A digraph or digram (from the grc, δίς , "double" and , "to write") is a pair of
characters used in the
orthography of a
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
to write either a single
phoneme (distinct sound), or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined.
Some digraphs represent phonemes that cannot be represented with a single character in the writing system of a language, like the English ''
sh'' in ''ship'' and ''fish''. Other digraphs represent phonemes that can also be represented by single characters. A digraph that shares its pronunciation with a single character may be a relic from an earlier period of the language when the digraph had a different pronunciation, or may represent a distinction that is made only in certain
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
s, like the English ''
wh''. Some such digraphs are used for purely
etymological reasons, like ''
rh'' in English.
Digraphs are used in some
Romanization schemes, like the ''
zh'' often used to represent the
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
letter
ж. As an alternative to digraphs, orthographies and Romanization schemes sometimes use letters with
diacritics, like the Czech and Slovak ''
š'', which has the same function as the English digraph ''sh,'' like the Romanian ''Ț'', which has the same function as the ''Slavic C'', the letter ''Ť'' that is used in Czech and Slovak, which has the same function as the Hungarian digraph ''Ty'', and the letter with the cedilla in a few Turkic languages that have the same function as the letter with the cedilla below followed by the letter h in English, for example, ''ç'' will become ''ch'' in English, and ''ş'' will become ''sh'' in English.
In some languages' orthographies, digraphs (and occasionally
trigraphs) are considered individual
letter
Letter, letters, or literature may refer to:
Characters typeface
* Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet.
* Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
s, which means that they have their own place in the
alphabet and cannot be separated into their constituent
graphemes when
sorting,
abbreviating or
hyphenating words. Examples of this are found in Hungarian (''cs, dz, dzs, gy, ly, ny, sz, ty, zs''), Czech (''ch''), Slovak (''ch'', ''dz'', ''dž''), Albanian (''dh'', ''gj'', ''ll'', ''nj'', ''rr'', ''sh'', ''th'', ''xh'', ''zh''),
Gaj's Latin alphabet
Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sh-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sh-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing Serb ...
(''lj, nj, dž''), and in Uzbek ''(sh, ch, ng)''. Kazakh also used a form of the Latin alphabet where there are a few digraphs and one tetragraph, specifically the 2018 version of the
Kazakh latin alphabet ''(sh, ch, shch, ıo)'', and there is still one digraph in the new version of the Latin alphabet ''(şç)''. In Dutch, when the digraph ''
ij'' is capitalized, both characters are written in uppercase form (''IJ''). In the Māori language, there are two digraphs in the language that are still part of the alphabet, which is ''ng'' and ''wh''. In
Welsh, there are eight digraphs that exist in the official alphabet ''(ch, dd, ff, ng, ll, ph, rh, th)''.
In Maltese, there are two digraphs part of the official alphabet (''għ'' and ''ie''). Romanization of the Cyrillic alphabet, especially those used in some Slavic languages, including Russian, resulted in some letters sometimes becoming digraphs, which are the letters (ё, ж, х, ц, ч, ш, щ, ю, я) and can be transliterated into (''jo/yo'', ''zh, kh, ts, ch, sh, shch, yu/ju, ya/ja''), while sometimes romanizing the letters is done by adding diacritics, except for kh and ts, which for kh, sometimes becoming ch or x, and ts sometimes become c (ë, ž, č, š), still with some digraphs (šč, ju/yu, ja/ya). The Czech alphabet used to have a lot of digraphs a few hundred years ago, but through evolution, those digraphs eventually became letters with diacritics, although the Czech language still kept some as those letters with diacritics cannot make the pronunciations of the respective digraphs (ch, dz, dž), which is also the same case with the Slovak alphabet, having a lot of digraphs in the alphabet, and then evolving to become a diacritical letter, and keeping some when the diacritical letters can't make the pronunciation of the respective digraphs.
