This is a list of digraphs used in various
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...
s. In the list,
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 ''diacrit ...
s are arranged 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 ...
according to their base, e.g. 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.
Capitalisation
Capitalization ( North American spelling; also British spelling in Oxford) or capitalisation (Commonwealth English; all other meanings) is writing a word with its first letter as a capital letter (uppercase letter) and the remaining letters in ...
only involves the first letter ( becomes ) unless otherwise stated ( becomes in
Dutch, and
digraphs marking
eclipsis in
Irish, are capitalised on the second letter, i.e. becomes ).
Apostrophe
Source:
(capital ) is used in
Bari
Bari ( ; ; ; ) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia Regions of Italy, region, on the Adriatic Sea in southern Italy. It is the first most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy. It is a port and ...
for .
(capital ) is used in Bari for .
is used in
the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for
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 for the
glottalized or
creaky-voiced vowel .
is used in
Dutch,
Finnish and other languages with phonemic long vowels for . It was
formerly used in Danish and Norwegian (and still is in some proper names) for or (in Danish), until it was replaced with . There is a ligature . In
Cantonese
Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
romanisations such as
Jyutping
The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme, also known as Jyutping, is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed in 1993 by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK).
The name ''Jyutping'' (itself the Jyutping ro ...
or
Yale
Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...
, it is used for , contrasting with .
is used in
Irish for between two "broad" (
velarized) consonants, e.g. "a
Gael".
: In
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, originally represented the
diphthong
A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, 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 ...
, before it was
monophthong
A monophthong ( ) is a pure vowel sound, or one whose articulation at beginning and end is relatively fixed, with the tongue moving neither up nor down and neither forward nor backward towards a new position of articulation. A monophthong can be ...
ized in the
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Colloquial, Popular, Spoken or Vernacular Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. ''Vulgar Latin'' a ...
period to ; in medieval manuscripts, the digraph was frequently replaced by the
ligature Ligature may refer to:
Language
* Ligature (writing), a combination of two or more letters into a single symbol (typography and calligraphy)
* Ligature (grammar), a morpheme that links two words
Medicine
* Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture us ...
.
: In Modern English, Latin loanwords with are generally pronounced with (e.g. ''Caesar''), prompting
Noah Webster
Noah Webster (October 16, 1758 – May 28, 1843) was an American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and author. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education" ...
to shorten this to in his 1806
spelling reform for
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...
.
: In
German, is a variant of found in some proper names or in contexts where is unavailable.
: In
Dutch, is an old spelling variant of but now only occurs in names of people or (less often) places and in a few loanwords from Greek and Latin.
: In
Zhuang, represents ( represents ).
: In
Revised Romanization of Korean
Revised Romanization of Korean () is the official Romanization of Korean, Korean language romanization system in South Korea. It was developed by the National Institute of Korean Language, National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and w ...
, represents .
is used in
Portuguese for stressed when in the final syllable, e.g. ''mãe'' and ''capitães'' .
is used in
Taa for breathy or
murmured
Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like s ...
. In
German and
English it typically represents a
long vowel
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived or actual duration of a vowel sound when pronounced. Vowels perceived as shorter are often called short vowels and those perceived as longer called long vowels.
On one hand, many languages do not d ...
.
is used in many languages, typically representing the diphthong . In
English, due to the
Great Vowel Shift, it represents as in ''pain'' and ''rain'', while in unstressed syllables it may represent , e.g. ''bargain'' and ''certain(ly)''. In
French, it represents . In Irish and it represents between a broad and a slender consonant. In
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
, it represents or between a broad and a slender consonant, except when preceding word-final or pre-consonant (e.g. , or pre-consonant (e.g. . In the
Kernowek Standard 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 or .
is used in Irish for between a broad and a slender consonant.
is used in Scottish Gaelic for or sometimes , between a broad and a slender consonant.
is used in modern
Portuguese for stressed before consonants, although it is very rare since this diphthong is usually found stressed only at the end of words and therefore spelt as . Alas, it is currently found in some words such as ''cãibra'' . In 1931, in
European Portuguese
European Portuguese (, ), also known as Lusitanian Portuguese () or as the Portuguese (language) of Portugal (), refers to the dialects of the Portuguese language spoken in Portugal. The word "European" was chosen to avoid the clash of "Portugues ...
's orthography, it replaced in all its occurrences due to a small orthographic reform, but this change was soon reverted in 1945 as part of an orthographic agreement with Brazil to match
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese (; ; also known as pt-BR) is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of Portuguese language native to Brazil. It is spoken by almost all of the 203 million inhabitants of Brazil and widely across the Brazilian diaspora ...
's orthography, which still kept .
is used in Portuguese for in past verb conjugations word finally, before a consonant, and before a vowel. In French, it represents in lieu of before .
is used in Portuguese 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 /ɑ̃/ () or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are p ...
. In Portuguese it is used for before a consonant. In French it represents ( before a vowel). In
Breton it represents .
is used in
Hokkien
Hokkien ( , ) is a Varieties of Chinese, variety of the Southern Min group of Chinese language, Chinese languages. Native to and originating from the Minnan region in the southeastern part of Fujian in southeastern China, it is also referred ...
Pe̍h-ōe-jī
( ; , , ; POJ), also known as Church Romanization, is an orthography used to write variants of Hokkien Southern Min, particularly Taiwanese Hokkien, Taiwanese and Amoy dialect, Amoy Hokkien, and it is widely employed as one of the writing syst ...
for .
is used in Portuguese 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 many languages, such as
Piedmontese and
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, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
, to represent . In
Irish, it represents ( in
Munster
Munster ( or ) is the largest of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the south west of the island. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" (). Following the Nor ...
) between broad consonants. In
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
, it represents between broad consonants. In
French, it is found in a few words such as representing and as representing . In
Malagasy, it represents . In
Wymysorys, it represents .
is used in
Portuguese for , but only when it appears stressed, since unstressed is spelt word finally, this distinction usually happens in verb conjugations. E.g. ''eles fizeram'' "they made", and ''eles farão'' "they will make".
is used in
Taa, for the
pharyngealized
Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound.
IPA symbols
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicate ...
vowel .
is used in
English for . It occasionally represents , as in ''flautist''. Other pronunciations are or (depending on dialect) in ''aunt'' and ''laugh'', in ''gauge'', in ''gauche'' and ''chauffeur'', and as in ''
meerschaum'' and ''restaurant''.
: In
German and
Dutch, it represents and , respectively ( in some northern and in some southern Dutch and some Flemish dialects).
: In
French, it represents or sometimes .
: In
Icelandic and
Norwegian it represents and , respectively.
: In several
Romanizations of Wu Chinese, it represents .
: In the
Cornish Kernowek Standard, it is used for , as in "cabbage" or "to dance".
is used in
German for the diphthong in declension of native words with ; elsewhere, is written as . In words, mostly of Latin origin, where and are separated by a syllable boundary, it represents , e.g. (a German form for ''
Matthew'').
is used in
English in ways that parallel English , though it appears more often at the end of a word.
In
Cornish, it represents or .
In
Welsh, it represents .
is used in English in ways that parallel , though it appears more often at the end of a word. In French, it represents before a vowel (as in ) and before a consonant (as in ). In
Cornish, it represents , , , or .
(a
split digraph) is used in English for .
B
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
for in languages such as
Yi, where stands for . It was used in
Portuguese until 1911 in European orthography and 1943 in Brazillian orthography. It had the same sound as . Was used only for etymological purposes. In
Hungarian, it represents
geminated
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
. In English, doubling a letter indicates that the previous vowel is short (so represents ). In ISO romanized
Korean, it is used for the fortis sound , otherwise spelled ; e.g.
hobbang. In
Hadza it represents the 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 number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated (depending on the delineation of language vs. dialect) at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages (according to SI ...
for the .
is used in transcriptions of
Indo-Aryan languages for a
murmured
Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like s ...
voiced bilabial plosive (), 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 transcri ...
aspirated plosive . It is used in
Irish to represent (beside ) and (beside ), word-initially it marks the
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...
of , e.g. "my boat", "would be". In
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
, it represents , or in a few contexts as between a broad vowel and a broad consonant or between two broad vowels, as in . 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 script, Adlam: , , ; Ajami script, Ajami: , , ), is a Senegambian languages, Senegambian language spoken by arou ...
) for the
voiced bilabial implosive , 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 represents either or (in any position); (before a consonant or finally); or (before a vowel); examples are ('mother') or ('this').
is used in
Sandawe and romanized
Thai for . (capital ) is used in
Irish, as the
eclipsis of , to represent (beside ) and (beside ).
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for the
voiced labiodental affricate .
is used in
Shona for a
whistled sibilant cluster .
