Digraph (orthography)
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A digraph or digram (from the grc, δίς , "double" and , "to write") is a pair of characters used in 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 ...
of a
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 ...
to write either a single
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 ...
(distinct sound), or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined. Some digraphs represent phonemes that cannot be represented with a single character in the writing system of a language, like the English '' sh'' in ''ship'' and ''fish''. Other digraphs represent phonemes that can also be represented by single characters. A digraph that shares its pronunciation with a single character may be a relic from an earlier period of the language when the digraph had a different pronunciation, or may represent a distinction that is made only in certain
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, like the English '' wh''. Some such digraphs are used for purely etymological reasons, like '' rh'' in English. Digraphs are used in some
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, like the '' zh'' often used to represent the Russian letter ж. As an alternative to digraphs, orthographies and Romanization schemes sometimes use letters with
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s, like the Czech and Slovak '' š'', which has the same function as the English digraph ''sh,'' like the Romanian ''Ț'', which has the same function as the ''Slavic C'', the letter ''Ť'' that is used in Czech and Slovak, which has the same function as the Hungarian digraph ''Ty'', and the letter with the cedilla in a few Turkic languages that have the same function as the letter with the cedilla below followed by the letter h in English, for example, ''ç'' will become ''ch'' in English, and ''ş'' will become ''sh'' in English. In some languages' orthographies, digraphs (and occasionally trigraphs) are considered individual letters, which means that they have their own place in the
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a sy ...
and cannot be separated into their constituent
grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called ''graphemic ...
s when sorting, abbreviating or
hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes ( figure ...
ating words. Examples of this are found in Hungarian (''cs, dz, dzs, gy, ly, ny, sz, ty, zs''), Czech (''ch''), Slovak (''ch'', ''dz'', ''dž''), Albanian (''dh'', ''gj'', ''ll'', ''nj'', ''rr'', ''sh'', ''th'', ''xh'', ''zh''),
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 ...
(''lj, nj, dž''), and in Uzbek ''(sh, ch, ng)''. Kazakh also used a form of the Latin alphabet where there are a few digraphs and one tetragraph, specifically the 2018 version of the Kazakh latin alphabet ''(sh, ch, shch, ıo)'', and there is still one digraph in the new version of the Latin alphabet ''(şç)''. In Dutch, when the digraph '' ij'' is capitalized, both characters are written in uppercase form (''IJ''). In the Māori language, there are two digraphs in the language that are still part of the alphabet, which is ''ng'' and ''wh''. In Welsh, there are eight digraphs that exist in the official alphabet ''(ch, dd, ff, ng, ll, ph, rh, th)''. In Maltese, there are two digraphs part of the official alphabet (''għ'' and ''ie''). Romanization of the Cyrillic alphabet, especially those used in some Slavic languages, including Russian, resulted in some letters sometimes becoming digraphs, which are the letters (ё, ж, х, ц, ч, ш, щ, ю, я) and can be transliterated into (''jo/yo'', ''zh, kh, ts, ch, sh, shch, yu/ju, ya/ja''), while sometimes romanizing the letters is done by adding diacritics, except for kh and ts, which for kh, sometimes becoming ch or x, and ts sometimes become c (ë, ž, č, š), still with some digraphs (šč, ju/yu, ja/ya). The Czech alphabet used to have a lot of digraphs a few hundred years ago, but through evolution, those digraphs eventually became letters with diacritics, although the Czech language still kept some as those letters with diacritics cannot make the pronunciations of the respective digraphs (ch, dz, dž), which is also the same case with the Slovak alphabet, having a lot of digraphs in the alphabet, and then evolving to become a diacritical letter, and keeping some when the diacritical letters can't make the pronunciation of the respective digraphs. Digraphs may develop into ligatures, but this is a distinct concept: a ligature involves a graphical combination of two characters, as when ''a'' and ''e'' are fused into '' æ'', and as when o and e are fused into œ. Those two ligatures are still used in some languages. Æ is usually used in Scandinavian languages, specifically Icelandic, Norwegian, and Danish. Swedish used to have the letter Æ, but this letter has been changed to become Ä. Œ is usually used in French, but is usually typed in two keystrokes (OE/oe), instead of a special key in the French keyboard or using the AltGr key. In Canada, the keyboard layout (Canadian Multilingual Standard) is modified so that it can use the right Ctrl key to get more characters, including the œ and other foreign characters, sometimes a dead key to input a few kinds of diacritics on some letters to type in the language that use the diacritic in question. The digraph ''ij'' is a special case, especially in Dutch, as when it is handwritten, the capital version (IJ) becomes very similar if not indistinguishable to the cursive letter Y, but if it is written in the regular, lower case version, it will look like a Y with a diaeresis/umlaut (ÿ).