Digraphs may develop into
ligature
Ligature may refer to:
* Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure
** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry
* Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...
s, but this is a distinct concept: a ligature involves a graphical combination of two characters, as when ''a'' and ''e'' are fused into ''
æ'', and as when o and e are fused into
œ. Those two ligatures are still used in some languages. Æ is usually used in Scandinavian languages, specifically Icelandic, Norwegian, and Danish. Swedish used to have the letter Æ, but this letter has been changed to become Ä. Œ is usually used in French, but is usually typed in two keystrokes (OE/oe), instead of a special key in the French keyboard or using the AltGr key. In Canada, the keyboard layout (Canadian Multilingual Standard) is modified so that it can use the right Ctrl key to get more characters, including the œ and other foreign characters, sometimes a dead key to input a few kinds of diacritics on some letters to type in the language that use the diacritic in question. The digraph ''ij'' is a special case, especially in Dutch, as when it is handwritten, the capital version (IJ) becomes very similar if not indistinguishable to the cursive letter Y, but if it is written in the regular, lower case version, it will look like a Y with a diaeresis/umlaut (ÿ).
Double letters
Digraphs may consist of two different characters (heterogeneous digraphs) or two instances of the same character (homogeneous digraphs). In the latter case, they are generally called double (or doubled) letters.
Doubled
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
letters are commonly used to indicate a
long vowel sound. This is the case in
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
and
Estonian, for instance, where represents a longer version of the vowel denoted by , represents a longer version of the vowel denoted by , and so on. In
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
, the sequences and were used in a similar way, to represent lengthened "e" and "o" sounds respectively; both spellings have been retained in modern
English orthography, but the
Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through ...
and
other historical sound changes mean that the modern pronunciations are quite different from the original ones.
Doubled
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
letters can also be used to indicate a long or
geminated consonant sound. In
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
, for example, consonants written double are pronounced longer than single ones. This was the original use of doubled consonant letters in
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
, but during the
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
and
Early Modern English
Early Modern English or Early New English (sometimes abbreviated EModE, EMnE, or ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle E ...
period, phonemic consonant length was lost and a spelling convention developed in which a doubled consonant serves to indicate that a preceding vowel is to be pronounced short. In modern English, for example, the of ''tapping'' differentiates the first vowel sound from that of ''taping''. In rare cases, doubled consonant letters represent a true geminate consonant in modern English; this may occur when two instances of the same consonant come from different
morphemes, for example in ''unnatural'' (''un''+''natural'').
In some cases, the sound represented by a doubled consonant letter is distinguished in some other way than length from the sound of the corresponding single consonant letter:
*In
Welsh and
Greenlandic, stands for a voiceless
lateral consonant, while in
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
and
Catalan it stands for a
palatal consonant.
*In several languages of western Europe, including English,
French,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
and Catalan, the digraph is used between vowels to represent the voiceless sibilant , since an alone between vowels normally represents the voiced sibilant .
*In Spanish, Catalan, and Basque,
is used between vowels for the
alveolar trill
The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ...
, since an alone between vowels represents an
alveolar flap
The 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, alveolar, or postalveolar tap or flap is .
The terms ''tap'' and ''flap' ...
(the two are different phonemes in those languages).
*In Spanish, the digraph formerly indicated (a
palatal nasal); it developed into the
letter ñ.
*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 ...
, double consonant letters generally mark
palatalized versions of the single consonant letter, as in
, ,
. However, is a trill that contrasts with the single-letter flap, as in Spanish, and the palatal version of is written .
In several European writing systems, including the English one, the doubling of the letter or is represented as the heterogeneous digraph instead of or respectively. In native German words, the doubling of , which corresponds to , is replaced by the digraph .
Pan-dialectical digraphs
Some languages have a unified orthography with digraphs that represent distinct pronunciations in different dialects (
diaphoneme
A diaphoneme is an abstract phonological unit that identifies a correspondence between related sounds of two or more varieties of a language or language cluster. For example, some English varieties contrast the vowel of ''late'' () with that of ...
s). For example, in
Breton there is a digraph that represents in most dialects, but in ''Vannetais.'' Similarly, the
Saintongeais dialect of French has a digraph that represents in words that correspond to in standard French. Similarly, Catalan has a digraph that represents in
Eastern Catalan, but or in
Western Catalan–
Valencian
Valencian () or Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and unofficially in the El Carche comarca in Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance language also known as Catal ...
.
