This is a list of
digraphs used in various
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...
s. Capitalisation involves only the first letter (''ch'' becomes ''Ch'') unless otherwise stated (''ij'' becomes ''IJ'').
Letters with diacritics are arranged in alphabetic order according to their base: is alphabetised with , not at the end of the alphabet, as it would be in
Danish,
Norwegian and
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
. Substantially-modified letters, such as (a variant of ) and (based on ), are placed at the end.
Apostrophe
(capital ) is used in
Bari for .
(capital ) is used in Bari for .
is used in
the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for when it appears in a
dark or ''yin'' tone. It is also often written as .
is used in
the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for
dark
is used in
the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for
dark
is used in
the Wu MiniDict Romanisation for
dark
(capital ) is used in Bari and
Hausa (in Nigeria) for , but in Niger, Hausa is replaced with .
A
is used in
Taa, where it represents the
glottalized or
creaky-voiced vowel .
is used in
Dutch,
Finnish and other languages with phonemic long vowels for . It is also used in some English and Scots dialects, such as
Northumbrian and
Shetlandic, to represent . It was
formerly used in Danish and Norwegian (and still is in some proper names) to represent a single vowel, which in Danish is often or , until it was replaced with the letter . There is a ligature . In
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
Romanisations such as
Jyutping or
Yale, this is used to represent , which contrasts with .
is used in
Irish, where it represents between two "broad" (
velarized) consonants, e.g. ''Gael'' ('a
Gael').
: In
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...
, originally represented the
diphthong , before it was
monophthongized in the
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve ...
period to ; in medieval manuscripts, the digraph was frequently replaced by the
ligature .
: In Modern English, Latin loanwords with are generally pronounced with (e.g. ''Caesar''), prompting
Noah Webster 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 varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...
.
: In
German, is a variant of found in some proper names or in contexts where is unavailable.
: In
Dutch, is an old spelling variant of the digraph but now only occurs in names of people or (less often) places and in a few loanwords from Greek and Latin.
: In
Zhuang, is used for ( is used for ).
: In
Revised Romanization of Korean
Revised Romanization of Korean () is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. It was developed by the National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and was released to the public on 7 July 2000 by South Korea's Min ...
, is used for /ɛ/.
is used in
Portuguese for .
is used in
Taa, where it represents 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 ...
. In
German and
English it typically represents a
long vowel
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, f ...
.
is used in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s, typically representing the diphthong . In
English, as a result of the
Great Vowel Shift, the vowel of has shifted from this value to as in ''pain'' and ''rain'', while it may have a sound of in unstressed syllables like ''bargain'' and ''certain(ly)'', or in the stressed syllable of ''again(st)'' (AmE), depending on the word; while in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, a different change, ''monophthongization'', has occurred, resulting in the digraph representing . A similar change has also occurred during the
development of Greek, resulting in and the both having the same sound; originally , later . In
German, it represents as in ''Kaiser'' (which derived from Latin ''caesar''). However, most German words use for . In the
Kernowek Standard 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
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
for , as in ''aînesse'' or ''maître'' .
is used in
Irish for between a broad and a slender consonant.
is used in
Portuguese for . It has, thus, the same value as , but the latter is much more common.
is used in
Portuguese for at the end of a word, before a consonant, and before a vowel; and in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
for ( before a vowel).
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 or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced wit ...
. In
Portuguese it is used for before a consonant, in French it represents , and in many
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mau ...
n languages it represents . In
Breton this digraph represents .
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
Lakota ( ), also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes. Lakota is mutually intelligible with the two dialects of the Dakota language, especially Western Dakota, and ...
for the nasal vowel
is used in the
Irish for or , depending on dialect, between broad consonants. In
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, it is found in a few words such as ''paonne'' representing . In
Malagasy, it represents , and in
Piedmontese, . In
Wymysorys, it represents (also spelt ). In
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
, this is used to represent .
is used in
Portuguese for .
is used in
Taa, for the
pharyngealized vowel .
in
English is a result of various linguistic changes from Middle English, having shifted from to . In a number of dialects, this has merged with . It occasionally represents the diphthong , as in ''flautist''. Other pronunciations are in North American English ''aunt'' and ''laugh'', in ''gauge'', as in ''gauche'' and ''chauffeur'', and as in ''
meerschaum'' and ''restaurant''. Due to historical reasons, this is used to transcribe in several
Romanizations of Wu Chinese.
In
German and
Dutch, it is used for the diphthongs and respectively ( in some northern and in some southern Dutch and some Flemish dialects).
In
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, represents or sometimes . It most frequently appears in the inflectional ending marking plurals of certain kinds of words like ''cheval'' ('horse') or ''canal'' ('channel'), respectively having a plural in ''chevaux'' and ''canaux''.
In
Icelandic, it represents .
In the
Kernowek Standard orthography of
Cornish, stands for long or short , as in ''caul'' ('cabbage') or ''dauncya'' ('to dance').
is used in
German for the diphthong in declension of native words with ''au''; elsewhere, is written as . In words where ä, u is separated in two syllables, mostly of Latin origin, is pronounced as , as in ''
Matthäus'' (one German form for ''
Matthew'').
was used in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
but has been replaced by the trigraph eau.
is used in
English in ways that parallel English , though it appears more often at the end of a word.
In
Cornish, represents the diphthong or .
In
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
, represents the diphthong .
is used in
English in ways that parallel English , though it appears more often at the end of a word. Unlike , functions almost the same as (the sound in ''key'') at the end of variant spellings of names like ''Lindsay'' and ''Ramsay''.
In
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, it is usually used to represent /ɛj/ before a vowel (as in ''ayant'') and /ɛ.i/ before a consonant (as in ''pays'').
In
Cornish, represents the sounds , , , or .
(a
split digraph
A digraph or digram (from the grc, δίς , "double" and , "to write") is a pair of characters used in the orthography of a language to write either a single phoneme (distinct sound), or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to t ...
) indicates an English
'long a', historically but now most commonly realised as .
is used to notate in
Hokkien Pe̍h-ōe-jī.
B
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
for in languages such as
Yi, where ''b'' stands for . In
Hungarian, it represents
geminated
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct fr ...
. In English, doubling a letter indicates that the previous vowel is short (so ''bb'' represents ). In ISO romanized
Korean, it is used for the fortis sound , otherwise spelled ; an example is
hobbang. In
Hadza it is the rare ejective . In several African languages it is implosive . In
Cypriot Arabic it is .
is used in
English for in a few words of Greek origin, such as ''bdellatomy.'' When not initial, it represents , as in ''abdicate.''
is used in
Bavarian and several
African languages 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 ...
voiced bilabial plosive (), and for equivalent sounds in other languages. In
Juǀʼhoan, it's used for the similar
prevoiced aspirated plosive . In
Irish, it stands for the
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
s and , word-initially as the lenition of for example ('my boat'), ('would be'). In the
orthography used in Guinea before 1985, was used in
Pular (a
Fula language) 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 is pronounced either or (in any position); (before a consonant or finally); or (before a vowel); examples are ''mabm'' ('mother') or ''hebma'' ('this').
is used in
Sandawe and romanized
Thai for , and in
Irish it represents as the eclipsis of .
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for the
voiced labiodental affricate
The voiced labiodental affricate ( in IPA) is a rare affricate consonant that is initiated as a voiced labiodental stop and released as a voiced labiodental fricative .
Features
Features of the voiced labiodental affricate:
*There are tw ...
.
is used in
Shona for a
whistled sibilant cluster .
C
is used in Andean Spanish for loanwords from
Quechua or
Aymara with , as in ''Ccozcco'' (modern ''Qusqu)'' ('
Cuzco'). In many European languages, before
front vowels represents a sequence such as , e.g. English ''success'', French ''occire'', Spanish ''accidente'' (dialectally or ); this is not the case of
Italian, where a before a
front vowel represents a geminated , as in ''lacci'' . In
Piedmontese and
Lombard, represents the sound at the end of a word. In
Hadza it is the glottalized click . In English internet slang, can sometimes replace the letters or at the ends of words, such as with ''thicc'', ''protecc'', ''succ'' and ''phucc''.
was used for or in Old English (''ecg'' in Old E and nglish sounded like 'edge' in Modern English, while ''frocga'' sounded like 'froga'), where both are
long consonants. It is used for the click in
Naro, and in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless dental click
The voiceless or more precisely tenuis dental click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The Doke/Beach convention, ado ...
.
is used in several languages. In English, it can represent , , , or . See article.
is used in
Manx
Manx (; formerly sometimes spelled Manks) is an adjective (and derived noun) describing things or people related to the Isle of Man:
* Manx people
**Manx surnames
* Isle of Man
It may also refer to:
Languages
* Manx language, also known as Manx ...
for , as a distinction from which is used for .
is used in
Romani
Romani may refer to:
Ethnicities
* Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia
** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule
* Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
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
ć appearing in other situations. In Romanian, it represents . The digraph is found at the end of a word (deci, atunci, copaci) or before the letters a, o, or u (ciorba, ciuleandra); the sound made by the letter c in front of the letters e or i becomes in front of the three aforementioned vowels, making the addition of the letter i necessary.
is used in
Friulian for such as in words ''cjocolate'' . It's also used in local orthographies of
Lombard to represent derived from Latin ⟨cl⟩.
is used in many
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...
in lieu of or to indicate either a
geminated
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct fr ...
, or a with a preceding (historically)
short vowel
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
. The latter is the case with English ''tack'', ''deck'', ''pick'', ''lock'', and ''buck'' (compare ''backer'' with ''baker''). In
German, indicates that the preceding vowel is short. Prior to the
German spelling reform of 1996, it was replaced by for syllabification. The new spelling rules allow only syllabification of the as a whole:
:*Old spelling: ''Säcke'': ''Säk-ke'' ('sacks')
:*New spelling: ''Säcke'': ''Sä-cke''
:Among the modern Germanic languages, is used mainly in
Alsatian,
English,
German,
Luxembourgish,
Scots
Scots usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
* Scots language, a language of the West Germanic language family native to Scotland
* Scots people, a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland
* Scoti, a Latin na ...
,
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
, and other
West Germanic languages in
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
and
Switzerland
; rm, citad federala, links=no). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzon ...
. Similarly, is used for the same purpose in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans g ...
,
Danish,
Dutch,
Icelandic,
Norwegian, and other West Germanic languages in the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
and
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...