Double letters

Digraphs may consist of two different characters (heterogeneous digraphs) or two instances of the same character (homogeneous digraphs). In the latter case, they are generally called double (or doubled) letters. Doubled
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 ...
letters are commonly used to indicate a long vowel sound. This is the case in Finnish and Estonian, for instance, where represents a longer version of the vowel denoted by , represents a longer version of the vowel denoted by , and so on. 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 sequences and were used in a similar way, to represent lengthened "e" and "o" sounds respectively; both spellings have been retained in modern
English orthography English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken English, allowing readers to connect the graphemes to sound and to meaning. It includes English's norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks, emphasis, and ...
, but the Great Vowel Shift and other historical sound changes mean that the modern pronunciations are quite different from the original ones. Doubled
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
letters can also be used to indicate a long or geminated consonant sound. In Italian, for example, consonants written double are pronounced longer than single ones. This was the original use of doubled consonant letters 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 ...
, but 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 ...
and
Early Modern English Early Modern English or Early New English (sometimes abbreviated EModE, EMnE, or ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle ...
period, phonemic consonant length was lost and a spelling convention developed in which a doubled consonant serves to indicate that a preceding vowel is to be pronounced short. In modern English, for example, the of ''tapping'' differentiates the first vowel sound from that of ''taping''. In rare cases, doubled consonant letters represent a true geminate consonant in modern English; this may occur when two instances of the same consonant come from different
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone ...
s, for example in ''unnatural'' (''un''+''natural''). In some cases, the sound represented by a doubled consonant letter is distinguished in some other way than length from the sound of the corresponding single consonant letter: *In Welsh and Greenlandic, stands for a voiceless lateral consonant, while in Spanish and Catalan it stands for a
palatal consonant Palatals are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex. Characterist ...
. *In several languages of western Europe, including English, 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, the digraph is used between vowels to represent the voiceless sibilant , since an alone between vowels normally represents the voiced sibilant . *In Spanish, Catalan, and Basque, is used between vowels for 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 ...
, since an alone between vowels represents an alveolar flap (the two are different phonemes in those languages). *In Spanish, the digraph formerly indicated (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 ...
); it developed into the letter ñ. *In Basque, double consonant letters generally mark palatalized versions of the single consonant letter, as in , , . However, is a trill that contrasts with the single-letter flap, as in Spanish, and the palatal version of is written . In several European writing systems, including the English one, the doubling of the letter or is represented as the heterogeneous digraph instead of or respectively. In native German words, the doubling of , which corresponds to , is replaced by the digraph .


Pan-dialectical digraphs

Some languages have a unified orthography with digraphs that represent distinct pronunciations in different dialects (
diaphoneme A diaphoneme is an abstract phonological unit that identifies a correspondence between related sounds of two or more varieties of a language or language cluster. For example, some English varieties contrast the vowel of ''late'' () with that of ...
s). For example, in Breton there is a digraph that represents in most dialects, but in ''Vannetais.'' Similarly, the Saintongeais dialect of French has a digraph that represents in words that correspond to in standard French. Similarly, Catalan has a digraph that represents in Eastern Catalan, but or in Western CatalanValencian.


Split digraphs

The pair of letters making up a phoneme are not always adjacent. This is the case with English
silent e In English orthography, many words feature a silent (single, final, non-syllabic ‘e’), most commonly at the end of a word or morpheme. Typically it represents a vowel sound that was formerly pronounced, but became silent in late Middl ...
. For example, the sequence ''a_e'' has the sound in English ''cake.'' This is the result of three historical sound changes: ''cake'' was originally , the open syllable came to be pronounced with a long vowel, and later the final
schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it ...
dropped off, leaving . Later still, the vowel became . There are six such digraphs in English, . However, alphabets may also be designed with discontinuous digraphs. In the Tatar Cyrillic alphabet, for example, the letter ''ю'' is used to write both and . Usually the difference is evident from the rest of the word, but when it is not, the sequence ''ю...ь'' is used for , as in ''юнь'' 'cheap'. The Indic alphabets are distinctive for their discontinuous vowels, such as Thai เ...อ in เกอ . Technically, however, they may be considered
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s, not full letters; whether they are digraphs is thus a matter of definition.