Split digraphs
The pair of letters making up a phoneme are not always adjacent. This is the case with English
silent e
In English orthography, many words feature a silent (single, final, non-syllabic ‘e’), most commonly at the end of a word or morpheme. Typically it represents a vowel sound that was formerly pronounced, but became silent in late Middle En ...
. For example, the sequence ''a_e'' has the sound in English ''cake.'' This is the result of three historical sound changes: ''cake'' was originally , the
open syllable came to be pronounced with a
long vowel, and later the final
schwa dropped off, leaving . Later still, the vowel became . There are six such digraphs in English, .
However, alphabets may also be designed with discontinuous digraphs. In the
Tatar Cyrillic alphabet
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = Gr ...
, for example, the letter ''ю'' is used to write both and . Usually the difference is evident from the rest of the word, but when it is not, the sequence ''ю...ь'' is used for , as in ''юнь'' 'cheap'.
The
Indic alphabets are distinctive for their discontinuous vowels, such as Thai เ...อ in เกอ . Technically, however, they may be considered
diacritics, not full letters; whether they are digraphs is thus a matter of definition.
Ambiguous letter sequences
Some letter pairs should not be interpreted as digraphs but appear because of
compounding: ''hogshead'' and ''cooperate''. They are often not marked in any way and so must be memorized as exceptions. Some authors, however, indicate it either by breaking up the digraph with a
hyphen, as in ''hogs-head'', ''co-operate'', or with a
trema mark, as in ''coöperate'', but the use of the diaeresis has declined
in English within the last century. When it occurs in names such as
Clapham
Clapham () is a suburb in south west London, England, lying mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, but with some areas (most notably Clapham Common) extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth.
History
Early history ...
, Townshend and Hartshorne, it is never marked in any way. Positional alternative glyphs may help to disambiguate in certain cases: when round, was used as a final variant of long , and the English digraph resembling would always be .
In
romanization of Japanese, the constituent sounds (
morae) are usually indicated by digraphs, but some are indicated by a single letter, and some with a trigraph. The case of ambiguity is the syllabic
ん, which is written as ''n'' (or sometimes ''m''), except before vowels or ''y'' where it is followed by an
apostrophe as ''n’''. For example, the given name じゅんいちろう is romanized as Jun’ichirō, so that it is parsed as "Jun-i-chi-rou", rather than as "Ju-ni-chi-rou". A similar use of the apostrophe is seen in
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...
where 嫦娥 is written
Chang'e because the g belongs to the final (-ang) of the first syllable, not to the initial of the second syllable. Without the apostrophe, Change would be understood as the syllable chan (final -an) followed by the syllable ge (initial g-).
In several
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...
, e.g.
Czech
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'
Places
* Czech, ...
, double letters may appear in compound words, but they are not considered digraphs. Examples: ''bezzubý'' ‘toothless’, ''cenný'' ‘valuable’, ''černooký'' ‘black-eyed’.
In alphabetization
In some languages, certain digraphs and
trigraphs are counted as distinct letters in themselves, and assigned to a specific place in the
alphabet, separate from that of the sequence of characters that composes them, for purposes of
orthography and
collation
Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office filin ...
. For example:
*In the
Gaj’s Latin alphabet
Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sh-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sh-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing Serb ...
used to write
Serbo-Croatian, the digraphs ,
and
, which correspond to the single
Cyrillic letters , , , are treated as distinct letters.
*In the
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'
Places
* Czech, ...
and
Slovak alphabet,
is treated as a distinct letter, coming after in the alphabet. Also, in the
Slovak alphabet
The first Slovak orthography was proposed by Anton Bernolák (1762–1813) in his ''Dissertatio philologico-critica de litteris Slavorum'', used in the six-volume ''Slovak-Czech-Latin-German-Hungarian Dictionary'' (1825–1927) and used primarily ...
the relatively rare digraphs
and are treated as distinct letters.
*In the
Danish and Norwegian alphabet, the former digraph
, where it appears in older names, is sorted as if it were the letter , which replaced it.
*In the
Norwegian alphabet, there are several digraphs and letter combinations representing an isolated sound.