C
was formerly used in Spanish-based spelling systems for
Quechua and
Aymara for the sound , as in ''Ccozcco'' (modern ''Qusqu'') ('
Cuzco'). 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 approximately as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction th ...
represents a geminated , as in . In
Piedmontese and
Lombard, represents the sound at the end of a word. In
Hadza it is the glottalized click . In English
crip slang, can sometimes replace the letters or at the ends of words, such as with ''thicc'', ''protecc'', ''succ'' and ''fucc''.
was used for or in Old English ( in Old English sounded like 'edge' in Modern English, while sounded like 'froga'), where both are
long consonants. It is used for the click in
Naro
Naro ( ) is a ''comune'' in the province of Agrigento, on the island of Sicily, Italy. It is bounded by the comuni of Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Camastra, Campobello di Licata, Canicattì, Castrofilippo, Delia, Favara, Licata, Palma di ...
, and in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless dental click .
is used in several languages. In English, it can represent , , , or . See article.
is used in
Manx for , such as in the word , meaning speech, 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, 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 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 . It's also used in local orthographies of
Lombard to represent derived from Latin .
is used in many
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, 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 spoke ...
in lieu of or to indicate either a
geminated
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
, or a with a preceding (historically)
short vowel
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived or actual duration of a vowel sound when pronounced. Vowels perceived as shorter are often called short vowels and those perceived as longer called long vowels.
On one hand, many languages do not ...
. 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, it was replaced by for syllabification. The new spelling rules allow only syllabification of the as a whole:
:*Old spelling: : ('sacks')
:*New spelling: :
:Among the modern Germanic languages, is used mainly in
Alsatian,
English,
German,
Luxembourgish
Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide.
The language is standardized and officiall ...
,
Scots,
Swedish, and other
West Germanic languages
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic languages, Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic languages, North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages, East Germ ...
in
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
and
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
. Similarly, is used for the same purpose in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
,
Danish,
Dutch,
Icelandic,
Norwegian, and other West Germanic languages in the
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
and
Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
. 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; it has 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 slo ...
'' in English and Swedish, ''
Nickel
Nickel is a chemical element; it has 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 slo ...
'' 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 (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 (SWF),
more widely in
Kernowek Standard.
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 invertebrates found both in fresh water, freshwater and marine environments (predominantly the latter), including jellyfish, hydroid (zoology), hydroids, ...
''. When not initial, it represents , as in ''acne''. It is used in
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
for , and nasalises the following vowel, as in .
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 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 , , (formerly ...
, . It is considered a distinct letter, named , 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 include ('only'), ('cup'), ('pipe'), ('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
Portuguese for in some words, e.g. but not in .
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 Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...
(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 (dia ...
) 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 (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...
as
an unofficial surrogate of , which represents .
is used in
Polish for as in ('hello'). In
Kashubian, represents . In
French and
Catalan, historical contracted to the
ligature Ligature may refer to:
Language
* Ligature (writing), a combination of two or more letters into a single symbol (typography and calligraphy)
* Ligature (grammar), a morpheme that links two words
Medicine
* Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture us ...
, which represents when followed by . In
Hungarian, it was formerly used for the sound , which is now written . In
English, is used to represent in the
loanword
A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
s ''Czech'', and ''Czechia''.
D
is used in
Naro
Naro ( ) is a ''comune'' in the province of Agrigento, on the island of Sicily, Italy. It is bounded by the comuni of Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Camastra, Campobello di Licata, Canicattì, Castrofilippo, Delia, Favara, Licata, Palma di ...
for the click , and in
Juǀʼhoan for the
prevoiced ejective .
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 Engl ...
. It is treated as a distinct letter, named , 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, it is used for the fortis sound , otherwise spelled ; examples are and . In
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
, it represents a
voiced palatal plosive
The voiced palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a barred dotless that was initially created by turning the type for a ...
, as in "mushroom". In several African languages it is implosive .
Latin delta
Latin delta (ẟ, lower-case only) is a latin alphabet, Latin letter similar in appearance to the Greek alphabet, Greek lowercase letter delta (letter), delta (δ), but derived from the handwritten Latin lowercase d. It is also known as "script d" ...
(ẟ, lowercase only) is represented by "dd" in
Modern Welsh.
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 Engl ...
. 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 Treaty ...
, 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: ) is a Latin script letter that 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'', Ᵹ ...
), and later , were used for this purpose.
Edward Lhuyd is credited for introducing the grapheme to Cornish orthography in 1707 in his ''Archaeologia Britannica''. In
Irish it represents (beside ) or (beside ); at the beginning of a word it shows the
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...
of , e.g. "my door" (cf. "door"). In
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
it represents (beside ) or or (beside ).
:In the
pre-1985 orthography of Guinea, was used for the
voiced alveolar implosive in
Pular. It is currently written . In the orthography of
Shona it is the opposite: represents , and . In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, represents a dental stop, .
:In addition, is used in various romanization systems. In transcriptions of
Indo-Aryan languages, for example, it represents the
murmured
Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like s ...
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
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic s ...
, 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 transcri ...
aspirated plosive . In the
romanization of Arabic
The romanization of Arabic is the systematic rendering of Modern Standard Arabic, written and varieties of Arabic, spoken Arabic language, Arabic in the Latin script. Romanized Arabic is used for various purposes, among them transcription of na ...
, it denotes , which represents in
Modern Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA) is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in some usages al ...
.
: Represents in Javanese and Somali.
is used in
Faroese,
Portuguese,
French and many French-based orthographies for . In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages 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’s
Romanized Popular Alphabet for . In
Navajo
The Navajo or Diné are an Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language.
The states with the largest Diné populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (1 ...
, it represents , and in
Xhosa it represents . In
Hadza it is ejective .
is used in
Tlingit 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 ('head') or ('heads').
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated .
is used for the click in
Naro
Naro ( ) is a ''comune'' in the province of Agrigento, on the island of Sicily, Italy. It is bounded by the comuni of Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Camastra, Campobello di Licata, Canicattì, Castrofilippo, Delia, Favara, Licata, Palma di ...
.
is used in
Malagasy for . See . It is used in
Fijian for 'ndr' nasalized (). In some Amerindian languages it represents as in Gwichʼin and sporatically everywhere as in Paiwan and Maba
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
prevoiced ejective .
is used in
German,
Swedish, and
Sandawe orthography as well as the romanization of
Thai for . (capital ) is used in
Irish, as the
eclipsis of , to represent (beside ) and (beside ).
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for the
voiced dental affricate .
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 ...
for a
voiced postalveolar fricative
The voiced postalveolar or palato-alveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiced postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describe ...
. (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 transcri ...
uvularized plosive .
is used in
Xhosa for . In
Shona, it represents . In
Tagalog it is used for . In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages 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 and
Sorbian alphabets for , the
voiced alveolo-palatal affricate, as in . is never written before a
vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
( is used instead, as in 'child').
is used in the
Polish for a
voiced retroflex affricate (e.g. 'jam').
is used in
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...
,
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 that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
s. In
English, usually represents the monophthong as in ''meat''; due to a
sound change
In historical linguistics, a sound change 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 chan ...
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 ( , )"ealdorman"
''Collins English Dictionary''. was an office in the Government ...
''. When followed by , 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 ('drunk female'). In
Irish, represents between a slender and a broad consonant. In
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
, represents , or between a slender and a broad context, depending on context or dialect. In
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
, it represents the diphthong . is also the transliteration of the rune of the
Anglo-Frisian Futhorc.
is used in
Irish for between a slender and a broad consonant.
is used in
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
for between a slender and a broad consonant.
is used in
Irish for between a slender and a broad consonant.
is used in
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
for between a slender and a broad consonant, unless the broad consonant is m, mh, or p, in which case it represents .
represents a long mid vowel in a number of languages. In
English, represents as in ''teen''. In
Dutch and
German, represents (though it is pronounced in majority of northern Dutch dialects). In the
Cantonese Romanisation, 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
Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like s ...
vowel . In the
Wade-Giles transliteration of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
, it is used for after a consonant, as in ''yeh'' . In
German, represents , as in .
This digraph was taken over from
Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; or ; , shortened as ''Mhdt.'' or ''Mhd.'') is the term for the form of High German, High German language, German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High ...
, where it represented . It usually represents a
diphthong
A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, 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 ...
. In
Modern German
New High German (NHG; ) 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 of the period is the developme ...
, 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, 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 (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
, it represents or , or when unstressed, before a slender consonant. In
Dutch and
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
, represents . In
French, represents , as in .
In
Hepburn romanization
is the main system of Romanization of Japanese, romanization for the Japanese language. The system was originally published in 1867 by American Christian missionary and physician James Curtis Hepburn as the standard in the first edition of h ...
of the
Japanese language
is the principal language of the Japonic languages, Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese dia ...
it is used to transcribe the sound .
is used in
French for , as in .
is used in
Irish for between slender consonants.
is used in
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
for or between slender consonants.
is used in
Swedish in some short words, such as or .
is used in
Portuguese for at the end of a word and before a consonant. In French orthography, it represents a when it is followed by or .
is used in
Portuguese for at the end of a word.
is used in
Portuguese for at the end of a word.
is used in
Portuguese for at the end of a word and before a consonant.
is used in
Portuguese for at the end of a word followed or not by an as in or ; and for before a consonant within a word. In
French, it represents or .
is used in
Portuguese for before a consonant.
is used in
Portuguese for before a consonant.
is used in
Irish for ( in 4 words) between a slender and a broad consonant. In Scottish Gaelic it is used for between a slender and a broad consonant. In the
Jyutping
The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme, also known as Jyutping, is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed in 1993 by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK).
