digraph (orthography)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A digraph () or digram is a pair of characters used in the
orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...
of a
language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
to write either a single
phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
(distinct sound), or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined. Some digraphs represent phonemes that cannot be represented with a single character in the writing system of a language, like in Spanish ''chico'' and ''ocho''. Other digraphs represent phonemes that can also be represented by single characters. A digraph that shares its pronunciation with a single character may be a relic from an earlier period of the language when the digraph had a different pronunciation, or may represent a distinction that is made only in certain
dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...
s, like the English . Some such digraphs are used for purely etymological reasons, like in French. In some orthographies, digraphs (and occasionally trigraphs) are considered individual letters, which means that they have their own place in the
alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...
and cannot be separated into their constituent places
grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived from Ancient Greek ('write'), and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other emic units. The study of graphemes ...
s when sorting, abbreviating, or
hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (en dash , em dash and others), which are wider, or with t ...
ating words. Digraphs are used in some
romanization In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...
schemes, e.g. as a romanisation of Russian . The capitalisation of digraphs can vary, e.g. in Polish is capitalized and in Norwegian is capitalized , while in Dutch is capitalized and word initial in Irish is capitalized . Digraphs may develop into ligatures, but this is a distinct concept: a ligature involves the graphical fusion of two characters into one, e.g. when and become , e.g. as in French "heart".


Homogeneous digraph

Digraphs may consist of two different characters (''heterogeneous digraphs'') or two instances of the same character (''homogeneous digraphs''). In the latter case, they are generally called ''double'' (or ''doubled'') ''letters''. Doubled
vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
letters are commonly used to indicate a
long vowel In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived or actual duration of a vowel sound when pronounced. Vowels perceived as shorter are often called short vowels and those perceived as longer called long vowels. On one hand, many languages do not d ...
sound. This is the case in Finnish and Estonian, for instance, where represents a longer version of the vowel denoted by , represents a longer version of the vowel denoted by , and so on. In
Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...
, the sequences and were used in a similar way, to represent lengthened "e" and "o" sounds respectively; both spellings have been retained in modern
English orthography English orthography comprises the set of rules used when writing the English language, allowing readers and writers to associate written graphemes with the sounds of spoken English, as well as other features of the language. English's orthograp ...
, but the Great Vowel Shift and other historical sound changes mean that the modern pronunciations are quite different from the original ones. Doubled
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
letters can also be used to indicate a long or geminated consonant sound. In Italian, for example, consonants written double are pronounced longer than single ones. This was the original use of doubled consonant letters in
Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
, but during the
Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...
and
Early Modern English Early Modern English (sometimes abbreviated EModEFor example, or EMnE) or Early New English (ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transit ...
period, phonemic consonant length was lost and a spelling convention developed in which a doubled consonant serves to indicate that a preceding vowel is to be pronounced short. In modern English, for example, the of ''tapping'' differentiates the first vowel sound from that of ''taping''. In rare cases, doubled consonant letters represent a true geminate consonant in modern English; this may occur when two instances of the same consonant come from different
morpheme A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...
s, for example in ''unnatural'' (''un''+''natural'') or in ''cattail'' (''cat''+''tail''). In some cases, the sound represented by a doubled consonant letter is distinguished in some other way than length from the sound of the corresponding single consonant letter: *In Welsh and Greenlandic, stands for a voiceless
lateral consonant A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English ''L'', as in ''L ...
, while in Spanish and Catalan it stands for a
palatal consonant Palatals are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex. Characteris ...
. *In several languages of western Europe, including English, French, Portuguese and Catalan, the digraph is used between vowels to represent the voiceless sibilant , since an alone between vowels normally represents the voiced sibilant . *In Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan and Basque, is used between vowels for the
alveolar trill The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental consonant, dental, alveolar consonant, alveolar, and postalveolar consonant, postalve ...
, since an alone between vowels represents an
alveolar flap The voiced alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based pri ...
(the two are different phonemes in those languages). *In Spanish, the digraph formerly indicated (a palatal nasal); it developed into the letter ñ. *In
Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...
, double consonant letters generally mark palatalized versions of the single consonant letter, as in , , . However, is a trill that contrasts with the single-letter flap, as in Spanish, and the palatal version of is written . In several European writing systems, including the English one, the doubling of the letter or is represented as the heterogeneous digraph instead of or respectively. In native German words, the doubling of , which corresponds to , is replaced by the digraph .


Pan-dialectical digraphs

Some languages have a unified orthography with digraphs that represent distinct pronunciations in different dialects ( diaphonemes). For example, in Breton there is a digraph that represents in most dialects, but in ''Vannetais.'' Similarly, the Saintongeais dialect of French has a digraph that represents in words that correspond to in standard French. Similarly, Catalan has a digraph that represents in Eastern Catalan, but or in Western Catalan
Valencian Valencian can refer to: * Something related to the Valencian Community ( Valencian Country) in Spain * Something related to the city of Valencia * Something related to the province of Valencia in Spain * Something related to the old Kingdom of ...
.