*In the
Dutch alphabet, the digraph
is sometimes written as a
ligature
Ligature may refer to:
* Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure
** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry
* Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...
and may be sorted with (in the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, though not usually in
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
); however, regardless of where it is used, when a Dutch word starting with 'ij' is capitalized, the entire digraph is capitalized (''
IJmeer'', ''
IJmuiden''). Other
Dutch digraphs are never treated as single letters.
*In
Hungarian, the digraphs
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
, and the trigraph
, have their own places in the alphabet (where follows , and follow , etc.)
*In
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
, the digraphs
and were formerly treated as distinct letters, but are now split into their constituent letters.
*In
Welsh, the alphabet includes the digraphs
,
,
, ,
,
,
,
. However,
,
and
, which represent
mutated voiceless consonants, are not treated as distinct letters.
*In the romanization of several Slavic countries that use the Cyrillic script, letters like ш, ж, and ч might be written as sh, zh and ch, however sometimes the result of the romanization might modify a letter to be a diacritical letter instead of a digraph.
*In
Maltese, two digraphs are used, għ which comes right after g, and ie which comes right after i.
Most other languages, including English, French, German, Polish, etc., treat digraphs as combinations of separate letters for alphabetization purposes.
Examples
Latin script
English
English has both homogeneous digraphs (doubled letters) and heterogeneous digraphs (digraphs consisting of two different letters). Those of the latter type include the following:
* normally represents (
voiceless alveolar fricative - ''scene'') or (
voiceless postalveolar fricative - ''conscious'') before or .
* represents (
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
) as in ''thing''.
* usually corresponds to (
voiceless postalveolar affricate
The voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant affricate or voiceless domed postalveolar sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with , (formerly ...
- ''church''), to (
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 ...
) when used as an etymological digraph in words of Greek origin (''christ''), less commonly to (
voiceless postalveolar fricative) in words of French origin (''champagne'').
* corresponds to as in ''check''.
* represents (
voiced velar plosive
The voiced velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages.
Some languages have the voiced pre-velar plosive, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototyp ...
) at the beginning of words (''ghost''), represents (
voiceless labiodental fricative in ''enough'') or is
silent at the end of words (''sigh'').
* represents (
voiceless labiodental fricative), as in ''siphon''.
* represents English in words of Greek origin, such as ''rhythm''.
* represents (
voiceless postalveolar fricative), as in ''sheep''.
* usually represents word-medially before a vowel, as in ''education''.
* usually corresponds to (
voiceless interdental fricative) in ''thin'' or (
voiced interdental fricative) in ''then''. See also
Pronunciation of English
Like many other languages, English language, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both History of the English language, historically and from List of dialects of the English language, dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regiona ...
.
* represents in some conservative dialects; in other dialects (''while''); and in a few words in which it is followed by , such as ''who'' and ''whole''. See also
Phonological history of .
* represents in words transliterated from Slavic languages, and in American dictionary pronunciation spelling.
* usually appears as before vowels, like in ''facial'' and ''artificial''. Otherwise it is as in ''fancier'' and ''icier'' or as in ''acid'' and ''rancid''.
* represents . Originally, it stood for a
labialized
Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...
sound, while without was non-labialized, but the distinction has been lost in most dialects, the two sounds merging into a single
alveolar approximant
The voiced alveolar approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the alveolar and postalveolar approximants is , a lowercase letter ''r'' rotated 180 ...
,
allophonically labialized at the start of syllables, as in ''red'' . See also
rhotic consonant.
* usually represents ; is conventionally followed by and a vowel letter as in ''quick'', with
some exceptions.
Digraphs may also be composed of vowels. Some letters are preferred for the first position, others for the second . The latter have
allograph
Allography, from the Greek for "other writing", has several meanings which all relate to how words and sounds are written down.
Authorship
An allograph may be the opposite of an autograph – i.e. a person's words or name ( signature) written b ...
s in
English orthography.
Other languages using the Latin alphabet
In
Serbo-Croatian:
* corresponds to , (
palatal lateral approximant)
* corresponds to (
palatal nasal)
* corresponds to (
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 ...
)
Note that in the
Cyrillic orthography, those sounds are represented by single letters (љ, њ, џ).