The name ''Jyutping'' (itself the Jyutping ro ...
romanization of
Cantonese
Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
, it represents , an allophone of , while in the
Cantonese Romanisation, it represents . In the
Revised Romanization of Korean
Revised Romanization of Korean () is the official Romanization of Korean, Korean language romanization system in South Korea. It was developed by the National Institute of Korean Language, National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and w ...
, 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 Speech communication, spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , graphically a rot ...
, and in
Piedmontese it is . In
English is a rare digraph without a single pronunciation, representing in ''
feoff'', ''jeopardy'', ''leopard'' and the given names ''Geoffrey'' and ''Leonard'', in ''people'', in ''
yeoman
Yeoman is a noun originally referring either to one who owns and cultivates land or to the middle ranks of Serfdom, servants in an Peerage of England, English royal or noble household. The term was first documented in Kingdom of England, mid-1 ...
'' 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 or geodetics is the science of measuring and representing the Figure of the Earth, geometry, Gravity of Earth, gravity, and Earth's rotation, spatial orientation of the Earth in Relative change, temporally varying Three-dimensional spac ...
'', and, uniquely, in ''
geoduck''.
is used in
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
for word-initially, and elsewhere.
is used in
Taa for the
pharyngealized
Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound.
IPA symbols
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicate ...
vowel .
is found in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
s, most commonly for the diphthong . Additionally, in
English, represents as in ''neuter'' ( in yod-dropping accents); however, the in "maneuver/manoeuvre" always represents even in most non yod-dropping accents. In
German, it represents as in ; and in
French,
Dutch,
Breton, and
Piedmontese, it represents . In
Cornish, it represents either long and short or long and short .
In
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
it normally represents , as in , except when preceding (e.g. ) and usually , or in certain high-register words such as where it represents , and in southern dialects it is in most contexts. In
Yale romanization of Cantonese
The Yale romanization of Cantonese was developed by Yale scholar 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 romaniz ...
it represents , while in the
Cantonese Romanisation, it represents . In romanization of
Wu Chinese
, region = Shanghai, Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu, parts of Anhui and Jiangxi provinces; overseas and migrant communities
, ethnicity = Wu
, speakers = million
, date = 2021
, ref = e27
, fa ...
, it represents , depending on the lect. In
Sundanese and
Acehnese, it represents as in ('red'). In the
Revised Romanization of Korean
Revised Romanization of Korean () is the official Romanization of Korean, Korean language romanization system in South Korea. It was developed by the National Institute of Korean Language, National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and w ...
, it represents .
is used in
French for , as in .
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 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
Hokkien ( , ) is a Varieties of Chinese, variety of the Southern Min group of Chinese language, Chinese languages. Native to and originating from the Minnan region in the southeastern part of Fujian in southeastern China, it is also referred ...
Pe̍h-ōe-jī
( ; , , ; POJ), also known as Church Romanization, is an orthography used to write variants of Hokkien Southern Min, particularly Taiwanese Hokkien, Taiwanese and Amoy dialect, Amoy Hokkien, and it is widely employed as one of the writing syst ...
.
F
, which may be written as the
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 and used in English and French, in which the letters and are joined for the first ligature ...
, 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 ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...
reasons, in
latinism
A Latinism (from ) 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 language directly from ...
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.
is used in
Irish and
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
for the
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...
of . This happens to be silent, so that in Gaelic corresponds to no sound at all, e.g. the Irish phrase "how long", where is the lenited form of "long". However, in three Scottish Gaelic words, , , and , it is pronounced as .
is used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized .
G
is used in
Uzbek to represent .
is used in some
African languages
The number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated (depending on the delineation of language vs. dialect) at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages (according to SI ...
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 voicelessness, voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, i ...
, .
is used in languages, such as
Xhosa and
Zulu, for the click . (capital ) is used in
Irish, as the
eclipsis of , to represent (beside ) and (beside ).
is used in
French for before as in .
is used in
English for before , and (e.g. ''doggy''). It is also used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
for in languages such as
Yi. In
Central Alaskan Yup'ik, it represents . In
Greenlandic, it represents . In the ISO romanization of
Korean, 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 approximately as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction th ...
represents a geminated , as in . 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 . In
Romansh it represents before (written 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 approximately as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction th ...
s).
is used in
Albanian for the
voiced palatal plosive
The voiced palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a barred dotless that was initially created by turning the type for a ...
, though for
Gheg 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 Speech communication, spoken languages.
Some languages have the voiced pre-velar plosive, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulat ...
. In
Norwegian and
Swedish represents in words like ('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 ( ) 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 countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
. 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 ( sr-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sr-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing all ...
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 ( or ; ; also Limburgian, Limburgic or Limburgan) refers to a group of South Low Franconian Variety (linguistics), varieties spoken in Belgium and the Netherlands, characterized by their distance to, and limited participation ...
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 spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, where it represented in the classical period. Latin
velar-
coronal sequences like this (and also ) underwent a
palatal mutation to varying degrees in most
Italo-Western Romance languages
The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...
. 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 bottom ...
(or more precisely in Italian), and is similarly used in
Romanization
In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...
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. The group comprises the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian), the Aromanian language and two other related minor languages, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian.
The extinct Dalmat ...
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 Portuguese, represents , as if there was no , e.g. , , and . It is used in
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
for , and nasalises the following vowel, as in .
: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 , and between two syllables, . Initially, it represents , e.g. Swedish .
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, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
.
is used in
Piedmontese for (like the “gu” in
Guatemala
Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...
).
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), formerly called by the dialect name ǂHoan, thus also known as Western ǂHoan, is a Tuu language notable for its large number of phonemes, perhaps the largest in the world. ...
, it represents .
is used in
Xhosa for .
is used in
English,
Spanish,
French,
Portuguese 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,
Catalan and formely
Portuguese for before front vowels where the digraph would otherwise represent .
is used for in
Standard Zhuang
Standard Zhuang ( autonym: , ; pre-1982 autonym: ; 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 ...
and in
Bouyei. In the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages 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 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 (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...
, it is
an unofficial surrogate of , which represents .
is used in
Hungarian for a
voiced palatal plosive
The voiced palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a barred dotless that was initially created by turning the type for a ...
. In Hungarian, the letter's name is . It is considered a single letter, and
acronym
An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...
s keep the digraph intact. The letter appears frequently in Hungarian words, such as the word for "Hungarian" itself: . In the old orthography of
Bouyei, it was used for . It is also commonly used in
Burmese romanization schemes to represent .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
voiced alveolar click .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
voiced dental click .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
voiced lateral click .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
voiced palatal click .
H
is used in
Xhosa to write the
murmured glottal fricative , though this is often written . In the
Iraqw language, is the
voiceless epiglottal fricative , and in
Chipewyan
The Chipewyan ( , also called ''Denésoliné'' or ''Dënesųłı̨né'' or ''Dënë Sųłınë́'', meaning "the original/real people") are a Dene group of Indigenous Canadian people belonging to the Athabaskan language family, whose ancest ...
it is a velar/uvular . In
Esperanto orthography
Esperanto is written in a Latin-script alphabet of twenty-eight letters, with upper and lower case. This is supplemented by punctuation marks and by various logograms, such as the Numerical digit, digits 0–9, currency signs such as $ € ¥ £ ...
, 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 used to write
Hmong () and
Icelandic (). See also
reduction of Old English /hl/.
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet used to write
Hmong, where it represents the sound .
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet used to write
Hmong, 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 ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
for the sound , equivalent to
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
.
is used primarily in the
Classical Nahuatl
Classical Nahuatl, also known simply as Aztec or Codical Nahuatl (if it refers to the variants employed in the Mesoamerican Codices through the medium of Aztec Hieroglyphs) and Colonial Nahuatl (if written in Post-conquest documents in the Lat ...
language, in which it represents the sound before a vowel; for example, ''Wikipedia'' in Nahuatl is written . After a vowel, is used. In the
Ossete Latin alphabet, was used for , similar to French . The sequence is also found in Spanish words such as or ; however, in Spanish this is not a digraph but a simple sequence of silent and the vowel .
is used
Faroese and
Icelandic for (often ), generally in
wh-words, but also in other words, such as Faroese . In the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages it is used for the supposed fricative .
is used in modern editions of
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
for , originally spelled or (the latter with the
wynn
Wynn or wyn (; also spelled wen, win, ƿynn, ƿyn, ƿen, and ƿin) is a letter of the Old English Latin alphabet, Old English alphabet, where it is used to represent the sound .
History The letter "W"
While the earliest Old English texts ...
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, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
for in languages such as
Yi ( alone represents the fricative ), and in
Nambikwara it is a
glottalized . In
Esperanto orthography
Esperanto is written in a Latin-script alphabet of twenty-eight letters, with upper and lower case. This is supplemented by punctuation marks and by various logograms, such as the Numerical digit, digits 0–9, currency signs such as $ € ¥ £ ...