. Compare the word ''nickel'', which is the same in many of these languages except for the customary or spelling. The word is ''
nickel'' in English and Swedish, ''
Nickel'' in German, and ''
nikkel'' in Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, Icelandic and Norwegian.
:It was also used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless dental click
The voiceless or more precisely tenuis dental click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The Doke/Beach convention, ado ...
(equivalent to ).
:It is also used in
Cornish for at the end of a syllable after a short vowel; only in loanwords (mostly from English) in the
Standard Written Form
The Standard Written Form or SWF ( kw, Furv Skrifys Savonek) of the Cornish language is an orthography standard that is designed to "provide public bodies and the educational system with a universally acceptable, inclusive, and neutral orthograph ...
(SWF),
more widely in
Kernowek Standard.
is used in
English for in a few words of Greek origin, such as ''
cnidarian.'' When not initial, it represents , as in ''acne.''
is used in
Seri for a
labialized velar plosive, . It is placed between and in
alphabetical order.
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for .
is used in the
Hungarian for a
voiceless postalveolar affricate, . It is considered a distinct letter, named ''csé'', and is placed between and in
alphabetical order. Examples of words with cs include ''csak'' ('only'), ''csésze'' ('cup'), ''cső'' ('pipe'), ''csípős'' ('peppery').
is used in
English for in a few words of Greek origin, such as ''ctenoid.'' When not initial, it represents , as in ''act''.
is used in languages such as
Nahuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...
(that is, based on
Spanish or
Portuguese orthography) 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 as an unofficial surrogate of , which represents .
is used in
Polish for as in ('hello'). In
Kashubian Kashubian can refer to:
* Pertaining to Kashubia, a region of north-central Poland
* Kashubians, an ethnic group of north-central Poland
* Kashubian language
See also
*Kashubian alphabet
The Kashubian or Cassubian alphabet (''kaszëbsczi alf ...
, represents . In
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
and
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid ...
, historical contracted to the
ligature , and represents the sound . In
Hungarian, it was formerly used for the sound , which is now written .
D
is used in
Naro for the click , and in
Juǀʼhoan for the
prevoiced ejective .
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
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
, represents a
voiced dental fricative . It is treated as a distinct letter, named ''èdd'', and placed between and in
alphabetical order. In the ISO romanization of
Korean, it is used for the fortis sound , otherwise spelled ; examples are ''
ddeokbokki'' and ''
bindaeddeok''. In
Basque, it represents a
voiced palatal plosive , as in ''onddo'', ('mushroom'). In several African languages it is implosive .
Latin delta (ẟ, lowercase only) is represented by "dd" in
Modern Welsh.
is used in
English for in certain contexts, such as with ''judgement'' and ''hedge''
is used in the
Albanian,
Swahili
Swahili may refer to:
* Swahili language, a Bantu language official in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes
* Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa
* Swahili culture
Swahili culture is the culture of ...
, and revived
Cornish for the
voiced dental fricative . The first examples of this digraph are from the
Oaths of Strasbourg, the earliest French text, where it denotes the same sound developed mainly from intervocalic Latin -''t''-.
In early traditional Cornish (
yogh
The letter yogh (ȝogh) ( ; Scots: ; Middle English: ) was used in Middle English and Older Scots, representing ''y'' () and various velar phonemes. It was derived from the Insular form of the letter ''g''.
In Middle English writing, tailed z ...
), and later , were used for this purpose.
Edward Lhuyd
Edward Lhuyd FRS (; occasionally written Llwyd in line with modern Welsh orthography, 1660 – 30 June 1709) was a Welsh naturalist, botanist, linguist, geographer and antiquary. He is also named in a Latinate form as Eduardus Luidius.
Life ...
is credited for introducing the grapheme to Cornish orthography in 1707 in his ''Archaeologia Britannica''. In
Irish it represents the
voiced velar fricative or the
voiced palatal approximant ; at the beginning of a word it shows the
lenition of , for example ''mo dhoras'' ('my door' cf. ''doras'' 'door').
: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 ...
voiced dental plosive , and for equivalent sounds in other languages. In
Juǀʼhoan, it's used for the similar
prevoiced aspirated plosive . In the
romanization of Arabic, it denotes , which represents in
Modern Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; occasionally, it also re ...
.
is used in
Faroese,
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
and many French-based orthographies for . In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages such as
Warlpiri Warlpiri may refer to:
* Warlpiri people, an indigenous people of the Tanami Desert, Central Australia
Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Au ...
,
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
, 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
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong people, Hmong ad ...
for . In
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
, 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 ''pedn'' ('head') or ''pednow'' ('heads').
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated .
is used for the click in
Naro.
is used in
Malagasy for . See . It is used in
Fijian for 'ndr' nasalized ().
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
prevoiced ejective .
is used in
German,
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
, and
Sandawe orthography as well as the romanization of
Thai for . In
Irish it represents as the eclipsis of .
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for the
voiced dental affricate .
is used in some
Zapotecan languages for a
voiced postalveolar fricative . (It is placed between and in
alphabetical order.) In
Juǀʼhoan it is used for the
prevoiced uvularized plosive .
is used in
Xhosa for . In
Shona, it represents . In
Tagalog
Tagalog may refer to:
Language
* Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines
** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language
** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language
* Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Tagal ...
it is used for . In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages such as
Warlpiri Warlpiri may refer to:
* Warlpiri people, an indigenous people of the Tanami Desert, Central Australia
Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Au ...
,
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
, 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 ''dźwięk'' . is never written before a
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (l ...
( is used instead, as in ''dziecko'' 'child').
is used in the
Polish for a
voiced retroflex affricate (e.g. 'jam').
is used in
Serbo-Croatian,
Slovak,
Lithuanian
Lithuanian may refer to:
* Lithuanians
* Lithuanian language
* The country of Lithuania
* Grand Duchy of Lithuania
* Culture of Lithuania
* Lithuanian cuisine
* Lithuanian Jews as often called "Lithuanians" (''Lita'im'' or ''Litvaks'') by other Jew ...
, and
Latvian to represent . See article.
E
is used in
Taa, where it represents the
glottalised or
creaky vowel .
is used in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s. In
English, usually represents the monophthong as in ''meat''; due to a
sound change
A sound change, in historical linguistics, is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chang ...
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''. When followed by r, it can represent the standard outcomes of the previously mentioned three vowels in this environment: as in ''beard'', as in ''heard'', and as in ''bear'', respectively; as another exception, occurs in the words ''hearken'', ''heart'' and ''hearth''. It often represents two independent vowels, like (''seance''), (''reality''), (''create''), and or (''lineage''). Unstressed, it may represent (''ocean'') and or (''Eleanor''). In
Romanian, it represents the diphthong as in ''beată'' ('drunk female'). In
Irish, represents between a slender and a broad consonant. In
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period la ...
, 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
Irish for between a slender and a broad consonant.
represents a long mid vowel in a number of languages. In
English, represents as in ''teen''. In
Dutch 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 ...
vowel . In the
Wade-Giles transliteration of
Mandarin Chinese, it is used for after a consonant, as in ''yeh'' . In
German, represents , as in ''Reh''.
This digraph was taken over from
Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. High ...
, where it represented . It usually represents a
diphthong. In
Modern German, 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
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
, represents . In
Irish and
Scottish Gaelic, it represents before a slender consonant. In
Dutch and
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans g ...
, represents . In
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, represents , as in ''seiche''.
is used In
Hepburn romanization of the
Japanese language
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ...
to transcribe the sound .
is used in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
for , as in ''reître'' .
is used in
Irish for between slender consonants.
is used in
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
in some short words, such as ''leja'' or ''nej'' .
is used in
Portuguese for at the end of a word and before a consonant. In French orthography, it can represent /ɑ̃/.
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 ''hífen'' or ''hifens''; and for before a consonant within a word. In
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, 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 the
Jyutping romanization of
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
, 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 Korean language romanization system in South Korea. It was developed by the National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and was released to the public on 7 July 2000 by South Korea's Min ...
, represents the
open-mid back unrounded vowel , and in
Piedmontese it is . In
English is a rare digraph without a single pronunciation, representing in ''
feoff'', ''jeopardy'', ''leopard'' and the given name ''Geoffrey'', in ''people'', in ''
yeoman'' 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'', and, uniquely, in ''
geoduck''.
is used in
Taa for the
pharyngealized vowel .
is found in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s, most commonly for the diphthong . Additionally, in
English, represents as in ''neuter'' ( in yod-dropping accents); however, the ''eu'' in "maneuver/manoeuvre" always represents even in most non yod-dropping accents. In
German, it represents as in ''Deutsch''; and in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
,
Dutch,
Breton, and
Piedmontese, it represents . In
Cornish, it represents either long and short or long and short .
In
Yale romanization of Cantonese it represents , while in the
Cantonese Romanisation, it represents . In
Wugniu romanization of
Wu Chinese, it represents sounds ranging from to , depending on the lect. In
Sundanese and
Acehnese, it represents as in ''beureum'' ('red'). In the
Revised Romanization of Korean
Revised Romanization of Korean () is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. It was developed by the National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and was released to the public on 7 July 2000 by South Korea's Min ...
, it represents .
is used in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
for , as in ''jeûne'' .
is used in
English for as in ''few'' and ''flew''. An exception is the pronunciation in ''sew'', leading to the
heteronym ''sewer'',(, 'drain') vs ''sewer'' (, 'one who sews'). In
Cornish, it stands for .
is used in the
Kernowek Standard 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
A digraph or digram (from the grc, δίς , "double" and , "to write") is a pair of characters used in the orthography of a language to write either a single phoneme (distinct sound), or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to t ...
) indicates an English
'long e', historically but now most commonly realised as .
is used for in
Hokkien Pe̍h-ōe-jī.
F
which may be written as the single unit: ff, is used in
English and
Cornish for the same sound as single , . The doubling is used to indicate that the preceding vowel is (historically) short, or for
etymological reasons, in
latinism
A Latinism (from lat-med, Latinismus) is a word, idiom, or structure in a language other than Latin that is derived from, or suggestive of, the Latin language. The Term ''Latinism'' refers to those loan words that are borrowed into another lang ...
s. Very rarely,
may be found word-initially in English, such as in proper names (e.g.,
Rose ffrench,
Jasper Fforde). In
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
, represents , while represents . In Welsh, is considered a distinct letter, and placed between and in
alphabetical order. In medieval
Breton, vowel nasalisation was represented by a following . This notation was reformed during the 18th century, though proper names retain the former convention, which leads to occasional mispronunciation. For ff as a single unit see:
Typographic ligature
In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes or letters are joined to form a single glyph. Examples are the characters æ and œ used in English and French, in which the letters 'a' and 'e' are joined for the first li ...
and Unicode FB00 (U+FB00) in
Latin script in Unicode and
Unicode equivalence
is used in
Irish and
Scottish Gaelic for the
lenition of . This happens to be silent, so that in Gaelic corresponds to no sound at all. For example, the Irish phrase ('how long') is pronounced , where is the lenited form of ('long').
in used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized .
G
is used in
Uzbek to represent .
is used in some
African languages for a
voiced labial-velar plosive
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to ...
, .
is used in languages, such as
Xhosa and
Zulu, for the click . In
Irish, it indicates the
eclipsis
Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions. The mutations are an important to ...
of and represents .
is used in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
for before as in ''geôle'' .
is used in
English for before , and (exampleː ''doggy''). It is also used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
for in languages such as
Yi. In
Central Alaskan Yup'ik Central Alaskan Yup'ik may refer to:
* Central Alaskan Yup'ik people
* Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Direction ...
, 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 represents a geminated , as in ''legge'' . In
Piedmontese and
Lombard, is an etymological spelling representing an at the end of a word which is the unvoicing of an ancient .
is used in several languages. In English, it can be silent or represent or . See article.
is used in
Vietnamese for in northern dialects and in the southern ones. In
Italian, it represents before the non-front vowel letters .
is used in
Albanian for the
voiced palatal plosive , though for
Gheg speakers it represents . In the
Arbëresh dialect, it represents the
voiced velar plosive . In
Norwegian and
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
represents in words like ''gjorde'' ('did'). In
Faroese, it represents . It is also used in the
Romanization of Macedonian as a Latin equivalent of
Cyrillic . 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 in 1878, the digraph ⟨gj⟩ had been used instead; and it remained in use till the beginning of the 20th century.
is used in
Sandawe and the romanization of
Thai for ; in
Limburgish
Limburgish ( li, Limburgs or ; nl, Limburgs ; german: Limburgisch ; french: Limbourgeois ), also called Limburgan, Limburgian, or Limburgic, is a West Germanic language spoken in the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg (Netherlands), L ...
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 branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...
, 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, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language f ...
. For most languages that preserve the spelling (such as
Italian and
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
), 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 ...
, and is similarly used in
Romanization schemes such as
Wugniu for . This was not the case in
Dalmatian and the
Eastern Romance languages where a different mutation changed the velar component to a
labial consonant as well as the spelling to .
:In
English, represents initially (see
/gn/ reduction) and finally (i.e. ''gnome, gnu, benign, sign''). When it appears between two syllables, it represents (e.g. ''signal''). In
Norwegian and
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
, represents in monosyllabic words like ''agn'', and between two syllables, ''tegne''. Initially, it represents , e.g. Swedish ''gnista'' .
was used in several Spanish-derived orthographies of the Pacific for . It is one of several variants of the digraph , and is preserved in the name of the town of
Sagñay,
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
.
is used in
Piedmontese for .
is used in languages, such as
Xhosa and
Zulu, for the click . In the
Taa language
Taa , also known as ǃXóõ (also spelled ǃKhong and ǃXoon; ), is a Tuu language notable for its large number of phonemes, perhaps the largest in the world. It is also notable for having perhaps the heaviest functional load of click consona ...
, it represents .
is used in
Xhosa for .
is used in
English,
Spanish,
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
,
Portuguese and
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid ...
for before front vowels ( in English and French) where a "soft g" pronunciation (English ; Spanish ; French, Portuguese and Catalan ) would otherwise occur. In English, it can also be used to represent . In the
Ossete Latin alphabet, it is used for .
is used in
Spanish and
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid ...
for before front vowels where the digraph would otherwise represent .
is used for in
Standard Zhuang
Standard Zhuang (exonym and endonym, autonym: , , (pre-1982: ; Sawndip: ); ) is the official language, official standard language, standardized form of the Zhuang languages, which are a branch of the Northern Tai languages. Its pronunciation ...
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
Chipewyan or Denesuline (ethnonym: ), often simply called Dene, is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of northwestern Canada. It is categorized as part of the Northern Athabaskan language family. Dënësųłinë́ has nearly 12,000 ...
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, it is an unofficial surrogate of , which represents .
is used in
Hungarian for a
voiced palatal plosive . In Hungarian, the letter's name is ''gyé.'' It is considered a single letter, and
acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in '' NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, a ...
s keep the digraph intact. The letter appears frequently in Hungarian words, such as the word for "Hungarian" itself: ''magyar''. In the old orthography of
Bouyei, it was used for .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
voiced alveolar click
The voiced (post)alveolar click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phone ...
.
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 ''h.'' In the
Iraqw language, ''hh'' is the
voiceless epiglottal fricative
The voiceless epiglottal or pharyngeal trill, or voiceless epiglottal fricative,John Esling (2010) "Phonetic Notation", in Hardcastle, Laver & Gibbon (eds) ''The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences'', 2nd ed., p 695. is a type of consonantal sound, us ...
, and in
Chipewyan it is a velar/uvular . In
Esperanto orthography, it is an official surrogate of , which represents .
is used in the
Italian dialect of Albanian for . In
Faroese, it represents either or , and in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, it represents . In
Icelandic it is used to denote .
is used for or in various alphabets, such as the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong people, Hmong ad ...
used to write
Hmong () and
Icelandic (). See also
reduction of Old English /hl/.
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong people, Hmong ad ...
used to write
Hmong, where it represents the sound .
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong people, Hmong ad ...
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 for the sound , equivalent to
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
''x.''
is used primarily in the
Classical Nahuatl language, in which it represents the sound before a vowel; for example, ''Wikipedia'' in Nahuatl is written ''Huiquipedia''. After a vowel, is used. In the
Ossete Latin alphabet, ''hu'' was used for , similar to French ''roi.'' The sequence ''hu'' is also found in Spanish words such as ''huevo'' or ''hueso;'' however, in Spanish this is not a digraph but a simple sequence of silent ''h'' and the vowel ''u.''
is used
Faroese and
Icelandic for (often ), generally in
wh-words
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 of ...
, but also in other words, such as Faroese ''hvonn''. 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 Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period la ...
for , originally spelled or (the latter with the
wynn letter). In its descendants in modern English, it is now spelled (see there for more details). It is used in some orthographies of
Cornish for .
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
for in languages such as
Yi ( alone represents the fricative ), and in
Nambikwara it is a
glottalized . In
Esperanto orthography, it is an unofficial surrogate of , which represents .
is used in
Hepburn romanization of the
Japanese language
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ...
to transcribe the sound , which is the syllable ''hi'' before a ''y''-vowel, such as ''hya'', ''hyu'', and ''hyo'', which appear in Chinese loanwords.
I
is used in
Taa to represent the
glottalized or
creaky vowel .
is used in
Irish for the diphthong .
is used in
English, where it usually represents the sound as in ''pries'' and ''allied'' or the sound as in ''priest'' and ''rallied''. Followed by an ''r'', these vowels follow the standard changes to and , as in ''brier'' and ''bier''. Unique pronunciations are in ''sieve'', in ''friend'' and in ''lingerie''. Unstressed it can represent , as in ''spaniel'' and ''conscience'', or or as in ''mischief'' and ''hurriedly''. It also can represent many vowel combinations, including in ''diet'' and ''client'', in ''diester'' and ''quiescent'', in ''alien'' and ''skier'', in ''oriental'' and ''hygienic'', and in British ''medieval''.
:In
Dutch and
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans g ...
, represents the
tense vowel . In
German, it may represent the lengthened vowel as in ''Liebe'' (love) as well as the vowel combination as in ''Belgien'' (Belgium). In
Latvian and
Lithuanian
Lithuanian may refer to:
* Lithuanians
* Lithuanian language
* The country of Lithuania
* Grand Duchy of Lithuania
* Culture of Lithuania
* Lithuanian cuisine
* Lithuanian Jews as often called "Lithuanians" (''Lita'im'' or ''Litvaks'') by other Jew ...
, the is considered two letters for all purposes and represents , commonly (although less precisely) transcribed as . In
Maltese
Maltese may refer to:
* Someone or something of, from, or related to Malta
* Maltese alphabet
* Maltese cuisine
* Maltese culture
* Maltese language, the Semitic language spoken by Maltese people
* Maltese people, people from Malta or of Malte ...
, is a distinct letter and represents a long
close front unrounded vowel
The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound that occurs in most spoken languages, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by the symbol i. It is similar to the vowel sound in the English ...
, or . In
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
it is used to write the vowel in languages such as
Yi, where ''e'' stands for . In
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period la ...
was one of the common diphthongs, the
umlauted version of "ea" and "eo". Its value is not entirely clear, and in Middle English it had become /e/.
is used in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans g ...
for .
is used in
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid ...
for 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 ...
vowel . It is also used in
Tongyong Pinyin and
Wade-Giles transcription for the fricative vowels of Mandarin Chinese, which are spelled ''i'' in
Hanyu Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
.
is used in many languages such as Finnish (example:Riikka, Niinistö, Siitala, Riikkeli), Italian (example:Riina), Estonian (example:Riik), Scots (example:Auld Nii, Iisay), with phonemic long vowels for .
is used in
Dutch for . See article.
is used in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
for , historically , as in ''ail'' "garlic".
is used in
Portuguese for .
is used in
Portuguese for before a consonant.
is used in many languages to write a
nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced wit ...
. In
Portuguese before a consonant, and in many
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mau ...
n languages, it is , while in French it is .
is used in
Portuguese for before a consonant.
is used in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
to write a vowel sound that was once followed by a historical ''s'', as in ''vous vîntes'' "you came".
is used in
Lakhota
Lakota ( ), also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes. Lakota is mutually intelligible with the two dialects of the Dakota language, especially Western Dakota, and ...
for the nasal vowel .
is used in
Irish for , , and between a slender and a broad consonant.
is used in
Irish for between a slender and a broad consonant.
is used in
Taa to represent the
pharyngealized vowel .
is used in
Irish for between a slender and a broad consonant. In Mandarin
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
, it is after a consonant. (In initial position, this is spelled ''you.'')
is used in
Irish for between a slender and a broad consonant.
is used in
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
and
Cornish for the diphthong or .
is used in
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid ...
for (Eastern Catalan) or (Western Catalan) after a vowel.