Ambiguous letter sequences

Some letter pairs should not be interpreted as digraphs but appear because of compounding: ''hogshead'' and ''cooperate''. They are often not marked in any way and so must be memorized as exceptions. Some authors, however, indicate it either by breaking up the digraph with a
hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes ( figure ...
, as in ''hogs-head'', ''co-operate'', or with a trema mark, as in ''coöperate'', but the use of the diaeresis has declined in English within the last century. When it occurs in names such as Clapham, Townshend and Hartshorne, it is never marked in any way. Positional alternative glyphs may help to disambiguate in certain cases: when round, was used as a final variant of long , and the English digraph resembling would always be . In
romanization of Japanese The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as . Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Ch ...
, the constituent sounds ( morae) are usually indicated by digraphs, but some are indicated by a single letter, and some with a trigraph. The case of ambiguity is the syllabic , which is written as ''n'' (or sometimes ''m''), except before vowels or ''y'' where it is followed by an
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 ...
as ''n’''. For example, the given name じゅんいちろう is romanized as Jun’ichirō, so that it is parsed as "Jun-i-chi-rou", rather than as "Ju-ni-chi-rou". A similar use of the apostrophe is seen 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 ...
where 嫦娥 is written
Chang'e Chang'e ( ; , alternatively rendered as Chang-Er or Ch‘ang-o), originally known as Heng'e, is the Chinese goddess of the Moon. She is the subject of several legends in Chinese mythology, most of which incorporate several of the following elem ...
because the g belongs to the final (-ang) of the first syllable, not to the initial of the second syllable. Without the apostrophe, Change would be understood as the syllable chan (final -an) followed by the syllable ge (initial g-). In several
Slavic languages 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 ...
, e.g. Czech, double letters may appear in compound words, but they are not considered digraphs. Examples: ''bezzubý'' ‘toothless’, ''cenný'' ‘valuable’, ''černooký'' ‘black-eyed’.


In alphabetization

In some languages, certain digraphs and trigraphs are counted as distinct letters in themselves, and assigned to a specific place in the
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a sy ...
, separate from that of the sequence of characters that composes them, for purposes of
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 ...
and collation. For example: *In the Gaj’s Latin alphabet used to write
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 ...
, the digraphs , and , which correspond to the single Cyrillic letters , , , are treated as distinct letters. *In the Czech and Slovak alphabet, is treated as a distinct letter, coming after in the alphabet. Also, in the Slovak alphabet the relatively rare digraphs and are treated as distinct letters. *In the
Danish and Norwegian alphabet The Danish and Norwegian alphabets, together called the Dano-Norwegian alphabet, is the set of symbols, forming a variant of the Latin alphabet, used for writing the Danish and Norwegian languages. It has consisted of the following 29 letters s ...
, the former digraph , where it appears in older names, is sorted as if it were the letter , which replaced it. *In the Norwegian alphabet, there are several digraphs and letter combinations representing an isolated sound. *In the Dutch alphabet, the digraph is sometimes written as a ligature and may be sorted with (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 ...
, though not usually in
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 ...
); however, regardless of where it is used, when a Dutch word starting with 'ij' is capitalized, the entire digraph is capitalized ('' IJmeer'', ''
IJmuiden IJ_(digraph).html" ;"title="n IJ (digraph)">n IJ (digraph) and that should remain the only places where they are used. > IJmuiden () is a port city in the Netherlands, Dutch province of North Holland. It is the main town in the municipality ...
''). Other Dutch digraphs are never treated as single letters. *In Hungarian, the digraphs , , , , , , , , and the trigraph , have their own places in the alphabet (where follows , and follow , etc.) *In Spanish, the digraphs and were formerly treated as distinct letters, but are now split into their constituent letters. *In Welsh, the alphabet includes the digraphs , , , , , , , . However, , and , which represent mutated voiceless consonants, are not treated as distinct letters. *In the romanization of several Slavic countries that use the Cyrillic script, letters like ш, ж, and ч might be written as sh, zh and ch, however sometimes the result of the romanization might modify a letter to be a diacritical letter instead of a digraph. *In Maltese, two digraphs are used, għ which comes right after g, and ie which comes right after i. Most other languages, including English, French, German, Polish, etc., treat digraphs as combinations of separate letters for alphabetization purposes.