, it is
an unofficial surrogate of , which represents .
is used in
Hepburn romanization
is the main system of Romanization of Japanese, romanization for the Japanese language. The system was originally published in 1867 by American Christian missionary and physician James Curtis Hepburn as the standard in the first edition of h ...
of the
Japanese language
is the principal language of the Japonic languages, Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese dia ...
to transcribe the sound , which is the syllable ''hi'' before a ''y''-vowel, such as ''hya'', ''hyu'', and ''hyo'', which appear in Chinese loanwords. Was also used in Portuguese until 1947. It appeared in words like: Hydroginástica and Hypóthese.
I
is used in
Taa to represent the
glottalized or
creaky vowel .
is used in
Irish and
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
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 , 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 and
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
, represents the
tense vowel . In
German, it may represent the lengthened vowel as in (love) as well as the vowel combination as in (Belgium). In
Latvian and
Lithuanian, 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 Englis ...
, or . In
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
it is used to write the vowel in languages such as
Yi, where stands for . In
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
was one of the common diphthongs, the
umlauted version of and . Its value is not entirely clear, and in Middle English it had become .
is used in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
for .
is used in
Catalan for (ch as in cheese) in the
coda.
, is used in
Taa to represent the breathy or
murmured
Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like s ...
vowel . It is also used in
Tongyong Pinyin
Tongyong Pinyin was the official romanization of Taiwanese Mandarin, 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. ...
and
Wade-Giles transcription for the fricative vowels of Mandarin Chinese, which are spelled in
Hanyu Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means ' Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin'' literally ...
.
is used in many languages such as Portuguese (e.g. Aniilar, Sacerdócii) and Finnish (e.g. Riikka, Niinistö, Siitala, Riikkeli), Italian (e.g. Riina), Estonian (e.g. Riik), Scots (e.g. Auld Nii, Iisay), with phonemic long vowels for .
is used in
Portuguese for . In Portuguese, when forming the superlative absolute synthetic form of adjectives that end in "-io," they often end up with "ii" in the spelling. This happens because the "-íssimo(a)" suffix is added directly to the adjective (e.g. feio(a) -> feiíssimo(a), sério(a) -> seriíssimo(a)).
is used in
Dutch for . See article.
is used in
French for , historically , as in (approximately in
English) "garlic". Can also be written as as in .
is used in
Portuguese for .
is used in
Portuguese for before a consonant.
is used in
Portuguese for the diphthong .
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 /ɑ̃/ () or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are p ...
. In
Portuguese before a consonant, and in many
West Africa
West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...
n languages, it is , while in French it is .
is used in
Portuguese for before a consonant.
is used in
French to write a vowel sound that was once followed by a historical , as in "you came".
is used in
Lakota
Lakota may refer to:
*Lakota people, a confederation of seven related Native American tribes
*Lakota language
Lakota ( ), also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan languages, Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of ...
for the nasal vowel .
is used in
Irish for , , and between a slender and a broad consonant. In
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
it is used for and sometimes between a slender and a broad consonant.
is used in
Irish for between a slender and a broad consonant.
is used in
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
for and between a slender and a broad consonant.
is used in
Taa to represent the
pharyngealized
Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound.
IPA symbols
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicate ...
vowel .
is used in
Irish for between a slender and a broad consonant. In Scottish Gaelic, it is used for between a slender and a broad consonant. In Mandarin
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
, it is after a consonant. (In initial position, this is spelled ).
is used in
Irish for between a slender and a broad consonant.
is used in
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
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 Taiwanese Mandarin, 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. ...
, it represents , written in standard pinyin. is also the standard transliteration for the
Devanāgarī
Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient ''Brāhmī script, Brā ...
letter झ .
In
Esperanto
Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...
, it is
an official surrogate of , which represents . In
Latin American Spanish
The different dialects of the Spanish language spoken in the Americas are distinct from each other, as well as from those varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula and the Spanish Mediterranean islands—collectively known as Peninsular Spanish� ...
, it is sometimes used in first names (like
Jhon and Jhordan) to represent and distinguish it from the typical sound of in Spanish, .
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
for in languages such as
Yi. In romanized
Korean, 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, . 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 for .
is used in
Esperanto
Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...
as
an unofficial surrogate of , which represents .
K
is used in
Nuxalk for .
is used for in southern African languages such as
Setswana and
Sotho. For instance, the
Kalahari is spelled in Setswana.
, in transcriptions of
Indo-Aryan and
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian languages are a language family, family of languages spoken by 250 million people, primarily in South India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan, with pockets elsewhere in South Asia.
The most commonly spoken Dravidian l ...
, 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 ver ...
(). 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 , as well as the Hebrew letter
kaf () in instances when it is
lenited. When used for transcription of the letter () in
Sephardic Hebrew, it represents the
voiceless pharyngeal fricative
The voiceless pharyngeal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication, spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is an h with stroke, h-bar, , and the equivalent ...
. In Canadian
Tlingit 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 . 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 ...
, it represents .
is used in romanized
Korean for the
fortis
Fortis may refer to:
Business
* Fortis (Swiss watchmaker), a Swiss watch company
* Fortis Films, an American film and television production company founded by actress and producer Sandra Bullock
* Fortis Healthcare, a chain of hospitals in ...
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 number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated (depending on the delineation of language vs. dialect) at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages (according to SI ...
, where it represents a
voiceless labial-velar plosive .
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. Examples are , which are pronounced like a , with rounded lips, such as the labialized voiceless velar plosive and labialized voic ...
, and in
Dene Suline (Chipewyan) for . Used informally in English for
phonemic spelling 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. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...
.
is used in Alaskan
Tlingit for , which in Canada is written .
in used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized , and in
Juǀʼhoan for the
ejective .
is used in
Tibetan Pinyin for . It is commonly used in
Burmese romanization schemes to represent (⟨ch⟩ is already used to represent aspirated ).
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 o ...
,
Gallo, and
Portuguese, represents a
palatal lateral approximant . In many
Indigenous languages of the Americas
The Indigenous languages of the Americas are the languages that were used by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas before the arrival of non-Indigenous peoples. Over a thousand of these languages are still used today, while many more are now e ...
it represents a
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative . In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages it represents a dental lateral, . In the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh ( ; GR) is a system for writing Standard Chinese using the Latin alphabet. It was primarily conceived by Yuen Ren Chao (1892–1982), who led a group of linguists on the National Languages Committee in refining the system betwe ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
, initial indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in , which is otherwise spelled . In
Middle Welsh
Middle Welsh (, ) 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 ().
Literature and history
Middle Welsh is ...
it was sometimes used to represent the sound as well as , in
modern Welsh 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, officially the Chengguan District of Lhasa City, is the inner urban district of Lhasa (city), Lhasa City, Tibet Autonomous Region, Southwestern China.
Lhasa is the second most populous urban area on the Tibetan Plateau after Xining ...
''.
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 Ear ...
s, such as the Latin orthographies of
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...
, where it represents a
palatal lateral approximant . For example, the word is pronounced .
Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj (; born Ludwig Gay; ; 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 in Krapina ( ...
first used the digraph in 1830; he devised it by analogy with a
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic 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 countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
digraph, which developed into the
ligature Ligature may refer to:
Language
* Ligature (writing), a combination of two or more letters into a single symbol (typography and calligraphy)
* Ligature (grammar), a morpheme that links two words
Medicine
* Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture us ...
. In
Swedish, it represents in initial position e.g. .
: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
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus
*Czech (surnam ...
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 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. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is ch ...
, represents or . In English, it represents when final, as in ''lamb'' (see
reduction of /mb/). In
Standard Zhuang
Standard Zhuang ( autonym: , ; pre-1982 autonym: ; 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 ...
and in
Bouyei, is used for . (capital ) is used word initially in
Irish, as the
eclipsis of , to represent (beside ) and (beside ); e.g. "our boat" (cf. "boat"), "in Dublin".
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. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is ch ...
, represents or .
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
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 .
is used in
Irish, as the
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...
of , to represent (beside ) and (beside ), e.g. "my mother" (cf. 'mother'). In
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
, it represents , or in a few contexts as between a broad vowel and a broad consonant or between two broad vowels, as in .. 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 v ...
; 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
Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like s ...
. In the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh ( ; GR) is a system for writing Standard Chinese using the Latin alphabet. It was primarily conceived by Yuen Ren Chao (1892–1982), who led a group of linguists on the National Languages Committee in refining the system betwe ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
, initial - indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in , which is otherwise spelled -. In several languages, such as
Gogo, it's a voiceless .
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet used to write
Hmong, 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 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. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is ch ...
, represents or . Modern Greek uses the equivalent digraph
μ π for , as
β is used for . In
Mpumpong of
Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...
, is a plain .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for a
pharyngealized
Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound.
IPA symbols
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicate ...
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. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is ch ...
, 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, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
for in languages such as
Yi. It is also used in
Fula in Guinea for (written as in other countries).
is used in various alphabets. In the
Romanized Popular Alphabet used to write
Hmong, it represents the sound . In
Tharaka it is . In
Xhosa and
Zulu it represents the click .