(a
split digraph
A digraph or digram (from the grc, δίς , "double" and , "to write") is a pair of characters used in the orthography of a language to write either a single phoneme (distinct sound), or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to t ...
) 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, it represents , written ''zh'' in standard pinyin. ''Jh'' is also the standard transliteration for the
Devanāgarī
Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...
letter झ .
In
Esperanto, it is an official surrogate of , which represents .
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
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.
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for .
is used in
Esperanto as an unofficial surrogate of , which represents .
K
is used for in southern African languages such as
Setswana and
Sotho. For instance, the
Kalahari is spelled ''Kgalagadi'' in Setswana.
, in transcriptions of
Indo-Aryan and
Dravidian languages, represents the
aspirated voiceless velar plosive (). For most other languages, it represents the
voiceless velar fricative , for example in transcriptions of the letter () in standard Arabic, standard Persian, and Urdu, Cyrillic ''
Х'', ''х'' (kha), Spanish ''j'', as well as the Hebrew letter
kaf () in instances when it is
lenited. When used for transcription of the letter () in
Sephardic Hebrew, it represents the
voiceless pharyngeal fricative . In Canadian
Tlingit it represents , which in Alaska is written ''
k.'' In the
Ossete Latin alphabet, it was used for .
is used
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
and
Norwegian for or . See also . In
Faroese, it represents .
is used in romanized
Korean for the
fortis
Fortis may refer to:
Business
* Fortis AG, 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 India
* Fortis Inc ...
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, where it represents a
voiceless labial-velar plosive .
is used in
Xhosa for .
is used in
Cornish for either or .
is used in
Purépecha
The Purépecha (endonym pua, P'urhepecha ) are a group of indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of Michoacán, Mexico, mainly in the area of the cities of Cherán and Pátzcuaro.
They are also known by the pejorative "Tarascan ...
for . It also had that value in the
Ossete Latin alphabet.
is used for in some dialects of
Zhuang.
is used in various languages for the
labialized velar consonant
A labialized velar or labiovelar is a velar consonant that is labialized, with a -like secondary articulation. Common examples are , which are pronounced like a , with rounded lips, such as the labialized voiceless velar plosive and labializ ...
, and in
Dene Suline
Chipewyan or Denesuline (ethnonym: ), often simply called Dene, is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of northwestern Canada. It is categorized as part of the Northern Athabaskan language family. Dënësųłinë́ has nearly 12,000 ...
(Chipewyan) for . Used informally in English for
phonemic spelling of ''
qu'', as in ''
kwik
Kwik (german: Quicka) is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Pisz, within Pisz County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately north of Pisz and east of the regional capital Olsztyn. It is located ...
'' (from ''quick''), ultimately from
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...
.
is used in Alaskan
Tlingit for , which in Canada is written ''
khw.''
in used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized , and in
Juǀʼhoan for the
ejective .
is used in
Tibetan Pinyin for .
is used in
Esperanto for , equivalent to Polish .
L
, in
Occitan,
Gallo, and
Portuguese, represents a
palatal lateral approximant
The voiced palatal lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a rotated lowercase letter (not to be confused with lowercas ...
. In many
Indigenous languages of the Americas 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 (), abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself lat ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese, initial indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in , which is otherwise spelled . In
Middle Welsh 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 , as in ''
Lhasa''.
is a letter in some
Slavic languages, such as the Latin orthographies of
Serbo-Croatian, where it represents a
palatal lateral approximant
The voiced palatal lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a rotated lowercase letter (not to be confused with lowercas ...
. For example, the word ''ljiljan'' is pronounced .
Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj (; born Ludwig Gay; hu, Gáj Lajos; 8 August 1809 – 20 April 1872) was a Croatian Linguistics, linguist, politician, journalist and writer. He was one of the central figures of the pan-Slavist Illyrian movement.
Biography
Origi ...
first used the digraph in 1830; he devised it by analogy with a
Cyrillic digraph, which developed into the
ligature . In
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
it represents /j/ such as in Ljus.
:The sound is written in Italian, in Castilian Spanish and Catalan as , in Portuguese as , in some Hungarian dialects as , and in
Latvian as . In
Czech and
Slovak, it is often transcribed as ; it is used more frequently in the latter language. While there are dedicated Unicode codepoints, U+01C7 (LJ), U+01C8 (Lj) and U+01C9 (lj), these are included for backwards compatibility (with legacy encodings for Serbo-Croatian which kept a one-to-one correspondence with Cyrillic Љљ) and modern texts use a sequence of Basic Latin characters.
and are used in several languages. See article.
is used in
Asturian for a sound that was historically but which is now an affricate, .
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for .
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated .
is used for in
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
.
in used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized .
is used in
Hungarian. See article.
M
, in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, represents or . It is used in
Irish to indicate the
eclipsis
Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions. The mutations are an important to ...
of and represents ; for example 'our boat' (cf. 'boat'). The Irish digraph is capitalized mB, for example 'in Dublin'. In English, ''mb'' represents when final, as in ''lamb'' (see
reduction of /mb/). In
Standard Zhuang
Standard Zhuang (exonym and endonym, autonym: , , (pre-1982: ; Sawndip: ); ) is the official language, official standard language, standardized form of the Zhuang languages, which are a branch of the Northern Tai languages. Its pronunciation ...
and in
Bouyei, is used for .
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated and
prenasalized .
, in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, represents or .
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
for in languages such as
Yi, where the more common digraph is restricted to . It is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated and
prenasalized .
, in
Irish, stands for the
lenition of and represents or ; for example or 'my mother' (cf. 'mother'). In
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
it stands for the
nasal mutation The morphology of the Welsh language has many characteristics likely to be unfamiliar to speakers of English or continental European languages like French or German, but has much in common with the other modern Insular Celtic languages: Irish, Scott ...
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 ...
. In the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh (), abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself lat ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese, initial ''mh-'' indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in , which is otherwise spelled ''m-.'' In several languages, such as
Gogo
Go go or Gogo may refer to:
Geography
* Ghogha, India, a town once also known as Gogo
* Gogo, Boulkiemdé, Burkina Faso, a town
* Gogo, Zoundwéogo, Burkina Faso, a city
* Gogo Department, a department in central Burkina Faso
* Gogo Formatio ...
, it's a voiceless .
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong people, Hmong ad ...
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 /m/ as in ''damning'', or as in ''damnation'' (see
/mn/-reduction). In
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
it represents , as in and .
, in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, represents or . Modern Greek uses the equivalent digraph
μ π for , as
β is used for . In
Mpumpong of
Cameroon
Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west- central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; th ...
, is a plain .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for a
pharyngealized or perhaps
creaky .
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated and
prenasalized .
, in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, represents or .
is used for in
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
.
is used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized .
N
is used in
Xhosa and
Shona for . Since is not a letter in either language, is not technically a digraph.
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
for in languages such as
Yi. It is also used in
Fula in Guinea for (written as mb in other countries).
is used in various alphabets. In the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong people, Hmong ad ...
used to write
Hmong, it represents the sound . In
Tharaka
Tharaka () was a mythological king from Sri Lanka.
According to legend, he designed the craft " Dandu Monara", which was able to fly, but he was unable to build it. Instead the king Ravana built it, and stories from Ramayana tell of him using it ...
it is . In
Xhosa and
Zulu it represents the click .
, in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, represents or , and capitalized . It is used in
Irish for the
eclipsis
Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions. The mutations are an important to ...
of , and represents , for example in ''ár ndoras'' "our door" (cf. ''doras'' "door"). In this function it is capitalized , e.g. ''i nDoire'' "in
Derry". In
Standard Zhuang
Standard Zhuang (exonym and endonym, autonym: , , (pre-1982: ; Sawndip: ); ) is the official language, official standard language, standardized form of the Zhuang languages, which are a branch of the Northern Tai languages. Its pronunciation ...
and in
Bouyei, is used for .
, equivalent to for or . In
Rangi ''nf'' is while ''mf'' is .
, in
Sino-Tibetan languages, as in
English and several other
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...
an and derived orthographies (for example
Vietnamese), generally represents the
velar nasal . It is considered a single letter in many
Austronesian languages (
Māori,
Tagalog
Tagalog may refer to:
Language
* Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines
** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language
** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language
* Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Tagal ...
,
Tongan,
Gilbertese,
Tuvaluan,
Indonesian
Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to:
* Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia
** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago
** Indonesia ...
,
Chamorro),
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
, and
Rheinische Dokumenta, for
velar nasal ; and in some
African languages (
Lingala,
Bambara,
Wolof) for
prenasalized ().
:For the development of the pronunciation of this digraph in English, see
NG-coalescence
The phonological history of the English language includes various changes in the phonology of consonant clusters.
H-cluster reductions
The H-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English, ...
and
G-dropping.
:
Finnish uses the digraph 'ng' to denote the phonemically long
velar nasal in contrast to 'nk' , which is its "strong" form under
consonant gradation, a type of
lenition. Weakening produces an
archiphonemic "velar fricative", which, as a velar fricative does not exist in Standard Finnish, is assimilated to the preceding , producing . (No is involved at any point, despite the spelling 'ng'.) The digraph 'ng' is not an independent letter, but it is an exception to the
phonemic principle
A phonemic orthography is an orthography (system for writing a language) in which the graphemes (written symbols) correspond to the phonemes (significant spoken sounds) of the language. Natural languages rarely have perfectly phonemic orthographi ...
, one of the few in standard Finnish.
:In
Irish ''ng'' is used word-initially as the
eclipsis
Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions. The mutations are an important to ...
of and represents , e.g. ''ár ngalar'' "our illness" (cf. ). In this function it is capitalized ''nG'', e.g. ''i'' nG''aillimh'' "in Galway".
:In Tagalog and other
Philippine languages, ''ng'' represented the prenasalized sequence during the Spanish era. The velar nasal, , was written in a variety of ways, namely "n͠g", "ñg", "gñ" (as in
Sagñay), and—after a vowel—at times "g̃". During the standardization of Tagalog in the early part of the 20th century, ''ng'' became used for the velar nasal , while prenasalized came to be written ''
ngg.'' Furthermore, ''ng'' is also used for a common
genitive particle pronounced , to differentiate it from an adverbial particle ''nang.''