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'
Places
* Czech, ...
and
Slovak:
* corresponds to (
voiceless velar fricative), counted as a distinct letter
* corresponds to (
voiced alveolar affricate), counted as a distinct letter in Slovak, relatively rare digraph
* corresponds to (
voiced postalveolar affricate
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 ...
), counted as a distinct letter in Slovak, relatively rare digraph
In
Danish and Norwegian:
* The digraph represented until 1917 in Norway and 1948 in Denmark, but is today spelt . The digraph is still used in older names, but sorted as if it were the letter with the diacritic mark.
In
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
, several sounds can be represented only by a digraph or a combination of letters. They are the most common combinations, but extreme regional differences exists, especially those of the
eastern dialects. A noteworthy difference is the
aspiration of rs in eastern dialects, where it corresponds to skj and sj. Among many young people, especially in the western regions of Norway and in or around the major cities, the difference between ç and ʃ has been completely wiped away and are now pronounced the same.
* represents as in ch in German ich or x in México.
* represents as in ch in German ich or x in México.
* represents as in sh in English she.
* represents as in sh in English she.
* represents (before i or y) as in sh in English she.
* represents as in ng in English thing.
In
Catalan:
* represents (
palatal lateral approximant)
* represents (
palatal nasal)
* represents (
post-alveolar trill)
* represents (
voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant
The voiceless alveolar fricatives are a type of fricative 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 at leas ...
)
* represents (
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 ...
)
* represents (
voiced velar plosive
The voiced velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages.
Some languages have the voiced pre-velar plosive, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototyp ...
)
* postvocalic represents (
voiceless postalveolar fricative) in
Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
dialects, in
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
dialects it represents /jʃ/.
In
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
:
* corresponds to (see
above for its possible status as a separate letter).
* represents (
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
)
* represents (
voiceless velar fricative)
* represents (
voiceless postalveolar fricative)
* represents (
close front unrounded vowel
The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound that occurs in most spoken languages, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by the symbol i. It is similar to the vowel sound in the English wo ...
)
* represents (
close back rounded vowel)
* represents (
close-mid front rounded vowel)
In
French:
* represents (
voiceless postalveolar fricative)
* represents (
palatal nasal)
* represents (
voiceless velar stop
The voiceless velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k.
The sound is a very ...
), typically before historic
front vowels
::
See also
French phonology.
In
German:
* represents (
voiceless velar fricative) or (
voiceless palatal fricative
The voiceless palatal 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 C. It is the non-sibilant equi ...
)
* represents (
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 ...
)
* represents (
open front unrounded vowel
The open front unrounded vowel, or low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. It is one of the eight primary cardinal vowels, not directly intended to correspond to a vowel sound of a specific language b ...
) followed by (
near-close near-front unrounded vowel
The near-close front unrounded vowel, or near-high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , i.e. a small capital letter ''i ...
)
* represents (
open-mid back rounded vowel
The open-mid back rounded vowel, or low-mid back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The IPA symbol is a turned letter ''c'' a ...
) followed by (
near-close near-front rounded vowel)
In
Hungarian:
* represents (
voiceless postalveolar affricate
The voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant affricate or voiceless domed postalveolar sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with , (formerly ...
)
* represents (
voiced postalveolar fricative)
* represents (
voiced palatal plosive
The voiced palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound in some vocal 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 ...
)
* originally represented (
palatal lateral approximant), but in the modern language stands for (
palatal approximant)
* represents (
palatal nasal)
* represents (
voiceless palatal plosive
The voiceless palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in some vocal languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is c.
If distinction is neces ...
)
* represents (
voiced postalveolar affricate
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 ...
)
* represents (
voiceless alveolar fricative) ( is pronounced )
* The Hungarian alphabet additionally contains also a
trigraph, .
In
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
:
* corresponds to , (
voiceless postalveolar fricative) before -i and -e (but to before other letters)
* corresponds to (only before i, e)
* corresponds to (only before i, e)
* represents ,
palatal lateral approximant, before -i (with some exceptions)
* represents (
palatal nasal)
In
Manx Gaelic, represents , but represents .
In
Polish:
* corresponds to (
voiceless velar fricative)
* corresponds to (
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 ...
