages using 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 ...
; in addition to Albanian it is found in
Breton in words that are pronounced with in some dialects and in others. In
Hanyu 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 ...
, represents the
voiceless retroflex affricate . When
Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...
and
Tamil are transliterated into the Latin script, represents a
retroflex approximant
The voiced retroflex approximant is a type of consonant used in some languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r\`. The IPA symbol is a turned lowercase lett ...
(Malayalam
ഴ and Tamil
ழ, ḻ,
�.
in
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin scree ...
represents whenever it precedes a vowel, and whenever it precedes a consonant (or in the end of the word), and is considered a graphic variant of
ź appearing in other situations.
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
for the
voiced lateral fricative
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
for .
is the last (forty-fourth) letter of the
Hungarian alphabet
The Hungarian alphabet () is an extension of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Hungarian language.
The alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, with several added variations of letters. The alphabet consists of the 26 letters of the IS ...
. Its name is "zsé" and represents , a
voiced postalveolar fricative
A voiced postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses term ''voiced postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describes the voiced postalveol ...
, similar to ''J'' in ''Jacques'' and ''s'' in ''vision''. A few examples are ''rózsa'' "rose" and ''zsír'' "fat".
is used in
Shona to write the
whistled sibilant
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...
. This was written
ɀ from 1931 to 1955.
is used in
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
to represent the
labialized voiced alveolar fricative
The voiced alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being described.
* The symbol for the alveolar sibilan ...
().
is used in
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 f ...
for in languages such as
Yi. It is also used with that value in romanized
Kabyle. In medieval
Czech, it stood for . In
Hadza it is ejective .
Other
, capital , is used in many
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali ...
n languages for the nasal vowel . ''Ɛ'' is an "
open e".
, capital , is used in many
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali ...
n languages for the nasal vowel . ''Ɔ'' is an "
open o
Open o or Turned c (majuscule: Ɔ, minuscule: ɔ) is a letter of the extended Latin alphabet. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, it represents the open-mid back rounded vowel. It is used in the orthographies of many African languages u ...
".
, capitalized , is used in
French for the vowels and . The first element of the digraph, ''
œ'', is itself is a ligature of ''o'' and ''e'', and may also be written as the
trigraph .
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
for .
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
for .
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
for the
labial-velar nasal .
, capitalized , was used for in the old orthography of
Zhuang and
Bouyei; this is now spelled with the
trigraph .
is used in
Adzera for the prenasalized glottal stop .
, capitalized or sometimes , was a digraph used in the Slovene
Bohorič alphabet for . The first element, , the
long s
The long s , also known as the medial s or initial s, is an archaic form of the lowercase letter . It replaced the single ''s'', or one or both of the letters ''s'' in a 'double ''s sequence (e.g., "ſinfulneſs" for "sinfulness" and "poſ ...
, is an archaic non-final form of the letter .
are used in
Juǀʼhoan for its four
glottalized nasal clicks, .
are used in
Khoekhoe for its four tenuis
clicks, .
are used in
Khoekhoe for its four aspirated
nasal clicks, , and in
Juǀʼhoan for its plain aspirated clicks, .
are used in
Juǀʼhoan for its four affricate
ejective-contour click
Ejective-contour clicks, also called sequential linguo-glottalic consonants, are consonants that transition from a click to an ejective sound, or more precisely, have an audible delay between the front and rear release of the click. All click t ...
s, .
are used in
Khoekhoe for its four plain
nasal clicks, .
are used in
Juǀʼhoan for its four affricate
pulmonic-contour clicks, .
See also
*
List of Latin-script trigraphs
A number of trigraphs are found in the Latin script.
A
is used in Dutch and various Cantonese romanisations to write the sound .
is used in Irish to write the sound , or in Donegal, , between broad consonants.
is used in Irish to write th ...
*
List of Latin-script tetragraphs
*
Pentagraph
A pentagraph (from the el, πέντε, ''pénte'', "five" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a sequence of five letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds, that do not correspond to the individual values ...
*
Hexagraph
A hexagraph (from the el, ἕξ, ''héx'', "six" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a sequence of six letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds that do not correspond to the individual values of the lett ...
*
Heptagraph
A heptagraph is a sequence of seven letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds, that do not correspond to the individual values of the letters.
Heptagraphs are extremely rare. Morse code uses 2 heptagraph: , for ...
*
List of Latin letters
*
List of Cyrillic digraphs
The following multigraphs are used in the Cyrillic script. The palatalized consonants of Russian and other languages written as C- are mostly predictable and therefore not included here unless they are irregular. Likewise, in the languages of ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Latin Digraphs