:In
Uzbek, it is considered as a separate letter, being the last (twenty-ninth) letter of the
Uzbek alphabet. It is followed by the
apostrophe (''tutuq belgisi'').
is used in
Central Alaskan Yup'ik Central Alaskan Yup'ik may refer to:
* Central Alaskan Yup'ik people
* Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Direction ...
to write the voiceless nasal sound .
, or more precisely , was a digraph in several Spanish-derived orthographies of the Pacific, such as
Tagalog
Tagalog may refer to:
Language
* Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines
** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language
** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language
* Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Tagal ...
and
Chamorro, where it represented the sound , as opposed to ''ng'', which originally represented . An example is Chamorro ''agan͠gñáijon'' (modern ''agangñaihon)'' "to declare". Besides ''ñg'', variants of ''n͠g'' include ''gñ'' (as in
Sagñay), ''ng̃'', and a ''g̃'', that is preceded by a vowel (but not a consonant). It has since been replaced by the trigraph or (see above).
is used for in Swahili and languages with Swahili-based orthographies. Since is not a letter in Swahili, is technically a digraph, not a
trigraph.
is used in several languages. See article.
in
Polish, it usually represents whenever it precedes a vowel, and whenever it precedes a consonant (or in the end of the word), and is considered a graphic variant of
ń appearing in other situations. (In some cases it may represent also before a vowel; for a better description, when, see
the relevant section in the article on Polish orthography).
is a letter in the Latin orthographies of
Albanian,
Serbo-Croatian.
Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj (; born Ludwig Gay; hu, Gáj Lajos; 8 August 1809 – 20 April 1872) was a Croatian Linguistics, linguist, politician, journalist and writer. He was one of the central figures of the pan-Slavist Illyrian movement.
Biography
Origi ...
, 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 ''konj'' (''horse'') is pronounced . The digraph was created in the 19th century by analogy with a digraph of
Cyrillic, which developed into the
ligature . While there are dedicated Unicode codepoints, U+01CA (NJ), U+01CB (Nj) and U+01CC (nj), these are included for backwards compatibility (with legacy encodings for Serbo-Croatian which kept a one-to-one correspondence with Cyrillic Њњ) and modern texts use a sequence of Basic Latin characters.
:In
Faroese, it generally represents , although in some words it represent , like in ''banjo''. It is also used in some languages of
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
and
Oceania where it represents a
prenazalized voiced postalveolar affricate or
fricative
A fricative is a consonant manner of articulation, produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two Place of articulation, articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the ba ...
, or . In
Malagasy, it represents .
:Other letters and digraphs of the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...
used for spelling this sound are (in
Polish), (in
Czech and
Slovakian), (in
Spanish), (in
Portuguese and
Occitan), (in
Italian and
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
), and (in
Hungarian, among others).
is used in many
Bantu languages like
Lingala,
Tshiluba, and
Kikongo, for or . In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages such as
Warlpiri Warlpiri may refer to:
* Warlpiri people, an indigenous people of the Tanami Desert, Central Australia
Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Au ...
,
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
, and
Pitjantjatjara, it distinguishes a prenasalized velar stop, , from the nasal .
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated .
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated .
is used in
Irish for the
Old Irish
Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writte ...
"
fortis sonorants" ("broad", i.e. non-palatalized or
velarized) and ("slender", i.e.
palatalized) in non-initial position. In modern
Irish, the "broad" sound is , while the slender sound can be any of , , or , depending on dialect and position in the word. In
Spanish historical has contracted to the
ligature and represents the sound . In the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh (), abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself lat ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese, final ''-nn'' indicates a falling tone on a syllable ending in , which is otherwise spelled ''-n.'' It is used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for glottalized . In
Piedmontese, it is in the middle of a word, and at the end. In
Cornish, it is used for an optionally
pre-occluded ; that is, it is pronounced either or (in any position); (before a consonant or finally); or (before a vowel); examples are ''penn'' ('head') or ''pennow'' ('heads').
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong people, Hmong ad ...
used to write
Hmong, where it represents the sound .
is used in various alphabets. In the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong people, Hmong ad ...
used to write
Hmong, it represents the sound . In
Xhosa and
Zulu it represents the click . In the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh (), abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself lat ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese, final ''-nq'' indicates a falling tone on a syllable ending in , which is otherwise spelled ''-ng.''
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong people, Hmong ad ...
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 in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, represents or .
is a letter present in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
where it represents or . Modern Greek uses the equivalent digraph
ν τ for , as
δ is used for .
, equivalent to for or .
is used in
Igbo for , and in
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
for .
is used for the click in
Xhosa and
Zulu, and in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized .
is used in several languages for . See article.
, in many
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n
languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, represents ~ , ~ , ~ , or ~ .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
alveolar nasal click
The alveolar nasal click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is or ; a symbol abandoned by the IPA but still preferred by som ...
.
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
dental nasal click .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
lateral nasal click .
is used in
Juǀʼhoan for the
palatal nasal click .
is used for medial in
Piedmontese.
Ŋ
⟨ŋm⟩, a letter was used in
Anii
The Anii or Basila language (''Bassila, Baseca,'' also known as ''Oji-Ouji, Ouinji-Ouinji, Winji-Winji,'' though this is derogatory) is spoken in Benin, and central eastern Togo and central eastern Ghana. It is part of the geographic group of ...
.
O
is used for and in
Uzbek, with the preferred typographical form being (Cyrillic ). Technically it is not a digraph in Uzbek, since is not a letter of the Uzbek alphabet, but rather a typographic convention for a diacritic. In handwriting the letter is written as .
It is also used in
Taa, for the
glottalized or
creaky vowel .
is used in
English, where it commonly represents the sound as in ''road'', ''coal'', ''boast'', ''coaxing'', etc. In
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
, where the digraph originated, it represented , a pronunciation retained in the word ''broad'' and derivatives, and when the digraph is followed by an "r", as in ''soar'' and ''
bezoar''. The letters also represent two vowels, as in ''koala'' , ''
boas'' , ''
coaxial'' , ''oasis'' , and ''doable'' . In
Malagasy, it is occasionally used for .
is found in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s. In
English, it represents the sound as in ''hoe'' and sometimes the sound as in ''shoe''. It may also represent the sound in
AmE pronunciation of ''
Oedipus
Oedipus (, ; grc-gre, Οἰδίπους "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus accidentally fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby ...
'', ''(o)esophagus'' (also in
BrE
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
), and ''(o)estrogen'', in ''boehmite'' (AmE) and surnames like ''
Boehner
John Andrew Boehner ( ; born , 1949) is an American retired politician who served as the 53rd speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served 13 terms as the U.S. represen ...
'' and ''
Groening'' (as if spelled ''Bayner'' and ''Gray/Greyning'' respectively), and in ''foetus'' (BrE and
CoE) and some speakers' pronunciation of ''Oedipus'' and ''oestrogen''.
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans g ...
and
Dutch ''oe'' is , as in ''doen''; it also represented the same phoneme in the
Indonesian language before the
1972 spelling reform.
Ligatured to in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, it stands for the vowels (as in ) and (as in ). It is an alternative way to write or in German or Scandinavian languages when this character is unavailable. In
Cantonese Pinyin it represents the vowel , while in the
Jyutping romanisation of
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
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
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
to write the vowel sound in a few words before what had historically been an ''s'', mostly in words derived from ' "stove". The diacriticless variant, , rarely represents this sound except in words related to ' (rarely spelt ).
is used in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans g ...
for the vowel .
is used in
Portuguese for . It is used in plural forms of some words ended in , such as ''
anão–anões'' and ''
campeão–campeões.''
is used in
Taa, for the breathy or
murmured
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 ...
vowel .
is used in various
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s. In
English, ''oi'' represents the sound as in ''coin'' and ''join''. In
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, it represents , which was historically – and still is in some cases – written "oy." In
Irish it is used for between a broad and a slender consonant. In
Piedmontese, it is .
is used in
Irish for between a broad and a slender consonant.
is used in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
to write before what had historically been an ''s'', as in ''boîtier'' or ''cloître.''
is used in
Irish for between a broad and a slender consonant.
is used in
Piedmontese for .
is used in
Portuguese for , and in French to write .
is used in
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all of ...
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. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s. In
English, ''oo'' commonly represents sounds which historically descend from the
Middle English pronunciation . After the
Great Vowel Shift, this came to typically represent as in "m''oo''n" and "f''oo''d". Subsequently, in a handful of common words like "g''oo''d" and "fl''oo''d" the vowel was shortened to /u/, and after the
Middle English – split, these became and respectively. Like in
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
, the digraph's pronunciation is in most other languages. In
German and
Dutch, the digraph represents . In
Cornish, it represents either or .
Is used in
Taa,for the
pharyngealized vowel .
, in
Daighi tongiong pingim, represents
mid central vowel
The mid central vowel (also known as schwa) is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a ə, rotated lowercase letter e.
While the ''Handbook of th ...
or
close-mid back rounded vowel in
Taiwanese Hokkien.
[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 , as in ''out'' . This spelling is generally used before consonants, with being used instead before vowels and at the ends of words. Occasionally ''ou'' may also represent other vowels – as in ''trouble'', as in ''soul'', as in ''would'', as in ''group'', or as in the alternate American pronunciation of ''coupon''. The ''ou'' in ''out'' originally represented , as in French, and its pronunciation has mostly changed as part of the
Great Vowel Shift. However, the sound was kept before p.
In
Dutch represents in the Netherlands or in Flanders. In
Cornish, it represents , , or .
In
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, it represents the
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (l ...
, as in ''vous'' "you", or the
approximant consonant , as in ''oui'' "yes".
In
Portuguese this digraph stands for the
close-mid back rounded vowel or for the falling
diphthong , according to dialect.
is used In
Hepburn romanization of the
Japanese language
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ...
to transcribe the sound .
is used in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
to write the vowel sound before what had historically been an ''s'', as in ''soûl'' "drunk" (also spelt ''soul'').