)
* corresponds to (
voiced alveolar affricate)
* corresponds to (
voiced alveolo-palatal affricate)
* corresponds to (
voiced retroflex affricate
The voiced retroflex sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , sometimes simplified to or . It occurs in such language ...
)
* corresponds to (
voiced retroflex fricative
The voiced retroflex sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is z`. Like all the retrof ...
)
* corresponds to (
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 ...
)
In
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
:
* corresponds to (
voiceless postalveolar fricative)
* corresponds to (
palatal lateral approximant)
* corresponds to (
palatal nasal)
*⟨qu⟩ usually represents /k/ (
voiceless velar stop
The voiceless velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k.
The sound is a very ...
)
*:
In
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
:
* is traditionally (but now usually not) pronounced /ʎ/
* represents (
voiceless postalveolar affricate
The voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant affricate or voiceless domed postalveolar sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with , (formerly ...
). Since 2010, neither is considered part of the alphabet. They used to be sorted as separate letters, but a reform in 1994 by the
Spanish Royal Academy
The Royal Spanish Academy ( es, Real Academia Española, generally abbreviated as RAE) is Spain's official royal institution with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, and is affiliated with ...
has allowed that they be split into their constituent letters for collation. The digraph , pronounced as a distinct
alveolar trill
The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ...
, was never officially considered to be a letter in the Spanish alphabet, and the same is true and (for /ɡ/ and /k/ respectively before or ).
In
Welsh:
* represents (
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
), the same sound as in English (but in some words is pronounced ).
* represents (
voiceless uvular fricative)
* represents (
voiceless alveolar trill
The voiceless alveolar trill differs from the voiced alveolar trill only by the vibrations of the vocal cord. It occurs in a few languages, usually alongside the voiced version, as a similar phoneme or an allophone.
Proto-Indo-European develo ...
), pronounced roughly like the combination ''hr''.
* represents (
voiceless interdental fricative)
* represents (
voiced dental fricative
The voiced dental fricative is a consonant sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the ''th'' sound in ''father''. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is eth, or and was taken from the Old Engl ...
), like the English in ''then'' (but is pronounced as voiceless in many contexts).
* represents (
voiceless labiodental fricative), like English , since Welsh is pronounced like an English .
* also represents (voiceless labiodental fricative) but, in modern orthography, is used only for the aspirate mutation of words starting with .
* represents (
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative)
The digraphs listed above represent distinct phonemes and are treated as separate letters for collation purposes. On the other hand, the digraphs , , and the trigraph , which stand for
voiceless consonants
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 ...
but occur only at the beginning of words as a result of the
nasal mutation, are not treated as separate letters, and thus are not included in the alphabet.
Daighi tongiong pingim, a transcription system used for
Taiwanese Hokkien, includes
or that represents (
mid central vowel) or (
close-mid back rounded vowel
The close-mid back rounded vowel, or high-mid back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .
Close-mid back protruded vowel
The close ...
), as well as other digraphs.
In
Yoruba:
* is an alphabet, and a plosive most accurately pronounced by trying to say and at the same time.
Cyrillic
Modern Slavic languages written in the
Cyrillic alphabet
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = Gr ...
make little use of digraphs apart from for , for (in Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Bulgarian), and and for the uncommon Russian phoneme . In Russian, the sequences and do occur (mainly in loanwords) but are pronounced as combinations of an implosive (sometimes treated as an affricate) and a fricative; implosives are treated as allophones of the plosive /d̪/ and so those sequences are not considered to be digraphs. Cyrillic has few digraphs unless it is used to write non-Slavic languages, especially
Caucasian languages
The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
Linguistic comparison allows t ...
.
Arabic script
Because vowels are not generally written, digraphs are rare in
abjads like Arabic. For example, if ''sh'' were used for ''š,'' then the sequence ''sh'' could mean either ''ša'' or ''saha.'' However, digraphs are used for the
aspirated and
murmured consonants (those spelled with ''h-''digraphs in Latin transcription) in languages of
South Asia
South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth descr ...
such as
that are written in the
Arabic script by a special form of the letter ''h'', which is used only for aspiration digraphs, as can be seen with the following connecting ''(kh)'' and non-connecting ''(ḍh)'' consonants:
:
Armenian
In the
Armenian language, the digraph ''
ու'' transcribes , a convention that comes from Greek.