Examples


Latin script


English

English has both homogeneous digraphs (doubled letters) and heterogeneous digraphs (digraphs consisting of two different letters). Those of the latter type include the following: * normally represents ( voiceless alveolar fricative - ''scene'') or (
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 ...
- ''conscious'') before or . * represents (
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 ...
) as in ''thing''. * usually corresponds to (
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 ...
- ''church''), to ( voiceless velar plosive) when used as an etymological digraph in words of Greek origin (''christ''), less commonly to (
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 ...
) in words of French origin (''champagne''). * corresponds to as in ''check''. * represents ( voiced velar plosive) at the beginning of words (''ghost''), represents ( voiceless labiodental fricative in ''enough'') or is silent at the end of words (''sigh''). * represents ( voiceless labiodental fricative), as in ''siphon''. * represents English in words of Greek origin, such as ''rhythm''. * represents (
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 ...
), as in ''sheep''. * usually represents word-medially before a vowel, as in ''education''. * usually corresponds to ( voiceless interdental fricative) in ''thin'' or ( voiced interdental fricative) in ''then''. See also Pronunciation of English . * represents in some conservative dialects; in other dialects (''while''); and in a few words in which it is followed by , such as ''who'' and ''whole''. See also Phonological history of . * represents in words transliterated from Slavic languages, and in American dictionary pronunciation spelling. * usually appears as before vowels, like in ''facial'' and ''artificial''. Otherwise it is as in ''fancier'' and ''icier'' or as in ''acid'' and ''rancid''. * represents . Originally, it stood for a labialized sound, while without was non-labialized, but the distinction has been lost in most dialects, the two sounds merging into a single alveolar approximant, allophonically labialized at the start of syllables, as in ''red'' . See also rhotic consonant. * usually represents ; is conventionally followed by and a vowel letter as in ''quick'', with some exceptions. Digraphs may also be composed of vowels. Some letters are preferred for the first position, others for the second . The latter have
allograph Allography, from the Greek for "other writing", has several meanings which all relate to how words and sounds are written down. Authorship An allograph may be the opposite of an autograph – i.e. a person's words or name ( signature) written by ...
s in
English orthography English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken English, allowing readers to connect the graphemes to sound and to meaning. It includes English's norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks, emphasis, and ...
.