, in
English, usually represents the sound as in ''coward'', ''sundowner'', and ''now'' or the sound, as in ''froward'', ''landowner'', and ''know''. An exceptional pronunciation is in ''knowledge'' and ''
rowlock''. There are many English
heteronyms distinguished only by the pronunciation of this digraph, like: ''bow'' (front of ship or weapon), ''bower'' (a dwelling or string player), ''lower'' (to frown or drop), ''mow'' (to grimace or cut), ''row'' (a dispute or line-up), ''shower'' (rain or presenter), ''sow'' (a pig or to seed), ''tower'' (a building or towboat). In
Cornish, this represents the diphthong
or ;
before vowels, it can also represent .
is used in the
Kernowek Standard orthography of
Cornish to refer to a sound that can be either or . This distribution can also be written .
is found in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s. In
English and
Faroese, oy represents the diphthong . Examples in English include ''toy'' and ''annoy''. In
Cornish, it represents the diphthong ; in the words ''oy'' ('egg') and ''moy'' ('much'), it can also be pronounced .
is an obsolete digraph once used in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
.
is used in
Norwegian for .
(a
split digraph
A digraph or digram (from the grc, δίς , "double" and , "to write") is a pair of characters used in the orthography of a language to write either a single phoneme (distinct sound), or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to t ...
) indicates an English
'long o', historically but now most commonly realised as .
P
in
German represents a labial affricate . It can be initial (''Pferd'', 'horse'), medial (''Apfel'', 'apple'), or final (''Knopf'', 'button'). Where it appears in English, usually in names or words recently derived from German, it is ordinarily simplified to such as
Pfizer.
, in English and some other languages, represents , mostly in words derived from
Greek. The Ancient Greek letter
phi originally represented (an
aspirated ''p'' sound), and was thus transcribed into
Latin orthography
Latin phonology continually evolved over the centuries, making it difficult for speakers in one era to know how Latin was spoken before then. A given phoneme may be represented by different letters in different periods. This article deals prima ...
as , a convention that was transferred to some other Western European languages. The Greek pronunciation of later changed to /f/, and this was also the sound adopted in other languages for the relevant loanwords. Exceptionally, in English, represents in the name ''
Stephen'' and some speakers' pronunciations of ''
nephew
In the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a niece or nephew is a child of the subject's sibling or sibling-in-law. The converse relationship, the relationship from the niece or nephew's perspective, is that of an ...
''.
In
Irish and
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
it reprsents the
Lenition/
Aspirate mutation
Consonant mutation is change in a consonant in a word according to its morphological or syntactic environment.
Mutation occurs in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of a ...
of .
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong people, Hmong ad ...
used to write Hmong, where it represents the sound .
is used for in
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
.
is used in English for an initial sound in words of Greek origin such as ''pneumatic.'' When not initial, it represents the sequence , as in ''apnea.''
is used in romanized
Korean for the fortis sound , and in
Cypriot Arabic for .
is used in English for an initial sound in words of Greek origin such as ''psyche.'' When not initial, it represents the sequence , as in ''ellipse.'' It is also used in
Shona to write a
whistled sibilant cluster .
is used in several languages for in words of Greek origin, where it was . An example in English is ''
pterosaur'' , and an exception is ''ptarmigan'' , which is
Gaelic, not Greek. When not initial, ''pt'' represents the sequence , as in ''apt.''
is used for in
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
.
is used in
Cypriot Arabic for .
Q
is used to write the click in
Naro. It was used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless alveolar click .
is used in various alphabets. In
Quechua and the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong people, Hmong ad ...
used to write
Hmong, it represents the sound . In
Xhosa, it represents the click .
was used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless alveolar click (equivalent to ).
is used in
Piedmontese for .
is used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for ejective . In
Hadza it is the glottalized click .
is used in
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid ...
,
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
,
Galician,
Occitan,
Portuguese and
Spanish for before the vowel letters ''e, i'', where the letter ''c'' represents the sound (
Castilian Spanish
In English, Castilian Spanish can mean the variety of Peninsular Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain, the standard form of Spanish, or Spanish from Spain in general. In Spanish, the term (Castilian) can either refer to the Spanish langua ...
and most of
Galicia
Galicia may refer to:
Geographic regions
* Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain
** Gallaecia, a Roman province
** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia
** The medieval King ...
) or (
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid ...
,
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
,
American Spanish,
Occitan and
Portuguese). This dates to
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...
''qu'', and ultimately the
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...
labialized velar consonant
A labialized velar or labiovelar is a velar consonant that is labialized, with a -like secondary articulation. Common examples are , which are pronounced like a , with rounded lips, such as the labialized voiceless velar plosive and labializ ...
; in English this sound instead became written primarily as
''wh'', due to
Grimm's law changing > (written ''hw''), and Middle English spelling change switching ''hw'' to ''wh''. In English, it represents in words derived from those languages (e.g., ''
quiche
Quiche ( ) is a French tart consisting of pastry crust filled with savoury custard and pieces of cheese, meat, seafood or vegetables. A well-known variant is quiche Lorraine, which includes lardons or bacon. Quiche may be served hot, warm or co ...
''), and in other words, including borrowings from Latin (e.g., ''
quantity''). In
German, where the /w/ sound evolved into /v/, it is used to represent /kv/ in both native Germanic words and Latin borrowings. In the
Ossete Latin alphabet, it was used for . In
Vietnamese it is used to represent the or sound. In Cornish, it represents the sound.
is used for glottalized in
Bouyei.
is used in some languages for the sound . In
Mi'kmaq it is used for . In the
Kernowek Standard and
Standard Written Form
The Standard Written Form or SWF ( kw, Furv Skrifys Savonek) of the Cornish language is an orthography standard that is designed to "provide public bodies and the educational system with a universally acceptable, inclusive, and neutral orthograph ...
orthographies for Revived Cornish, and in
William Jordan's 1611 ''Creation of the World'', it is used for .
is used for glottalized in
Bouyei.
R
is used in the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages such as
Warlpiri Warlpiri may refer to:
* Warlpiri people, an indigenous people of the Tanami Desert, Central Australia
Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Au ...
,
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
, and
Pitjantjatjara for a retroflex stop, . In
Norwegian and
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
it represents
voiced retroflex plosive, .
is used in
English for
Greek words
transliterated through
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...
. 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 Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period la ...
. The digraph may also be found within words, but always at the start of a word component, e.g., "polyrhythmic".
German,
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, and
Interlingua use ''rh'' in the same way. is also found in
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
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. In the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh (), abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself lat ...
romanization of
Mandarin Chinese, initial ''rh-'' indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in , which is otherwise spelled ''r-.'' In
Purépecha
The Purépecha (endonym pua, P'urhepecha ) are a group of indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of Michoacán, Mexico, mainly in the area of the cities of Cherán and Pátzcuaro.
They are also known by the pejorative "Tarascan ...
, it is a
retroflex flap, .
is used in the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages such as
Warlpiri Warlpiri may refer to:
* Warlpiri people, an indigenous people of the Tanami Desert, Central Australia
Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Au ...
,
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
, and
Pitjantjatjara, as well in
Norwegian and
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
, for a retroflex lateral, written in the
IPA. In
Greenlandic, it represents as the result of an assimilation of a consonant cluster with a uvular consonant as the first component.
is used in
Inuktitut
Inuktitut (; , syllabics ; from , "person" + , "like", "in the manner of"), also Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces o ...
for .
represents the retroflex nasal in
Warlpiri Warlpiri may refer to:
* Warlpiri people, an indigenous people of the Tanami Desert, Central Australia
Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Au ...
,
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
, and
Pitjantjatjara (see
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages), as well in
Norwegian and
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
. In
Greenlandic, it represents . In
Inuktitut
Inuktitut (; , syllabics ; from , "person" + , "like", "in the manner of"), also Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces o ...
, 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 branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...
or
Romance origin, and "rrh" in words of ancient
Greek origin. It is quite a common digraph. Some words with "rr" are relatively recent
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s from other languages; examples include ''
burro'' from
Spanish. It is often used in impromptu pronunciation guides to denote either an
alveolar tap Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit.
Uses in anatomy and zoology
* Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs
** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte
** Alveolar duct
** Alveolar macrophage
* M ...
or an
alveolar trill. It is a letter in the
Albanian alphabet.
In several European languages, such as
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid ...
,
Spanish,
Portuguese or
Albanian, "rr" represents the
alveolar trill (or the
voiced uvular fricative in
Portuguese) and contrasts with the single "r", which represents the
alveolar tap Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit.
Uses in anatomy and zoology
* Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs
** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte
** Alveolar duct
** Alveolar macrophage
* M ...
(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 (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct fr ...
(long) consonant . In
Central Alaskan Yup'ik Central Alaskan Yup'ik may refer to:
* Central Alaskan Yup'ik people
* Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Direction ...
it is used for . In
Cornish, it can represent either , , or .
was equivalent to and stood for (modern ''
ř'') in medieval
Czech. In
Greenlandic, it represents as the result of an assimilation of a consonant cluster with a uvular consonant as the first component. In
Norwegian and
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
, it represents
voiceless retroflex fricative, .
is used in Australian Aboriginal languages such as
Warlpiri Warlpiri may refer to:
* Warlpiri people, an indigenous people of the Tanami Desert, Central Australia
Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Au ...
,
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
, and
Pitjantjatjara, as well in
Norwegian and
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
, for a retroflex stop .
is used for in
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
.
is used in
Polish and
Kashubian Kashubian can refer to:
* Pertaining to Kashubia, a region of north-central Poland
* Kashubians, an ethnic group of north-central Poland
* Kashubian language
See also
*Kashubian alphabet
The Kashubian or Cassubian alphabet (''kaszëbsczi alf ...
for a
voiced retroflex fricative , similar to English ''
zh'' as in ''Zhivago''. Examples from Polish are ' "March" and ' "river". represents the same sound as , but they have a different origin. used to be pronounced the same way as Czech () in older Polish, but the sounds
merged, and the
orthography still follows etymology. When preceded by a
voiceless consonant (''ch'', ''k'', ''p'', ''t'') or
end of a word,
devoices to , as in ' ("before", ).
S
is used in
Italian for before the front vowel letters ''e, i''. It is used for in Catalan, Spanish, French, English, Occitan and Brazilian Portuguese (e.g. French/English ''reminiscence'', Spanish ''reminiscencia'', Brazilian Portuguese ''reminiscência'', Catalan ''reminiscència'', Occitan ''reminiscéncia''); in European Portuguese this changed to in the early 20th century, although in careful speech it can be . However, it represents in modern pronunciations of ''crescent'' in
British and non-
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
Commonwealth English
The use of the English language in current and former member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations was largely inherited from British colonisation, with some exceptions. English serves as the medium of inter-Commonwealth relations.
Many ...