Georgian
The
Georgian alphabet uses a few digraphs to write other languages. For example, in
Svan, is written ჳე , and as ჳი .
Greek
Modern Greek has the following digraphs:
*''αι'' (''ai'') represents
*''ει'' (''ei'') represents
*''οι'' (''oi'') represents
*''ου'' (''oy'') represents
*''υι'' (''yi'') represents
They are called "diphthongs" in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
; in classical times, most of them represented
diphthongs, and the name has stuck.
*''γγ'' (''gg'') represents or
*''τσ'' (''ts'') represents the affricate
*''τζ'' (''tz'') represents the affricate
*Initial ''γκ'' (''gk'') represents
*Initial ''μπ'' (''mp'') represents
*Initial ''ντ'' (''nt'') represents
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
also had the "diphthongs" listed above although their pronunciation in ancient times is disputed. In addition, Ancient Greek also used the letter γ combined with a velar stop to produce the following digraphs:
*''γγ'' (''gg'') represents
*''γκ'' (''gk'') represents
*''γχ'' (''gkh'') represents
Tsakonian has a few additional digraphs:
*''ρζ'' (''rz'') (historically perhaps a
fricative trill)
*''κχ'' (''kkh'') represents
*''τθ'' (''tth'') represents
*''πφ'' (''pph'') represents
*''σχ'' (''skh'') represents
In addition,
palatal consonants are indicated with the vowel letter ''ι'', which is, however, largely predictable. When and are not palatalized before ''ι'', they are written ''νν'' and ''λλ''.
In
Bactrian, the digraphs ''ββ'', ''δδ'', and ''γγ'' were used for , , and respectively.
Hebrew
In the
Hebrew alphabet, and may sometimes be found for . Modern Hebrew also uses digraphs made with the symbol for non-native sounds: , , ; and other digraphs of letters when it is written without vowels: for a consonantal letter in the middle of a word, and for or , etc., that is, a consonantal letter in places where it might not have been expected.
Yiddish has its own tradition of transcription and so uses different digraphs for some of the same sounds: , , , and (literally '')'' for , , also available as a single
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
character , or as a single character in Unicode , or , and . The single-character digraphs are called "
ligatures" in Unicode. may also be used following a consonant to indicate palatalization in Slavic loanwords.
Indic
Most
Indic scripts have compound vowel
diacritics that cannot be predicted from their individual elements. That can be illustrated with
Thai in which the diacritic เ, pronounced alone , modifies the pronunciation of other vowels:
:
In addition, the combination รร is pronounced or , there are some words in which the combinations ทร and ศร stand for and the letter ห, as a prefix to a consonant, changes its tonic class to high, modifying the tone of the syllable.
Inuit
Inuktitut syllabics adds two digraphs to Cree:
;''rk'' for ''q'': ᙯ ''qai'', ᕿ ''qi'', ᖁ ''qu'', ᖃ ''qa'', ᖅ ''q''
and
;''ng'' for ''ŋ'': ᖕ ''ng''
The latter forms trigraphs and tetragraphs.
CJK Characters
Chinese
Several combinations of
Chinese characters
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji ...
(Hanzi) formed from two or more different characters that known as digraphs.
Japanese
Two
kana may be combined into a ''
C V'' syllable by subscripting the second; the convention cancels the vowel of the first. That is commonly done for ''CyV'' syllables called ''
yōon
The , also written as ''yōon'', is a feature of the Japanese language in which a mora is formed with an added sound, i.e., palatalized, or (more rarely in the modern language) with an added sound, i.e. labialized.
''Yōon'' are represented i ...
'', as in ひょ (ひ
よ) ''hyo'' . They are not digraphs since they retain the normal sequential reading of the two glyphs. However, some obsolete sequences no longer retain that reading, as in くゎ ''kwa,'' ぐゎ ''gwa,'' and むゎ ''mwa,'' now pronounced ''ka, ga, ma''. In addition, non-sequenceable digraphs are used for foreign loans that do not follow normal Japanese
assibilation
In linguistics, assibilation is a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is a form of spirantization and is commonly the final phase of palatalization.