Other languages using the Latin alphabet

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 ...
: * corresponds to , (
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 ...
) * corresponds to (
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 ...
) * corresponds to ( voiced postalveolar affricate) Note that in the Cyrillic orthography, those sounds are represented by single letters (љ, њ, џ). In Czech and Slovak: * corresponds to ( voiceless velar fricative), counted as a distinct letter * corresponds to ( voiced alveolar affricate), counted as a distinct letter in Slovak, relatively rare digraph * corresponds to ( voiced postalveolar affricate), counted as a distinct letter in Slovak, relatively rare digraph In Danish and Norwegian: * The digraph represented until 1917 in Norway and 1948 in Denmark, but is today spelt . The digraph is still used in older names, but sorted as if it were the letter with the diacritic mark. In Norwegian, several sounds can be represented only by a digraph or a combination of letters. They are the most common combinations, but extreme regional differences exists, especially those of the eastern dialects. A noteworthy difference is the aspiration of rs in eastern dialects, where it corresponds to skj and sj. Among many young people, especially in the western regions of Norway and in or around the major cities, the difference between ç and ʃ has been completely wiped away and are now pronounced the same. * represents as in ch in German ich or x in México. * represents as in ch in German ich or x in México. * represents as in sh in English she. * represents as in sh in English she. * represents (before i or y) as in sh in English she. * represents as in ng in English thing. In Catalan: * represents (
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 ...
) * represents (
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 ...
) * represents ( post-alveolar trill) * represents ( voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant) * represents ( voiceless velar plosive) * represents ( voiced velar plosive) * postvocalic represents (
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 ...
) in
Eastern Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai * Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air L ...
dialects, in Western dialects it represents /jʃ/. In Dutch: * corresponds to (see above for its possible status as a separate letter). * represents (
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 ...
) * represents ( voiceless velar fricative) * represents (
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 ...
) * represents ( close front unrounded vowel) * represents ( close back rounded vowel) * represents ( close-mid front rounded vowel) In French: * represents (
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 ...
) * represents (
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 ...
) * represents (
voiceless velar stop 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 ve ...
), typically before historic front vowels :: See also French phonology. In German: * represents ( voiceless velar fricative) or ( voiceless palatal fricative) * represents ( voiceless velar plosive) * represents (
open front unrounded vowel The open front unrounded vowel, or low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. It is one of the eight primary cardinal vowels, not directly intended to correspond to a vowel sound of a specific language ...
) followed by (
near-close near-front unrounded vowel The near-close front unrounded vowel, or near-high front 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 , i.e. a small capital letter ...
) * represents (
open-mid back rounded vowel The open-mid back rounded vowel, or low-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 . The IPA symbol is a turned letter ''c' ...
) followed by (
near-close near-front rounded vowel The near-close front rounded vowel, or near-high front 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 , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symb ...
) In Hungarian: * represents (
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 ...
) * represents (
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 ...
) * represents ( voiced palatal plosive) * originally represented (
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 ...
), but in the modern language stands for (
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 n ...
) * represents (
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 ...
) * represents (
voiceless palatal plosive The voiceless palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in some vocal languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is c. If distinction is neces ...
) * represents ( voiced postalveolar affricate) * represents ( voiceless alveolar fricative) ( is pronounced ) * The Hungarian alphabet additionally contains also a trigraph, . In Italian: * corresponds to , (
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 ...
) before -i and -e (but to before other letters) * corresponds to (only before i, e) * corresponds to (only before i, e) * represents ,
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 ...
, before -i (with some exceptions) * represents (
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 ...
) In Manx Gaelic, represents , but represents . 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 ...
: * corresponds to ( voiceless velar fricative) * corresponds to ( voiceless retroflex affricate) * corresponds to ( voiced alveolar affricate) * corresponds to ( voiced alveolo-palatal affricate) * corresponds to ( voiced retroflex affricate) * corresponds to ( voiced retroflex fricative) * corresponds to ( voiceless retroflex fricative) 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 ...
: * corresponds to (
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 ...
) * corresponds to (
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 ...
) * corresponds to (
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 ...
) *⟨qu⟩ usually represents /k/ (
voiceless velar stop 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 ve ...
) *: In Spanish: * is traditionally (but now usually not) pronounced /ʎ/ * represents (
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 ...
). Since 2010, neither is considered part of the alphabet. They used to be sorted as separate letters, but a reform in 1994 by the Spanish Royal Academy has allowed that they be split into their constituent letters for collation. The digraph , pronounced as a distinct
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 ...
, was never officially considered to be a letter in the Spanish alphabet, and the same is true and (for /ɡ/ and /k/ respectively before or ). In Welsh: * represents (
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 ...
), the same sound as in English (but in some words is pronounced ). * represents ( voiceless uvular fricative) * represents ( voiceless alveolar trill), pronounced roughly like the combination ''hr''. * represents ( voiceless interdental fricative) * represents (
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 ...
), like the English in ''then'' (but is pronounced as voiceless in many contexts). * represents ( voiceless labiodental fricative), like English , since Welsh is pronounced like an English . * also represents (voiceless labiodental fricative) but, in modern orthography, is used only for the aspirate mutation of words starting with . * represents ( voiceless alveolar lateral fricative) The digraphs listed above represent distinct phonemes and are treated as separate letters for collation purposes. On the other hand, the digraphs , , and the trigraph , which stand for voiceless consonants but occur only at the beginning of words as a result of the nasal mutation, are not treated as separate letters, and thus are not included in the alphabet. Daighi tongiong pingim, a transcription system used for
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 ...
, includes or that 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), as well as other digraphs. In Yoruba: * is an alphabet, and a plosive most accurately pronounced by trying to say and at the same time.