. 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
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period la ...
it usually represented .
is used in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
for in a few verb forms such as simple past ''acquiesça'' . It is also used in
Portuguese as in the imperative/conjunctive form of verbs ending with ''scer'': ''crescer'' ''cresça''. Still pronounced in
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all of ...
, in
European Portuguese
European Portuguese ( pt, português europeu, ), also known as Portuguese of Portugal ( Portuguese: português de Portugal), Iberian Portuguese ( Portuguese: português ibérico), and Peninsular Portuguese ( Portuguese: português peninsular), re ...
this changed to in the early 20th cent.ury, although in careful speech it can be
is used in
Piedmontese for .
is used in several languages. In English, it represents . See
separate article. See also ſh
below, 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 in the end of the word), and is considered a graphic variant of
ś appearing in other situations. In
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
is used for the sound as in ''siocled'' ('chocolate').
is used
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
to write the
''sje'' sound (see also ) and in
Faroese,
Danish,
Norwegian and
Dutch to write
Voiceless postalveolar fricative .
is used in
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
to write the
''sje'' sound . It takes by rule this sound value before the front vowels (''e, i, y, ä'' and ''ö'') word or root initially (as in ''sked'' (spoon)), while normally representing in other positions. In Norwegian and Faroese, it is used to write
voiceless postalveolar fricative (only in front of ''i'', ''y'', ''ei'' and ''øy''/''oy'').
is used in
Iraqw and
Bouyei to write the
lateral fricative
A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English ''L'', as in ''Larr ...
. ''(Sl'' 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 ''Spaß'' instead of using schp.
is used in
Kosraean for .
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
for in languages such as
Yi. For its use in the Wade–Giles system of Romanization of Chinese, see
Wade–Giles → Syllabic consonants. In English, typically represents in the first ''ss'' of ''possess'' and its derivatives ''possessed'', ''possesses'', ''possession'', ''possessive'' and '' possessor'', ''brassiere'', ''dessert'', ''dissolution'' and its derivatives ''dissolved'', ''dissolves'' and ''dissolving'', ''
Missoula (
County
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
)'', ''
Missouri
Missouri is a 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 is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...
(an)'', ''scissors'', and pronunciations of ''
Aussie
Aussie is Australian slang for ''Australian'', both the adjective and the noun, and less commonly, Australia.
Pronunciation
In Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, the word is pronounced , hence the alternati ...
'' outside the United States. In other languages, such as
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid ...
,
Cornish,
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
,
Italian,
Occitan,
Portuguese and
Central Alaskan Yup'ik Central Alaskan Yup'ik may refer to:
* Central Alaskan Yup'ik people
* Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Direction ...
, where transcribes between vowels (and elsewhere in the case of Yup'ik), is used for in that position ( in Italian and also in some cases in Cornish
). In romanized
Korean, it represents the fortis sound . In
Cypriot Arabic it is used for .
Also to note, there are spellings of words with as opposed to them with just one , varied in different types of English. For the word ''focus'', in British English the 3rd person singular, the past participle and the present participle are spelled with (i.e. ''focusses'', ''focussed'' and ''focussing'') whereas in American English and usually Canadian and Australian English they are spelled with one (i.e. ''focuses'', ''focused'' and ''focusing'').
is used in
German for as in ''Stadt'' instead of using scht (or cht). In some parts of northern Germany, the pronunciation (as in English) is still quite common in the local dialect.
is used in
Shona to write the
whistled sibilant . This was written
ȿ from 1931 to 1955.
in used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized , and in
Esperanto orthography it is an unofficial surrogate of , that represents .
is used to write the sound in
Malay and
Tagalog
Tagalog may refer to:
Language
* Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines
** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language
** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language
* Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Tagal ...
.
is used in several languages. See article.
and are used in
Piedmontese for the sequence .
and are used in
Piedmontese for the sequence .
T
is used for the palatal click in
Naro, and to write the affricate in
Sandawe,
Hadza and
Juǀʼhoan.
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for the
voiceless dental 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 ...
is used for in
Naro. In
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid ...
, it represents .
is used in several languages. In English, it can represent , or . See article. See also:
Pronunciation of English th.
, before a vowel, is usually pronounced in French and in German.
is used in
Norwegian and
Faroese words like ''tjære''/''tjøra'' ('tar') for (Norwegian) and (Faroese). In the closely related
Swedish alphabet
The Swedish alphabet ( sv, Svenska alfabetet) is a basic element of the Latin writing system used for the Swedish language. The 29 letters of this alphabet are the modern 26-letter basic Latin alphabet (A through Z) plus Å, Ä, and Ö, in ...
, it represents , as in ''tjära'' . 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 Warlpiri may refer to:
* Warlpiri people, an indigenous people of the Tanami Desert, Central Australia
Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Au ...
,
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
, and
Pitjantjatjara, it represents a
postalveolar stop
Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, bu ...
,
transcribed in the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
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 affricate .
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's used to represent , that can result not geminated as well, , as in ''setmana'' (pronounced in standard Catalan and in
Valencian).
is used for a prestopped nasal in
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
, and for the similar in
Yélî Dnye.
is used in
Yélî Dnye for
doubly articulated .
generally represents a sound like a
retroflex version of English "ch" in areas of German influence, such as
''Truk'' lagoon, now spelled . For instance, in
Malagasy it represents . In southern
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that ...
s of
Vietnamese, represents a
voiceless retroflex affricate . In the northern dialects, this sound is pronounced , just like what represents. was formerly considered a distinct letter of the
Vietnamese alphabet, but today is not.
is used in the
Basque, where it represents an
apical voiceless alveolar affricate . It contrasts with , which is
laminal
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
. In
Hausa, represents an alveolar ejective fricative or affricate ), depending on dialect. It is considered a distinct letter, and placed between and in
alphabetical order. It is also used in
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid ...
for . It is also used in
Hausa Boko.
The
Wade-Giles and
Yale romanizations of
Chinese use for an
unaspirated voiceless alveolar affricate . Wade-Giles also uses for the aspirated equivalent . These are equivalent to
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
and , respectively. The
Hepburn romanization of
Japanese uses for a
voiceless alveolar affricate ). In native Japanese words, this sound only occurs before , but it may occur before other vowels in
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s. Other romanization systems write as . in
Tagalog
Tagalog may refer to:
Language
* Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines
** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language
** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language
* Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Tagal ...
is used for . The sequence occurs in English, but it has no special function and simply represents a sequence of and . It occurs word-initially only in some
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s, such as ''
tsunami'' and ''
tsar
Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East Slavs, East and South Slavs, South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''Caesar (title), caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" i ...
''. Most English-speakers do not pronounce a in such words and pronounce them as if they were spelled and or , respectively.
was used in medieval
Basque for a
voiceless postalveolar affricate ; this is now represented by .
is used in
Basque 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
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
.
is used in
Basque,
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid ...
and some indigenous languages of
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...
, for a
voiceless postalveolar affricate . In
Nambikwara it represents a
glottalized . In
Juǀʼhoan it is used for the
uvularized-release .
is used in the
Hungarian alphabet
The Hungarian alphabet () is an extension of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Hungarian language.
The alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, with several added variations of letters. The alphabet consists of the 26 letters of the IS ...
for , a
voiceless palatal affricate; in Hungarian, digraphs are considered single letters, and
acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in '' NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, a ...
s keep them intact. In Xhosa, represents and the similar in the Algonquian
Massachusett orthography
Massachusett is an indigenous Algonquian language of the Algic language family. It was the primary language of several peoples of New England, including the Massachusett in the area roughly corresponding to Boston, Massachusetts, including muc ...
. In
Shona, it represents . In Tagalog it represents . In the
transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages such as
Warlpiri Warlpiri may refer to:
* Warlpiri people, an indigenous people of the Tanami Desert, Central Australia
Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Au ...
, and
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
, it represents a postalveolar stop, either voiceless or voiced . (This sound is also written , , , , and ). In
Cypriot Arabic, it represents .
is used in
Basque,
German and
Nahuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...
for the
voiceless alveolar affricate ). In Basque, this sound is
laminal
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
and contrasts with the
apical affricate represented by . It is also used in Catalan to represent the
voiced alveolar affricate .
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
Nahuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...
for before a consonant. Before a vowel, is used.
is found in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s. In
English, represents /ju/ or /u/ as in ''cue'' or ''true'', respectively. In
German, it is equivalent to
Ü, and as such may appear in proper names of people, representing or . In the
Cantonese Romanisation, it represents in a non-initial position.
is used in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans g ...
to represent .
is used in
Central Alaskan Yup'ik Central Alaskan Yup'ik may refer to:
* Central Alaskan Yup'ik people
* Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Direction ...
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 ...
vowel . In
Nahuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...
, it is used for before a consonant. Before a vowel, is used.
in
Dutch stands for the diphthong . In
Irish and
Scottish Gaelic, it is after a
velarized (broad) consonant, and in Irish, it is used for between a broad and a slender consonant. In
German, it represents the diphthong , which appears only in
interjections such as ''"pfui!"''. In
English, it represents the sound in ''fruit'', ''juice'', ''suit'' and ''pursuit''. However, in many English words, this does not hold. For example, it fails in words where the ''u'' in ''ui'' functions as a modifier of a preceding ''g'' (forcing ''g'' to remain rather than shifting to in ''guild'', ''guilt'', ''guilty'', ''sanguine'', ''
Guinea
Guinea ( ),, fuf, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫, italic=no, Gine, wo, Gine, nqo, ߖߌ߬ߣߍ߫, bm, Gine officially the Republic of Guinea (french: République de Guinée), is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
'', etc.), doing the same with ''c'' (in words like ''circuit'' and ''biscuit''), or in cases of unusual etymological spelling or syllable separation (e.g. ''build'', ''suite'', and ''intuition''). It represents /ai/ in ''guide''. In Mandarin
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
, it is after a consonant. (In initial position, this is spelled ''wei.'') In
Cantonese Romanisation, it represents or . In
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, it is not a digraph, but a predictable sequence , as in ''h''ui''t'' "eight". In
Scots
Scots usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
* Scots language, a language of the West Germanic language family native to Scotland
* Scots people, a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland
* Scoti, a Latin na ...
it represents the vowel in words such as bluid (blood), duin (done), muin (moon) and spuin (spoon) and is used similarly in Northumbrian and Cumbrian.
is used in
Irish for between a broad and a slender consonant.
is used in
Irish for between a broad and a slender consonant.
is used in
Portuguese for , and in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
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 to write a
nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced wit ...