Arabic
A characteristic of Mashreqi varieties of Arabic (particularly Lev ...
patterns, such as ティ ''ti'', トゥ ''tu'', チェ ''tye / che'', スェ ''swe'', ウィ ''wi'', ツォ ''tso'', ズィ ''zi''. (See
katakana and
transcription into Japanese
In contemporary Japanese writing, foreign-language loanwords and foreign names are normally written in the katakana script, which is one component of the Japanese writing system. As far as possible, sounds in the source language are matched to ...
for complete tables.)
Long vowels are written by adding the kana for that vowel, in effect doubling it. However, long ''ō'' may be written either ''oo'' or ''ou'', as in とうきょう ''toukyou'' 'Tōkyō'. For dialects that do not distinguish ''ē'' and ''ei'', the latter spelling is used for a long ''e'', as in へいせい ''heisei'' '
Heisei
The is the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of Emperor Emeritus Akihito from 8 January 1989 until his abdication on 30 April 2019. The Heisei era started on 8 January 1989, the day after the death of the Emperor Hirohito, ...
'. In loanwords, ''
chōonpu'', a line following the direction of the text, as in ビール ''bīru'' ''bīru'' 'beer'. With the exception of syllables starting with ''n'', doubled consonant sounds are written by prefixing a smaller version of ''tsu'' (written っ and ッ in hiragana and katakana respectively), as in きって ''kitte'' 'stamp'. Consonants beginning with n use the kana ''n'' character (written ん or ン) as a prefix instead.
There are several conventions of
Okinawan kana that involve subscript digraphs or ligatures. For instance, in the University of the Ryukyu's system, ウ is , ヲ is , but ヲゥ (ヲ
ウ) is .
Korean
As was the case in Greek, Korean has vowels descended from diphthongs that are still written with two letters. Those digraphs, ㅐ and ㅔ (also ㅒ , ㅖ ), and in some dialects ㅚ and ㅟ , all end in historical ㅣ .
Hangul was designed with a digraph series to represent the "
muddy" consonants: ㅃ , ㄸ , ㅉ , ㄲ , ㅆ , ㆅ ; also ᅇ, with an uncertain value. Those values are now obsolete, but most of the doubled letters were resurrected in the 19th century to write consonants that did not exist when hangul was devised: ㅃ , ㄸ , ㅉ , ㄲ , ㅆ .
Ligatures and new letters
Digraphs sometimes come to be written as a single ligature. Over time, the ligatures may evolve into new letters or letters with diacritics. For example
sz became
ß in German, and "nn" became
ñ in Spanish.
In Unicode
Generally, a digraph is simply represented using two characters in
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
.
However, for various reasons, Unicode sometimes provides a separate
code point
In character encoding terminology, a code point, codepoint or code position is a numerical value that maps to a specific character. Code points usually represent a single grapheme—usually a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or whitespace—but ...
for a digraph, encoded as a single character.
The
DZ and
IJ digraphs and the
Serbian/Croatian digraphs DŽ, LJ, and NJ have separate code points in Unicode.
:
See also
Ligatures in Unicode.
See also
*
Multigraph (orthography)
A multigraph (or pleongraph) is a sequence of letters that behaves as a unit and is not the sum of its parts, such as English or French . The term is infrequently used, as the number of letters is usually specified:
* Digraph (two letters, as o ...
*
Trigraph
*
Tetragraph
A tetragraph (from the el, τετρα-, ''tetra-'', "four" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a sequence of four letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds, that do not necessarily correspond to the indi ...
*
Pentagraph
A pentagraph (from the el, πέντε, ''pénte'', "five" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a sequence of five letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds, that do not correspond to the individual values ...
*
Hexagraph
A hexagraph (from the el, ἕξ, ''héx'', "six" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a sequence of six letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds that do not correspond to the individual values of the lett ...
*
Bigram
A bigram or digram is a sequence of two adjacent elements from a string of tokens, which are typically letters, syllables, or words. A bigram is an ''n''-gram for ''n''=2. The frequency distribution of every bigram in a string is commonly used f ...
*
Diphthong
*
List of Latin letters
*
Digraph (programming)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Digraph (Orthography)
2