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 or ) * Trigraph (three letters, as or ) *

Tetragraph A tetragraph (from the el, τετρα-, ''tetra-'', "four" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a sequence of four letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds, that do not necessarily correspond to the indi ...

(four letters, as German ) *

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 ...

(five letters) *

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 ...

(six letters) *

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 ...

(seven letters) Combinations longer than tetragraphs are unusual. The German pentagraph has largely been replaced by , remaining only in

proper name A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa'', ''Jupiter'', '' Sarah'', ''Microsoft)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...

s such as or . Except for doubled trigraphs like German , hexagraphs are found only in

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

vowels, where the outside letters indicate whether the neighboring consonant is "

broad Broad(s) or The Broad(s) may refer to: People * A slang term for a woman. * Broad (surname), a surname Places * Broad Peak, on the border between Pakistan and China, the 12th highest mountain on Earth * The Broads, a network of mostly na ...

" or " slender". However, these sequences are not predictable. The hexagraph , for example, where the and mark the consonants as broad, represents the same sound (approximately the vowel in English ''write'') as the trigraph , and with the same effect on neighboring consonants. The seven-letter German sequence , used to transliterate Ukrainian , as in for "

borscht Borscht () is a sour soup common in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. In English, the word "borscht" is most often associated with the soup's variant of Ukraine, Ukrainian origin, made with red beetroots as one of the main ingredients, wh ...

", is a sequence of a trigraph and a tetragraph rather than a heptagraph. Likewise, the Juu languages have been claimed to have a heptagraph , but this is also a sequence, of and . Beyond the Latin alphabet,

Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...

uses hexagraphs for several punctuation marks, and the dollar sign is a heptagraph, . Longer sequences are considered ligatures, and are transcribed as such in the Latin alphabet.

See also