. In
Portuguese before a consonant, and in many
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mau ...
n languages, it is , while in French it is , or among the younger generation . In
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
, is spelled ''un'' after a consonant, ''wen'' initially.
is used in
Portuguese for before a consonant.
is used in
Tibetan Pinyin for .
is used in
Lakhota
Lakota ( ), also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes. Lakota is mutually intelligible with the two dialects of the Dakota language, especially Western Dakota, and ...
for the nasal vowel .
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
to write the vowel in languages such as
Yi, where ''o'' stands for .
is used in
Taa, for the
pharyngealized vowel .
is used in
Central Alaskan Yup'ik Central Alaskan Yup'ik may refer to:
* Central Alaskan Yup'ik people
* Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Direction ...
for , and in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
to write the
trilled vowel in languages such as
Yi.
is used in
Dutch for . In languages with phonemic long vowels, it may be used to write .
occurs in
Dutch, as in (''yours''), duwen (''to push'') . It is used in
Cornish for the sound
or .
is used in
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans g ...
for .
is used in
Esperanto as an unofficial surrogate of , which represents .
(a
split digraph
A digraph or digram (from the grc, δίς , "double" and , "to write") is a pair of characters used in the orthography of a language to write either a single phoneme (distinct sound), or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to t ...
) indicates an English
'long u', historically , also .
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 .
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 Central Alaskan Yup'ik may refer to:
* Central Alaskan Yup'ik people
* Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Direction ...
for .
is used in
Quechua.
W
is used in
English to represent
Proto-Germanic , the continuation of the
PIE
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...
labiovelar (which became in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...
and the
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language f ...
). Most English question words begin with this digraph, hence the terms ''
wh-word'' and ''
wh-question''. In Old English, /hw/ was spelled or , and only the former was retained during the
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
period, becoming during the gradual development of the letter during the 14th-17th centuries. In most dialects it is now pronounced , but a distinct pronunciation realized as a
voiceless w sound,
� is retained in some areas:
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...
, central and southern
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, the southeastern
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
, and (mostly among older speakers) in
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...
. In a few words (''who'', ''whose'', etc.) the pronunciation used among almost all speakers regardless of geography is /h/. For details, see
Pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩.
In
Māori, represents or more commonly , with some regional variations approaching or . In the
Taranaki region, for some speakers, this represents a glottalized . In
Xhosa, it represents , a murmured variant of found in loan words. In
Cornish, it represents .
is used in
English for words which formerly began , now
reduced to /r/ in virtually all dialects.
is used in Mandarin
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
to write the vowel in initial position, as in the name ''
Wuhan.'' 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 in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for the labialized fricative .
is used to write the click in
Naro. It was used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless lateral click
The voiceless or more precisely tenuis lateral click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The Doke/ Beach convention, ad ...
.
, in
Albanian, represents the sound of the
voiced postalveolar affricate consonant , as in the surname ''Hoxha'' . In
Zulu and
Xhosa it represents the
voiceless aspirated alveolar lateral click
The lateral clicks are a family of click consonants found only in African languages. The clicking sound used by equestrians to urge on their horses is a lateral click, although it is not a speech sound in that context. Lateral clicks are found t ...
, for example in the name of the language ''
Xhosa'' . In
Walloon to write a consonant that is variously , , , depending on the dialect. In Canadian
Tlingit it represents , which in Alaska is written ''x̱.''
is used in English for in words such as ''flexion''. (It is equivalent to plus the digraph , as in ''action''.)
was used in the Tindall orthography of
Khoekhoe for the
voiceless lateral click
The voiceless or more precisely tenuis lateral click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The Doke/ Beach convention, ad ...
(equivalent to ).
is used as a letter of the
Seri alphabet, where it represents a
labialized uvular fricative
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does no ...
, . It is placed between
X and
Y in
alphabetical order.
is used in
Portuguese in the word ''exsudar'' in
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all of ...
. In
European Portuguese
European Portuguese ( pt, português europeu, ), also known as Portuguese of Portugal ( Portuguese: português de Portugal), Iberian Portuguese ( Portuguese: português ibérico), and Peninsular Portuguese ( Portuguese: português peninsular), re ...
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 for .
is used in Alaskan
Tlingit for , which in Canada is written ''
xhw.''
is used in
Hadza for the glottalized click , and in
Cypriot Arabic for .
is used in the
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) or Hmong RPA (also Roman Popular Alphabet), is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong people, Hmong ad ...
used to write
Hmong, where it represents the sound .
Y
used in various languages. In some languages such as English it is used as an such as in bye or dye. In most languages, it is used as an sound, such as in yellow.
was used in the
pre-1985 orthography of Guinea, for the "ejective y" or
palatalized glottal stop () in
Pular (a
Fula language). In the current orthography it is now written
ƴ. In
Xhosa it is used for the sound . In a handful of Australian languages, it represents a "dental semivowel".
is used in Mandarin
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
to write the vowel when it forms an entire syllable.
is used in
Yanyuwa for a pre-
velar stop, .
is used in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
to write the vowel sound ( before another vowel), as in ''thym'' "thyme".
is used in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
to write the vowel sound in some words of Greek origin, such as ''syncope'' "syncope".
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
to write the
trilled vowel in languages such as
Yi.
is used in romanized Chinese to write the vowel . In Mandarin
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
it is used for in initial position, whereas in Cantonese
Jyutping it is used for in non-initial position. In the
Yale romanization of Cantonese and
Cantonese Romanisation, it represents in an initial position and in a non-initial position. (See
jyu.)
is used for in
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Austral ...
and for
doubly articulated in
Yélî Dnye. It is used in
Cornish for the diphthongs ,
, or .
in used in
Nambikwara for a
glottalized .
is used in some languages such as
Finnish to write the long vowel . In Haida (Bringhurst orthography) it is glottalized .
(a
split digraph
A digraph or digram (from the grc, δίς , "double" and , "to write") is a pair of characters used in the orthography of a language to write either a single phoneme (distinct sound), or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to t ...
) indicates an English
'long y' (equivalent to ).
Z
represents the
voiced postalveolar fricative (), like the in ''pleasure'', in
Albanian and in
Native American orthographies such as
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
. It is used for the same sound in some English-language dictionaries, as well as to transliterate the sound when represented by
Cyrillic and
Persian into English, but is rarely seen in English words, appearing primarily in foreign borrowings (eg ''muzhik'') and slang (eg ''zhoosh''). as a digraph is rare in European languages using the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...
; in addition to Albanian it is found in
Breton in words that are pronounced with in some dialects and in others. In
Hanyu Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
, represents the
voiceless retroflex affricate . When
Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
and
Tamil are transliterated into the Latin script, represents a
retroflex approximant (Malayalam
ഴ and Tamil
ழ
The Tamil script ( , ) is an abugida script that is used by Tamils and Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and elsewhere to write the Tamil language. Certain minority languages such as Saurashtra, Badaga, I ...
, ḻ,
�.
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
ź appearing in other situations.
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for the
voiced lateral fricative
The voiced alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral fricatives is (sometimes ...
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages for .
is the last (forty-fourth) letter of the
Hungarian alphabet
The Hungarian alphabet () is an extension of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Hungarian language.
The alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, with several added variations of letters. The alphabet consists of the 26 letters of the IS ...
. Its name is "zsé" and represents , a
voiced postalveolar fricative, similar to ''J'' in ''Jacques'' and ''s'' in ''vision''. A few examples are ''rózsa'' "rose" and ''zsír'' "fat".
is used in
Shona to write the
whistled sibilant . This was written
ɀ from 1931 to 1955.
is used in
Dutch to represent the
labialized voiced alveolar fricative ().
is used in
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
for in languages such as
Yi. It is also used with that value in romanized
Kabyle. In medieval
Czech, it stood for . In
Hadza it is ejective .
Other
, capital , is used in many
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mau ...
n languages for the nasal vowel . ''Ɛ'' is an "
open e".
, capital , is used in many
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mau ...
n languages for the nasal vowel . ''Ɔ'' is an "
open o".
, capitalized , is used in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
for the vowels and . The first element of the digraph, ''
œ'', is itself is a ligature of ''o'' and ''e'', and may also be written as the
trigraph .
is used in the
General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages 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 .
, capitalized , was used for in the old orthography of
Zhuang and
Bouyei; this is now spelled with the
trigraph .
is used in
Adzera for the prenasalized glottal stop .
, capitalized or sometimes , was a digraph used in the Slovene
Bohorič alphabet for . The first element, , the
long s
The long s , also known as the medial s or initial s, is an archaic form of the lowercase letter . It replaced the single ''s'', or one or both of the letters ''s'' in a 'double ''s sequence (e.g., "ſinfulneſs" for "sinfulness" and "poſ� ...
, is an archaic non-final form of the letter .
are used in
Juǀʼhoan for its four
glottalized nasal click
Glottalized clicks are click consonants pronounced with closure of the glottis. All click types (alveolar , dental , lateral , palatal , retroflex , and labial ) have glottalized variants. They are very common: All of the Khoisan languages o ...
s, .
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
Nasal clicks are click consonants pronounced with nasal airflow. All click types ( alveolar , dental , lateral , palatal , retroflex , and labial ) have nasal variants, and these are attested in four or five phonations: voiced, voiceless, ...
, .
are used in
Juǀʼhoan for its four affricate
pulmonic-contour click
Pulmonic-contour clicks, also called sequential linguo-pulmonic consonants, are consonants that transition from a click to an ordinary pulmonic sound, or more precisely, have an audible delay between the front and rear release of the click. All ...
s, .
See also
*
List of Latin-script trigraphs
A number of trigraphs are found in the Latin script.
A
is used in Dutch and various Cantonese romanisations to write the sound .
is used in Irish to write the sound , or in Donegal, , between broad consonants.
is used in Irish to write the ...
*
List of Latin-script tetragraphs
This is a list of tetragraphs in the Latin script. These are most common in Irish orthography. For Cyrillic tetragraphs, see tetragraph#Cyrillic ลง.
Arrernte
Tetragraphs in Arrernte transcribe single consonants, but are largely predictable ...
*
Pentagraph
*
Hexagraph
*
Heptagraph
*
List of Latin letters
This is a list of letters of the Latin script. The definition of a Latin-script letter for this list is a character encoded in the Unicode Standard that has a script property of 'Latin' and the general category of 'Letter'. An overview of the ...
*
List of Cyrillic digraphs
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Latin Digraphs