(capital ) is used in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is ch ...
to represent or . In
Standard Zhuang
Standard Zhuang ( autonym: , ; pre-1982 autonym: ; 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 ...
and
Bouyei, itrepresents . (capital ) is used word initially in
Irish, as the
eclipsis of , to represent (beside ) and (beside ), e.g. "our door" (cf. "door"), "in
Derry
Derry, officially Londonderry, is the second-largest City status in the United Kingdom, city in Northern Ireland, and the fifth-largest on the island of Ireland. Located in County Londonderry, the city now covers both banks of the River Fo ...
".
, equivalent to for or . In
Rangi is while is .
, in
Sino-Tibetan languages
Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 ...
, as in
English and several other European and derived orthographies (for example
Vietnamese), generally represents the
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as eng, engma, or agma (from Greek '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 ''E ...
. It is considered a single letter in many
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...
(
Māori,
Tagalog,
Tongan,
Gilbertese,
Tuvaluan,
Indonesian,
Chamorro),
Welsh, and
Rheinische Dokumenta, for
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as eng, engma, or agma (from Greek '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 ''E ...
; and in some
African languages
The number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated (depending on the delineation of language vs. dialect) at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages (according to SI ...
(
Lingala
Lingala (or Ngala, Lingala: ) is a Bantu languages, Bantu language spoken in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the northern half of the Republic of the Congo, in their capitals, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, and to a lesser de ...
,
Bambara,
Wolof) for
prenasalized ().
:For the development of the pronunciation of this digraph in English, see
NG-coalescence and
G-dropping.
:
Finnish uses to represent the phonemically long
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as eng, engma, or agma (from Greek '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 ''E ...
in contrast to , 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 ...
, a type of
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...
. 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 ). The digraph is not an independent letter, but it is an exception to the
phonemic principle, one of the few in standard Finnish.
: (capital ) is used word-initially in
Irish, as the
eclipsis of , to represent (beside ) or (beside ), e.g. "our illness" (cf. ), "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 ...
, 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, became used for the velar nasal , while prenasalized came to be written . Furthermore, 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 .
: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 (, ) 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 o ...
(''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 and
Chamorro, where it represented the sound , as opposed to , which originally represented . An example is Chamorro (modern ) "to declare". Besides , variants of include (as in
Sagñay), , and a , 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, 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,
Slovenian and
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...
.
Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj (; born Ludwig Gay; ; 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 in Krapina ( ...
, 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 bottom ...
. For example, the Croatian and Serbian word "horse" is pronounced . The digraph was created in the 19th century by analogy with a digraph of
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic 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 countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
, which developed into the
ligature Ligature may refer to:
Language
* Ligature (writing), a combination of two or more letters into a single symbol (typography and calligraphy)
* Ligature (grammar), a morpheme that links two words
Medicine
* Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture us ...
. 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. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
and
Oceania
Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...
where it represents a
prenazalized voiced postalveolar affricate
The voiced palato-alveolar sibilant affricate, voiced post-alveolar affricate or voiced domed postalveolar sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic A ...
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 ...
, or . In
Malagasy, it represents .
:Other letters and digraphs of the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...
used for spelling this sound are (in
Polish), (in
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus
*Czech (surnam ...
and
Slovakian), (in
Spanish), (in
Portuguese 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 o ...
), (in
Italian and
French), and (in
Hungarian, among others).
is used in many
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, South ...
like
Lingala
Lingala (or Ngala, Lingala: ) is a Bantu languages, Bantu language spoken in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the northern half of the Republic of the Congo, in their capitals, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, and to a lesser de ...
,
Tshiluba, and
Kikongo, for or . In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages 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 to represent the
fortis nasals (beside ) and (beside ). It is used in
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
to represent beside and beside . In
Spanish historical has contracted to the
ligature Ligature may refer to:
Language
* Ligature (writing), a combination of two or more letters into a single symbol (typography and calligraphy)
* Ligature (grammar), a morpheme that links two words
Medicine
* Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture us ...
and represents the sound . In the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh ( ; GR) is a system for writing Standard Chinese using the Latin alphabet. It was primarily conceived by Yuen Ren Chao (1892–1982), who led a group of linguists on the National Languages Committee in refining the system betwe ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
, 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 ('head') or ('heads').
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet used to write
Hmong, where it represents the sound .
is used in various alphabets. In the
Romanized Popular Alphabet used to write
Hmong, it represents the sound . In
Xhosa and
Zulu it represents the click . In the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh ( ; GR) is a system for writing Standard Chinese using the Latin alphabet. It was primarily conceived by Yuen Ren Chao (1892–1982), who led a group of linguists on the National Languages Committee in refining the system betwe ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
, final ''-nq'' indicates a falling tone on a syllable ending in , which is otherwise spelled ''-ng''.
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet used to write
Hmong, where it represents the sound . In the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages it is .
, in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is ch ...
, represents or .
is a letter present in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is ch ...
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. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is ch ...
, 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 for a nasal lateral click with a velar consonant, velar rear articulation is or , commonly ...
.
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
palatal nasal click .
is used for medial in
Piedmontese.
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 pe ...
, 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
A bezoar stone ( ) is a mass often found trapped in the gastrointestinal system, though it can occur in other locations. A pseudobezoar is an indigestible object introduced intentionally into the digestive system.
There are several varieties o ...
''. The letters also represent two vowels, as in ''koala'' , ''
boas'' , ''
coaxial'' , ''oasis'' , and ''doable'' . In
Malagasy, it is occasionally used for .
is found in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
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 pronunciation of ''
Oedipus
Oedipus (, ; "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby bringing disaster to his city and family. ...
'', ''(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''. represents in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
and
Dutch, e.g. ; it also represented the same phoneme in the
Indonesian language
Indonesian (; ) is the official language, official and national language of Indonesia. It is a standard language, standardized variety (linguistics), variety of Malay language, Malay, an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language that has ...
before the
1972 spelling reform.
Ligature Ligature may refer to:
Language
* Ligature (writing), a combination of two or more letters into a single symbol (typography and calligraphy)
* Ligature (grammar), a morpheme that links two words
Medicine
* Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture us ...
d 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 romanization of
Wu Chinese
, region = Shanghai, Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu, parts of Anhui and Jiangxi provinces; overseas and migrant communities
, ethnicity = Wu
, speakers = million
, date = 2021
, ref = e27
, fa ...
and in
Royal Thai General System of Transcription
The Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS) is the official system for rendering Thai words in the Latin alphabet. It was published by the Royal Institute of Thailand in early 1917, when Thailand was called Siam.
It is used in roa ...
, it represents .
In the
ILE romanization of
Cantonese
Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
it represents the vowel , while in the
Jyutping
The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme, also known as Jyutping, is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed in 1993 by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK).
The name ''Jyutping'' (itself the Jyutping ro ...
romanisation of Cantonese it represents , and in
Zhuang it is used for ( is used for ). In
Piedmontese, it is . In the
Kernewek Kemmyn 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 , 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 languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
for the vowel .
is used in
Portuguese for . It is used in plural forms of some words ended in , such as – and –.
is used in
Taa, for the breathy or
murmured
Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like s ...
vowel .
is used in various
language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
s. In
English, it represents the sound as in ''coin'' and ''join''. In
French, it represents , which was historically – and still is in some cases – written . In
Irish it is used for between a broad and a slender consonant. In
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
it is used for , except before word-finally or pre-consonant, where it is . 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 , as in or .
is used in
Irish for between a broad and a slender consonant. It is also used in
Portuguese.
is used in
Piedmontese for . It is used in
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
for or
is used in
Portuguese for , and in French to write .
is used in
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese (; ; also known as pt-BR) is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of Portuguese language native to Brazil. It is spoken by almost all of the 203 million inhabitants of Brazil and widely across the Brazilian diaspora ...
for before a consonant.
is used in
Portuguese for before a consonant, and in French to write .
is used in
Portuguese 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 that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
s. In
English, it generally represents sounds which historically descend from the
Middle English pronunciation . After the
Great Vowel Shift, 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 , 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 pe ...
, the digraph's pronunciation is in most other languages. In
German and
Dutch, the digraph represents . In
Cornish, it represents either or . In
Tâi-lô orthography for
Taiwanese Hokkien
Taiwanese Hokkien ( , ), or simply Taiwanese, also known as Taigi ( zh, c=臺語, tl=Tâi-gí), Taiwanese Southern Min ( zh, c=臺灣閩南語, tl=Tâi-uân Bân-lâm-gí), Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively ...
, it represents .
Is used in
Taa, for the
pharyngealized
Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound.
IPA symbols
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicate ...
vowel .
, in
Daighi tongiong pingim, represents
mid central vowel
The mid central vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. A reduced mid central vowel is known as a schwa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents either sound is , a rotated lowercase letter e.
...
or
close-mid back rounded vowel in
Taiwanese Hokkien
Taiwanese Hokkien ( , ), or simply Taiwanese, also known as Taigi ( zh, c=臺語, tl=Tâi-gí), Taiwanese Southern Min ( zh, c=臺灣閩南語, tl=Tâi-uân Bân-lâm-gí), Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively ...
.
[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 or a vowel glide, 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 ...