Cyrillic

Modern Slavic languages written in the Cyrillic alphabet make little use of digraphs apart from for , for (in Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Bulgarian), and and for the uncommon Russian phoneme . In Russian, the sequences and do occur (mainly in loanwords) but are pronounced as combinations of an implosive (sometimes treated as an affricate) and a fricative; implosives are treated as allophones of the plosive /d̪/ and so those sequences are not considered to be digraphs. Cyrillic has few digraphs unless it is used to write non-Slavic languages, especially Caucasian languages.


Arabic script

Because vowels are not generally written, digraphs are rare in
abjad An abjad (, ar, أبجد; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vow ...
s like Arabic. For example, if ''sh'' were used for ''š,'' then the sequence ''sh'' could mean either ''ša'' or ''saha.'' However, digraphs are used for the aspirated and murmured consonants (those spelled with ''h-''digraphs in Latin transcription) in languages of
South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. ...
such as
Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and th ...
by a special form of the letter ''h'', which is used only for aspiration digraphs, as can be seen with the following connecting ''(kh)'' and non-connecting ''(ḍh)'' consonants: :


Armenian

In the
Armenian language Armenian ( classical: , reformed: , , ) is an Indo-European language and an independent branch of that family of languages. It is the official language of Armenia. Historically spoken in the Armenian Highlands, today Armenian is widely spoken t ...
, the digraph '' ու'' transcribes , a convention that comes from Greek.


Georgian

The Georgian alphabet uses a few digraphs to write other languages. For example, in Svan, is written ჳე , and as ჳი .


Greek

Modern Greek Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
has the following digraphs: *''αι'' (''ai'') represents *''ει'' (''ei'') represents *''οι'' (''oi'') represents *''ου'' (''oy'') represents *''υι'' (''yi'') represents They are called "diphthongs" in Greek; in classical times, most of them represented
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 ...
s, and the name has stuck. *''γγ'' (''gg'') represents or *''τσ'' (''ts'') represents the affricate *''τζ'' (''tz'') represents the affricate *Initial ''γκ'' (''gk'') represents *Initial ''μπ'' (''mp'') represents *Initial ''ντ'' (''nt'') represents
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
also had the "diphthongs" listed above although their pronunciation in ancient times is disputed. In addition, Ancient Greek also used the letter γ combined with a velar stop to produce the following digraphs: *''γγ'' (''gg'') represents *''γκ'' (''gk'') represents *''γχ'' (''gkh'') represents Tsakonian has a few additional digraphs: *''ρζ'' (''rz'') (historically perhaps a fricative trill) *''κχ'' (''kkh'') represents *''τθ'' (''tth'') represents *''πφ'' (''pph'') represents *''σχ'' (''skh'') represents In addition,
palatal consonant Palatals are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex. Characterist ...
s are indicated with the vowel letter ''ι'', which is, however, largely predictable. When and are not palatalized before ''ι'', they are written ''νν'' and ''λλ''. In Bactrian, the digraphs ''ββ'', ''δδ'', and ''γγ'' were used for , , and respectively.


Hebrew

In the
Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewis ...
, and may sometimes be found for . Modern Hebrew also uses digraphs made with the symbol for non-native sounds: , , ; and other digraphs of letters when it is written without vowels: for a consonantal letter in the middle of a word, and for or , etc., that is, a consonantal letter in places where it might not have been expected.
Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
has its own tradition of transcription and so uses different digraphs for some of the same sounds: , , , and (literally '')'' for , , also available as a single
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, whi ...
character , or as a single character in Unicode , or , and . The single-character digraphs are called " ligatures" in Unicode. may also be used following a consonant to indicate palatalization in Slavic loanwords.


Indic

Most Indic scripts have compound vowel
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s that cannot be predicted from their individual elements. That can be illustrated with Thai in which the diacritic เ, pronounced alone , modifies the pronunciation of other vowels: : In addition, the combination รร is pronounced or , there are some words in which the combinations ทร and ศร stand for and the letter ห, as a prefix to a consonant, changes its tonic class to high, modifying the tone of the syllable.