, as in ''out'' . This spelling is generally used before consonants, with being used instead before vowels and at the ends of words. Occasionally 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 in ''out'' originally represented , as in French, and its pronunciation has mostly changed as part of the
Great Vowel Shift. However, the sound was kept before .
In
Dutch represents in the Netherlands or in Flanders. In
Cornish, it represents , , or .
In
French, it represents the
vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
, as in "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 prod ...
, as in "yes".
In
Portuguese this digraph stands for the
close-mid back rounded vowel or for the falling
diphthong
A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, 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 ...
, according to dialect.
is used In
Hepburn romanization
is the main system of Romanization of Japanese, romanization for the Japanese language. The system was originally published in 1867 by American Christian missionary and physician James Curtis Hepburn as the standard in the first edition of h ...
of the
Japanese language
is the principal language of the Japonic languages, Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese dia ...
to transcribe the sound .
is used in
French to write the vowel sound before what had historically been an , as in "drunk" (also spelt ).
, 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 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 that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
s. In
English and
Faroese, represents the diphthong . Examples in English include ''toy'' and ''annoy''. In
Cornish, it represents the diphthong ; in the words ('egg') and ('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
is used in
Nuxalk for .
is used in
German for , e.g. "horse", "apple", and "button". In English, usually in recent loan words from German, it generally represents , such as in
Pfizer
Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered at The Spiral (New York City), The Spiral in Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 184 ...
.
in used in English and French for , mostly in words derived from
Greek
Greek may refer to:
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 of all kno ...
, but also some words derived from
Vietnamese. In
Irish,
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
and
Welsh it represents the
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...
/
Aspirate mutation
Consonant mutation is change in a consonant in a word (linguistics), word according to its morphology (linguistics), morphological or syntax, syntactic environment.
Mutation occurs in languages around the world. A prototypical example of conson ...
of . It represents in
Vietnamese, where is not used.
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet used to write Hmong, for .
is used for in
Arrernte.
is used in English for initially in words of Greek origin such as ''pneumatic''.
is used in romanized
Korean for the fortis sound , and in
Cypriot Arabic for . It was used in
Portuguese until 1947, e.g. , and .
is used in English and Portuguese for initially in words of Greek origin such as ''psyche'' (English) and (Portuguese). In
Shona it represents a
whistled sibilant cluster .
is used in several languages for in words of Greek origin, where it was , e.g. in English ''
pterosaur
Pterosaurs are 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 million to 66 million years ago). Pterosaurs are the earli ...
'' .
is used in Arrernte for .
is used in
Cypriot Arabic for .
Q
is used in
Nuxalk for .
is used in
Naro
Naro ( ) is a ''comune'' in the province of Agrigento, on the island of Sicily, Italy. It is bounded by the comuni of Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Camastra, Campobello di Licata, Canicattì, Castrofilippo, Delia, Favara, Licata, Palma di ...
for the click . 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 used to write
Hmong, it represents . In
Xhosa, it represents the click .
was used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless alveolar click (equivalent to ).
is used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for ejective . In
Hadza it represents the glottalized click .
is used in
Aragonese,
Asturian,
Catalan,
French,
Galician,
Mirandese,
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...
,
Portuguese and
Spanish for before , where represents (
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 langu ...
,
Asturian,
Aragonese 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 o ...
and
Portuguese). In French, is also usually before . 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 spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, and ultimately the
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...
labialized velar consonant
A labialized velar or labiovelar is a velar consonant that is labialized, with a -like secondary articulation. Examples are , which are pronounced like a , with rounded lips, such as the labialized voiceless velar plosive and labialized voic ...
; in English this sound instead became written primarily as , due to
Grimm's law
Grimm's law, also known as the First Germanic Consonant Shift or 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 first millennium BC, first d ...
changing > (written ), and Middle English spelling change switching to . In English, it represents in words derived from those languages (e.g., ''quiche''), and in other words, including borrowings from Latin (e.g., ''quantity''). In
German, it represents . In the
Ossetian Latin alphabet, it was used for . In
Vietnamese it is used to represent or . In Cornish, it represents .
is used in
French and formely
Portuguese for before .
is used in
Bouyei for .
is used in some languages for . In
Mi'kmaq
The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Mi'kmaw'' or ''Mi'gmaw''; ; , and formerly Micmac) are an Indigenous group of people of the Northeastern Woodlands, native to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces, primarily Nova Scotia, New Bru ...
it represents . In the
Kernowek Standard and
Standard Written Form orthographies for Revived Cornish, it represents .
is used in
Bouyei for glottalized .
R
is used in the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages such as
Warlpiri,
Arrernte, and
Pitjantjatjara for a retroflex stop, . In
Norwegian and
Swedish it represents
voiced retroflex plosive, . In
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
it sometimes represents when broad, or when slender, though this epenthetic consonant is not found in all dialects.
is used in
English for
Greek
Greek may refer to:
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 of all kno ...
words
transliterated
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as ...
through
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
. 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 v ...
"r" sound, , as in
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
. 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 (, ) is an international auxiliary language (IAL) developed between 1937 and 1951 by the American International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). It is a constructed language of the "naturalistic" variety, whose vocabulary, ...
use 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 ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
. In the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh ( ; GR) is a system for writing Standard Chinese using the Latin alphabet. It was primarily conceived by Yuen Ren Chao (1892–1982), who led a group of linguists on the National Languages Committee in refining the system betwe ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
, initial - indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in , which is otherwise spelled -. In
Purépecha, it is a
retroflex flap
The voiced retroflex flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication, spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a letter ''r'' with tail, and the equivalent X-SAMPA ...
, .
is used in the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages 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 ( ; , Inuktitut syllabics, syllabics ), also known as Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the North American tree line, including parts of the provinces of ...
for .
represents the retroflex nasal in
Warlpiri,
Arrernte, and
Pitjantjatjara (see
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages), as well in
Norwegian and
Swedish. In
Greenlandic, it represents . In
Inuktitut
Inuktitut ( ; , Inuktitut syllabics, syllabics ), also known as Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the North American tree line, including parts of the provinces of ...
, 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 spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
or
Romance origin, and in words of ancient
Greek
Greek may refer to:
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 of all kno ...
origin. It is quite a common digraph. Some words with are relatively recent
loanword
A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
s from other languages; examples include ''
burro'' from
Spanish. It is often used in impromptu pronunciation guides to denote either an
alveolar tap
The voiced alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents a dental consonant, dental, alveolar consonant, alveolar, or postalveolar consonant, p ...
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 consonant, dental, alveolar consonant, alveolar, and postalveolar consonant, postalve ...
. It is a letter in the
Albanian alphabet
The Albanian alphabet () is a variant of the Latin alphabet used to write the Albanian language. It consists of 36 letters representing all the phonemes of Standard Albanian:
The vowels are shown in bold.
The letters are named simply by their ...
.
In several European languages, such as
Catalan,
Spanish,
Portuguese, Basque 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 consonant, dental, alveolar consonant, alveolar, and postalveolar consonant, postalve ...
(or the
voiced uvular fricative
The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication, spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , an inverted small uppercase letter , or in broad t ...
in
Portuguese) and contrasts with the single "r", which represents the
alveolar tap
The voiced alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents a dental consonant, dental, alveolar consonant, alveolar, or postalveolar consonant, p ...
(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
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
(long) consonant . In
Central Alaskan Yup'ik it is used for . In
Cornish, it can represent either , , or .
In
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
, it represents .
was equivalent to and stood for (modern ''
ř'') in medieval
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus
*Czech (surnam ...
. 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 the
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 . In
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
it often represents when broad, or when slender, though this epenthetic consonant is not found in all dialects.
is used for in
Arrernte.
is used in
Polish 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 retro ...
, similar to English 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
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of a company, business organization, or one of their operating units is transferred to or consolidated with another entity. They may happen through direct absorpt ...
, and the
orthography
An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis.
Most national ...
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 ...
() or
end of a word,
devoices to , as in "before".
S
is used in
Italian for before the front vowel letters . It is used for in Catalan, Latin American Spanish, French, English, Occitan and Brazilian Portuguese (e.g. French/English ''reminiscence'', Spanish , Brazilian Portuguese , Catalan , Occitan ); 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.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
and non-
Canadian
Canadians () 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 of their being ''C ...
Commonwealth English
The use of the English language in current and former Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, countries of Commonwealth of Nations, the Commonwealth was largely inherited from British Empire, British colonisation, with some exceptions. Eng ...
. In
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
it usually represented .
is used in
French for in a few verb forms such as simple past . It is also used in
Portuguese as in the imperative/conjunctive form of verbs ending with : . Still pronounced in
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese (; ; also known as pt-BR) is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of Portuguese language native to Brazil. It is spoken by almost all of the 203 million inhabitants of Brazil and widely across the Brazilian diaspora ...
, in
European Portuguese
European Portuguese (, ), also known as Lusitanian Portuguese () or as the Portuguese (language) of Portugal (), refers to the dialects of the Portuguese language spoken in Portugal. The word "European" was chosen to avoid the clash of "Portugues ...
this changed to in the early 20th century, although in careful speech it can be .
is used in
Piedmontese and
Corsican for .
is used in several languages. In English, it represents . See
separate article. See also
below, which has the capitalized forms SH and ŞH.
is used in English for in words such as ''fusion'' (see
yod-coalescence). In
Polish, it represents whenever it precedes a vowel, and whenever it precedes a consonant (or at the end of the word), and is considered a graphic variant of appearing in other situations. In
Welsh is used for the sound as in ('chocolate').
is used
Swedish to write the
''sje'' sound (see also ) and in
Faroese,
Danish,
Norwegian and
Dutch to write
Voiceless postalveolar fricative
A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some Speech, spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound #Voiceless palato-alveolar frica ...
.
is used in
Swedish to write the
''sje'' sound . It takes by rule this sound value before the front vowels () word or root initially (as in (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 Speech, spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound #Voiceless palato-alveolar frica ...
(only in front of ).
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 ...
. ( is used in the French tradition to transcribe in other languages as well, as in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages.)
is used in
German for as in instead of using .
is used in
Kosraean for . In northern dialects of
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
it represents , as in .
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
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 of ''possess'' and its derivatives ''possessed'', ''possesses'', ''possession'', ''possessive'' and ''possessor'', ''brassiere'', ''dessert'', ''dissolution'' and its derivatives ''dissolved'', ''dissolves'' and ''dissolving'', ''
Missoula
Missoula ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Missoula County, Montana, Missoula County, Montana, United States. It is located along the Clark Fork River near its confluence with the Bitterroot River, Bitterroot and Blackfoot River (Montana), ...
(
County
A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...
)'', ''
Missouri
Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...
(an)'', ''scissors'', and pronunciations of ''
Aussie'' outside the United States; otherwise, it represents . In other languages, such as
Catalan,
Cornish,
French,
German,
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 o ...
,
Portuguese 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
); English sometimes also follows this convention. In romanized
Korean, 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 instead of using (or ). 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 . This was written from 1931 to 1955.
is used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized , and in
Esperanto orthography
Esperanto is written in a Latin-script alphabet of twenty-eight letters, with upper and lower case. This is supplemented by punctuation marks and by various logograms, such as the Numerical digit, digits 0–9, currency signs such as $ € ¥ £ ...
it is
an unofficial surrogate of , that represents .
represents in
Malay and
Tagalog.
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 in
Nuxalk for .
is used for the palatal click in
Naro
Naro ( ) is a ''comune'' in the province of Agrigento, on the island of Sicily, Italy. It is bounded by the comuni of Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Camastra, Campobello di Licata, Canicattì, Castrofilippo, Delia, Favara, Licata, Palma di ...
, and to write the affricate in
Sandawe,
Hadza and
Juǀʼhoan.
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for the
voiceless dental affricate
is used for in
Naro
Naro ( ) is a ''comune'' in the province of Agrigento, on the island of Sicily, Italy. It is bounded by the comuni of Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Camastra, Campobello di Licata, Canicattì, Castrofilippo, Delia, Favara, Licata, Palma di ...
. In
Catalan, it represents .
In
Romansh orthographies it represents the
Alveolo-palatal consonant
In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (alveolopalatal, ''alveo-palatal'' or ''alveopalatal'') consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simu ...
.
is used in several languages. In English, it can represent , or . See article. See also:
Pronunciation of English th
Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. To
This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or all language in a specific dialect—"correct" or "standard" pronunciation—or si ...
.
, before a vowel, is usually pronounced in French and in German and is commonly in English, especially in the suffix ''
-tion''.
is used in
Norwegian and
Faroese words like / ('tar') for (Norwegian) and (Faroese). In the closely related
Swedish alphabet
The Swedish alphabet () 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 ( to ) plus , , and , in that order. It contains 20 consonants a ...
, it represents , as in . It is also the standard written form of the sound in
Dutch 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 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 standard written representation ...
as or depending on voicing. This sound is also written , , , , or . In Catalan it represents .
In
Juǀʼhoan it is used for the
ejective affricate .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the uvularized
ejective .
is used in various orthographies for the
voiceless alveolar lateral affricate . In Catalan it represents , although it may be simplify to in some dialects.
is used in the transcription of
Athabascan languages for a lateral affricate or .
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated and
nasally released . In Catalan, it is used to represent , that can result not geminated as well, , as in (pronounced in standard Catalan and in
Valencian Valencian can refer to:
* Something related to the Valencian Community ( Valencian Country) in Spain
* Something related to the city of Valencia
* Something related to the province of Valencia in Spain
* Something related to the old Kingdom of ...
).
is used for a prestopped nasal in
Arrernte, and for the similar in
Yélî Dnye. In Catalan it represents , although it may be simplify to in some dialects.
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated .
generally represents a sound like a
retroflex
A retroflex () 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 hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consona ...
version of English "ch" in areas of German influence, such as
''Truk'' lagoon, now spelled . For instance, in
Malagasy it represents . In southern
dialect
A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...
s of
Vietnamese, represents a
voiceless retroflex affricate
The voiceless 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 , and the equivalent X-SAMPA ...
. 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 (, ) is the modern writing script for the Vietnamese language. It uses the Latin script based on Romance languages like French language, French, originally developed by Francisco de Pina (1585–1625), a missionary from P ...
, but today is not.
is used in the
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
, where it represents an
apical 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 typ ...
. 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, ...
. It is mainly used to Latinize the letter
Tse (Cyrillic)
Tse (Ц ц; italics: ''Ц ц'' or ; italics: ''ц''), also known as Ce, is a letter of the Cyrillic script.
It commonly represents the voiceless alveolar affricate , similar but not identical to the pronunciation of zz in "pi ...
(ц) 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. In central-western
Asturian it's used for .
The
Wade-Giles and
Yale
Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...
romanizations of
Chinese use for an
unaspirated 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 typ ...
. Wade–Giles also uses for the aspirated equivalent . These are equivalent to
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
and , respectively. The
Hepburn romanization
is the main system of Romanization of Japanese, romanization for the Japanese language. The system was originally published in 1867 by American Christian missionary and physician James Curtis Hepburn as the standard in the first edition of h ...
of
Japanese 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 typ ...
). In native Japanese words, this sound only occurs before , but it may occur before other vowels in
loanword
A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
s. Other romanization systems write as . in
Tagalog 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 a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
s, such as ''
tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from , ) 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 underwater explosions (including detonations, ...
'' and ''
tsar
Tsar (; also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar''; ; ; sr-Cyrl-Latn, цар, car) is a title historically used by Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word '' caesar'', which was intended to mean ''emperor'' in the Euro ...
''. 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
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
and in
Azkue's Basque dictionary
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 , , (formerly ...
; this is now represented by .
is used in
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
for , and in romanized
Kabyle for . In romanized
Korean, 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
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
,
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 considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
, 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 , , (formerly ...
. In
Nambikwara it represents a
glottalized . In
Juǀʼhoan it is used for the
uvularized-release .
is used in the
Hungarian alphabet for , a
voiceless palatal affricate; in Hungarian, digraphs are considered single letters, and
acronym
An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...
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 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
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
,
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 Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...
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 typ ...
). 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, ...
and contrasts with the
apical 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 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 Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and the
Romanized Popular Alphabet used to write
Hmong, to represent the diphthong .
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 Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...
for before a consonant. Before a vowel, is used.
is found in many languages. In
English, it represents or as in ''cue'' or ''true'', respectively. In
German, it is or (equivalent to ), appearing mainly in proper nouns. In
Cantonese Romanisation, it represents in a non-initial position.
is used in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
to represent .
is used in
Central Alaskan Yup'ik for .
is used in Taa for the breathy or
murmured
Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like s ...
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 Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...
, it is used for before a consonant. Before a vowel, is used.
is used in
Dutch for the diphthong . In
Irish, it is after a broad (
velarized) consonant. In
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
it normally represents , however before or before preceding a vowel, it represents , and before or before word-finally or pre-consonant, it represents . 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, situation or reaction. It is a diverse category, with many different types, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curses (''da ...
s such as ''. In Mandarin
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
, it is used for after a consonant (spelt in the initial position). In
Cantonese Romanisation, it represents or . In
Scots it represents , e.g. "blood", "done", "moon" and "spoon". In
English, when used as a digraph, it represents in ''fruit'', ''juice'', ''suit'' and ''pursuit''. However, after , the functions as a modifier (marking as rather than ), e.g. ''guild'', ''guilty'', ''sanguine'', ''
Guinea
Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...
'', ''guide'' etc.), it is also used for other sounds, in cases of unusual etymological spelling, e.g. ''circuit'', ''biscuit'', ''build''. In
Portuguese, it represents the diphthong , as in "intention" or "to care", but in a very small selective group of words that come from Latin "much", it represents a nasalized , as in "very" or "much".
was used in old Portuguese for , which in some dialects gets reduced to
was used in old Portuguese for
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 Scottish Gaelic for between a broad and a slender consonant.
is used in
Portuguese for , and in
French to write (only before a consonant and at the end of a word).
is used in Portuguese for before a consonant.
is used in many languages for 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 /ɑ̃/ () or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are p ...