Inuit

Inuktitut syllabics adds two digraphs to Cree: ;''rk'' for ''q'': ᙯ ''qai'', ᕿ ''qi'', ᖁ ''qu'', ᖃ ''qa'', ᖅ ''q'' and ;''ng'' for ''ŋ'': ᖕ ''ng'' The latter forms trigraphs and tetragraphs.


CJK Characters


Chinese

Several combinations of
Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the Written Chinese, writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are ...
(Hanzi) formed from two or more different characters that known as digraphs.


Japanese

Two
kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters ( kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most p ...
may be combined into a '' C V'' syllable by subscripting the second; the convention cancels the vowel of the first. That is commonly done for ''CyV'' syllables called '' yōon'', as in ひょ (ひ) ''hyo'' . They are not digraphs since they retain the normal sequential reading of the two glyphs. However, some obsolete sequences no longer retain that reading, as in くゎ ''kwa,'' ぐゎ ''gwa,'' and むゎ ''mwa,'' now pronounced ''ka, ga, ma''. In addition, non-sequenceable digraphs are used for foreign loans that do not follow normal Japanese assibilation patterns, such as ティ ''ti'', トゥ ''tu'', チェ ''tye / che'', スェ ''swe'', ウィ ''wi'', ツォ ''tso'', ズィ ''zi''. (See
katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derive ...
and
transcription into Japanese In contemporary Japanese writing, foreign-language loanwords and foreign names are normally written in the katakana script, which is one component of the Japanese writing system. As far as possible, sounds in the source language are matched to ...
for complete tables.) Long vowels are written by adding the kana for that vowel, in effect doubling it. However, long ''ō'' may be written either ''oo'' or ''ou'', as in とうきょう ''toukyou'' 'Tōkyō'. For dialects that do not distinguish ''ē'' and ''ei'', the latter spelling is used for a long ''e'', as in へいせい ''heisei'' ' Heisei'. In loanwords, '' chōonpu'', a line following the direction of the text, as in ビール ''bīru'' ''bīru'' 'beer'. With the exception of syllables starting with ''n'', doubled consonant sounds are written by prefixing a smaller version of ''tsu'' (written っ and ッ in hiragana and katakana respectively), as in きって ''kitte'' 'stamp'. Consonants beginning with n use the kana ''n'' character (written ん or ン) as a prefix instead. There are several conventions of Okinawan kana that involve subscript digraphs or ligatures. For instance, in the University of the Ryukyu's system, ウ is , ヲ is , but ヲゥ (ヲ) is .


Korean

As was the case in Greek, Korean has vowels descended from diphthongs that are still written with two letters. Those digraphs, ㅐ and ㅔ (also ㅒ , ㅖ ), and in some dialects ㅚ and ㅟ , all end in historical ㅣ .
Hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The l ...
was designed with a digraph series to represent the " muddy" consonants: ㅃ , ㄸ , ㅉ , ㄲ , ㅆ , ㆅ ; also ᅇ, with an uncertain value. Those values are now obsolete, but most of the doubled letters were resurrected in the 19th century to write consonants that did not exist when hangul was devised: ㅃ , ㄸ , ㅉ , ㄲ , ㅆ .


Ligatures and new letters

Digraphs sometimes come to be written as a single ligature. Over time, the ligatures may evolve into new letters or letters with diacritics. For example sz became ß in German, and "nn" became ñ in Spanish.


In Unicode

Generally, a digraph is simply represented using two characters in
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, whi ...
. However, for various reasons, Unicode sometimes provides a separate code point for a digraph, encoded as a single character. The DZ and IJ digraphs and the Serbian/Croatian digraphs DŽ, LJ, and NJ have separate code points in Unicode. : See also Ligatures in Unicode.


See also

*
Multigraph (orthography) A multigraph (or pleongraph) is a sequence of letters that behaves as a unit and is not the sum of its parts, such as English or French . The term is infrequently used, as the number of letters is usually specified: * Digraph (two letters, as o ...
* Trigraph * Tetragraph * Pentagraph * Hexagraph *
Bigram A bigram or digram is a sequence of two adjacent elements from a string of tokens, which are typically letters, syllables, or words. A bigram is an ''n''-gram for ''n''=2. The frequency distribution of every bigram in a string is commonly used fo ...
*
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 ...
* List of Latin letters * Digraph (programming)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Digraph (Orthography) 2