. In Portuguese before a consonant, and in many
West Africa
West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...
n languages, it is , while in French it is , or among the younger generation . In
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
, is spelled after a consonant, initially.
is used in Portuguese for before a consonant.
is used in
Tibetan Pinyin for .
is used in
Lakhota for the nasal vowel .
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
for in languages such as
Yi, where stands for .
is used in
Taa, for the
pharyngealized
Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound.
IPA symbols
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicate ...
vowel .
is used in
Central Alaskan Yup'ik for , and in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
to write the
trilled vowel in languages such as
Yi.
is used in many languages with phonemic long vowels, for . In
Dutch, it is used for .
is used in Dutch for , e.g. "yours", "to push". In
Cornish it is used for
or .
is used in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
for .
is
unofficially used in
Esperanto
Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...
, instead of , for .
(a
split digraph) is used in English for or .
V
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages 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 sharpe ...
.
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 linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
, 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 spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
and the
Romance languages
The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...
). Most English question words begin with this digraph, hence the terms ''
wh-word
An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', '' who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most ...
'' and ''
wh-question''. In Old English, 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 pe ...
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. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
, central and southern
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
, southeastern
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, and (mostly among older speakers) in
New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
. In a few words (''who'', ''whose'', etc.) the pronunciation used among almost all speakers regardless of geography is . For details, see
Pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩.
In
Māori, represents or more commonly , with some regional variations approaching or . In the
Taranaki
Taranaki is a regions of New Zealand, region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano Mount Taranaki, Taranaki Maunga, formerly known as Mount Egmont.
The main centre is the ...
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, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
to write the vowel in initial position, as in the name ''
Wuhan
Wuhan; is the capital of Hubei, China. With a population of over eleven million, it is the most populous city in Hubei and the List of cities in China by population, eighth-most-populous city in China. It is also one of the nine National cent ...
''. It is sometimes found with this value in Romanized Korean as well, as in
hanwu. In
Cantonese Romanisation, 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 etymologically in
Portuguese for before the front vowel letters .
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for the labialized fricative .
is used to write the click in
Naro
Naro ( ) is a ''comune'' in the province of Agrigento, on the island of Sicily, Italy. It is bounded by the comuni of Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Camastra, Campobello di Licata, Canicattì, Castrofilippo, Delia, Favara, Licata, Palma di ...
. It was used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless lateral click .
is used in
Albanian to write the
voiced postalveolar affricate
The voiced palato-alveolar sibilant affricate, voiced post-alveolar affricate or voiced domed postalveolar sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic A ...
, as in the surname . In
Zulu and
Xhosa it represents the
voiceless aspirated alveolar lateral click , e.g. . In
Walloon it represents a consonant that is variously , , , depending on the dialect. In Canadian
Tlingit it represents , which is represented by in Alaska.
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
Uvulars are consonants place of articulation, articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the Palatine uvula, uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stop consonant, stops, fricative consonant, ...
, . 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 etymologically in
Portuguese. In the word in
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese (; ; also known as pt-BR) is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of Portuguese language native to Brazil. It is spoken by almost all of the 203 million inhabitants of Brazil and widely across the Brazilian diaspora ...
, it stands for . In
European Portuguese
European Portuguese (, ), also known as Lusitanian Portuguese () or as the Portuguese (language) of Portugal (), refers to the dialects of the Portuguese language spoken in Portugal. The word "European" was chosen to avoid the clash of "Portugues ...
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 ( ; ' ) is an Indigenous language of the northwestern coast of North America, which is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada and is a branch of the Na-Dene language family. Extensive effor ...
for .
is used in Alaskan
Tlingit for , which in Canada is written .
is used in
Hadza for the glottalized click , and in
Cypriot Arabic for .
is used in the
Hmong Romanized Popular Alphabet to write .
Y
used in various languages. In English it represents word finally, e.g. ''bye'' or ''dye''.
was used in the
pre-1985 orthography of Guinea, for the "ejective y" or
palatalized glottal stop
The glottal stop or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication, spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic ...
() in
Pular (a
Fula language
Fula ( ),Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student's Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani ( ) or Fulah (, , ; Adlam script, Adlam: , , ; Ajami script, Ajami: , , ), is a Senegambian languages, Senegambian language spoken by arou ...
) and in
Hausa to represent a
creaky voice
In linguistics, creaky voice (sometimes called laryngealisation, pulse phonation, vocal fry, or glottal fry) refers to a low, scratchy sound that occupies the vocal range below the common vocal register. It is a special kind of phonation in which ...
d
palatal approximant
The voiced palatal approximant 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 notation i ...
. In the current orthography it is now written . In
Xhosa it represents . In a handful of Australian languages, it represents a "dental semivowel".
is used in Mandarin
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
to write when it forms an entire syllable.
is used in
Yanyuwa for a pre-
velar stop, .
is used in
French to write ( before another vowel), as in "thyme".
is used in
French to write in some words of Greek origin, such as "syncope".
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
to write the
trilled vowel in languages such as
Yi.
is used in romanized Chinese to write the vowel . In Mandarin
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
it is used for in initial position, whereas in Cantonese
Jyutping
The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme, also known as Jyutping, is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed in 1993 by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK).
The name ''Jyutping'' (itself the Jyutping ro ...
it is used for in non-initial position. In the
Yale romanization of Cantonese
The Yale romanization of Cantonese was developed by Yale scholar 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 romaniz ...
and
Cantonese Romanisation, it represents in an initial position and in a non-initial position.
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 represents glottalized . Used in some
Asturian dialects to represent .
(a
split digraph) indicates an English
'long y' (equivalent to ).
Z
represents the
voiced postalveolar fricative
The voiced postalveolar or palato-alveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiced postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describe ...
(), like the in ''pleasure'', in
Albanian and in
Native American orthographies such as
Navajo
The Navajo or Diné are an Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language.
The states with the largest Diné populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (1 ...
. 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 ( ) 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 countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
and
Persian into English, but is rarely seen in English words, appearing primarily in foreign borrowings (e.g. ''muzhik'') and slang (e.g. ''zhoosh''). as a digraph is rare in European languages using the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...
; 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, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means ' Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin'' literally ...
, represents the
voiceless retroflex affricate
The voiceless 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 , and the equivalent X-SAMPA ...
. 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 ...
and
Tamil are transliterated into the Latin script, represents a
retroflex approximant (Malayalam
ഴ and Tamil
ழ ).
in
Polish 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 appearing in other situations.
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for the
voiced lateral fricative
is used in the General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for .
is the last (forty-fourth) letter of the
Hungarian alphabet. Its name is and represents , a
voiced postalveolar fricative
The voiced postalveolar or palato-alveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiced postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describe ...
, similar to in ''Jacques'' and beside in ''vision''. A few examples are "rose" and "fat".
is used in
Shona to write the
whistled sibilant . This was written from 1931 to 1955.
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
for in languages such as
Yi. It is also used with that value in romanized
Kabyle. In medieval
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus
*Czech (surnam ...
, it stood for . In
Hadza it is ejective .
Other
, capital , is used in many
West Africa
West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...
n languages for the nasal vowel . is an "
open e".
, capital , is used in many West African languages for the nasal vowel . is an "
open o".
, capital , is used in
French for the vowels and . The first element of the digraph, , is itself is a
ligature Ligature may refer to:
Language
* Ligature (writing), a combination of two or more letters into a single symbol (typography and calligraphy)
* Ligature (grammar), a morpheme that links two words
Medicine
* Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture us ...
of and , and may also be written as the
trigraph .
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for .
is used in the General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for .
is used in the General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for the
labial-velar nasal .
, capital , 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 .
, capital 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 Archaism, archaic form of the lowercase letter , found mostly in works from the late 8th to early 19th centuries. It replaced one or both of the letters ''s'' in a double-''s ...
, 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 clicks, .
are used in Khoekhoe for its four plain
nasal clicks, .
are used in Juǀʼhoan for its four affricate
pulmonic-contour clicks, .
was used in
Yañalif
The New Turkic Alphabet or Yañalif ( Tatar: jaꞑa əlifba/yaña älifba → jaꞑalif/yañalif, , Cyrillic: Яңалиф, "new alphabet"), is the first Latin alphabet used during the latinisation in the Soviet Union in the 1930s for the Turkic ...
and some
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...
for the diphthong .
See also
*
Trigraph
**
List of Latin-script trigraphs
A number of trigraphs are found in the Latin script.
A
is used for in Dutch and various Cantonese romanisations.
is used for ( in Ulster) in Irish.
is used for ( in Ulster) in Irish, when stressed or for ( in Mayo and Ulster), when un ...
*
Tetragraph
A tetragraph, , is a sequence of four letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds, that do not necessarily correspond to the individual values of the letters. In German, for example, the tetragraph ''tsch'' repre ...
**
List of Latin-script tetragraphs
*
Pentagraph
A pentagraph (from the , ''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 of the letters ...
**
List of Latin-script pentagraphs
*
Hexagraph
A hexagraph (from the , ''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 letters. They ...
*
Heptagraph
A heptagraph (from the , and , ) 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. Most other f ...
*
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