Split digraphs

The pair of letters making up a phoneme are not always adjacent. This is the case with English
silent e In English orthography, many words feature a silent (single, final, non-syllabic ‘e’), most commonly at the end of a word or morpheme. Typically it represents a vowel sound that was formerly pronounced, but became silent letter, silent in ...
. For example, the sequence ''a_e'' has the sound in English ''cake.'' This is the result of three historical sound changes: ''cake'' was originally , the
open syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of Phone (phonetics), speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''ma ...
came to be pronounced with a
long vowel In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived or actual duration of a vowel sound when pronounced. Vowels perceived as shorter are often called short vowels and those perceived as longer called long vowels. On one hand, many languages do not d ...
, and later the final schwa dropped off, leaving . Later still, the vowel became . There are six such digraphs in English, . However, alphabets may also be designed with discontinuous digraphs. In the Tatar Cyrillic alphabet, for example, the letter ''ю'' is used to write both and . Usually the difference is evident from the rest of the word, but when it is not, the sequence ''ю...ь'' is used for , as in ''юнь'' 'cheap'. The Indic alphabets are distinctive for their discontinuous vowels, such as Thai เ...อ in เกอ . Technically, however, they may be considered
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...
s, not full letters; whether they are digraphs is thus a matter of definition.


Ambiguous letter sequences

Some letter pairs should not be interpreted as digraphs but appear because of compounding: ''hogshead'' and ''cooperate'' (the latter case of vowel hiatus is also called ''diaeresis''). They are often not marked in any way in English and so must be memorized as exceptions. Some authors, however, indicate it either by breaking up the digraph with a
hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (en dash , em dash and others), which are wider, or with t ...
, as in ''hogs-head'', ''co-operate'', or, in case of a vowel hiatus, with a diaeresis diacritic mark, as in ''coöperate'' (this use of two dots in English is now archaic but continues to be used extensively in other languages). When it occurs in names such as
Clapham Clapham () is a district in south London, south west London, England, lying mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, but with some areas (including Clapham Common) extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. History Ea ...
, Townshend, and Hartshorne, it is never marked in any way. Positional alternative glyphs may help to disambiguate in certain cases: when round, was used as a final variant of long , and the English digraph for would always be . In romanization of Japanese, the constituent sounds ( morae) are usually indicated by digraphs, but some are indicated by a single letter, and some with a trigraph. The case of ambiguity is the syllabic , which is written as ''n'' (or sometimes ''m''), except before vowels or ''y'' where it is followed by an apostrophe as ''n’''. For example, the given name じゅんいちろう is romanized as Jun’ichirō, so that it is parsed as "Ju-n-i-chi-rou", rather than as "Ju-ni-chi-rou". A similar use of the apostrophe is seen in
pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
where 嫦娥 is written Chang'e because the g belongs to the final (-ang) of the first syllable, not to the initial of the second syllable. Without the apostrophe, Change would be understood as the syllable chan (final -an) followed by the syllable ge (initial g-).


In alphabetization

In some languages, certain digraphs and trigraphs are counted as distinct letters in themselves, and assigned to a specific place in the
alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...
, separate from that of the sequence of characters that composes them, for purposes of
orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...
and collation: *In the Gaj's Latin alphabet used to write
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...
, the digraphs , and , which correspond to the single Cyrillic letters , , , are treated as distinct letters. *In the Czech and Slovak alphabet, is treated as a distinct letter, coming after in the alphabet. Also, in the Slovak alphabet the relatively rare digraphs and are treated as distinct letters. *In the Danish and Norwegian alphabet, the former digraph , where it appears in older names, is sorted as if it were the letter , which replaced it. *In the Norwegian alphabet, there are several digraphs and letter combinations representing an isolated sound. *In the Dutch alphabet, the digraph is sometimes written as a ligature and may be sorted with (in the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
, though not usually in
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
); however, regardless of where it is used, when a Dutch word starting with is capitalized, the entire digraph is capitalized ('' IJmeer'', '' IJmuiden''). Other Dutch digraphs are never treated as single letters. *In Hungarian, the digraphs , , , , , , , , and the trigraph , have their own places in the alphabet (where e.g. comes right after ) *In Spanish, the digraphs and were formerly treated as distinct letters, but are now split into their constituent letters. *In Welsh, the alphabet includes the digraphs , , , , , , , . However, , and , which represent
mutated In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA replication, DNA or viral rep ...
voiceless consonants, are not treated as distinct letters. *In the romanization of several Slavic countries that use the Cyrillic script, letters like ш, ж, and ю might be written as sh, zh and yu, however sometimes the result of the romanization might modify a letter to be a diacritical letter instead of a digraph. *In Maltese, two digraphs are used, which comes right after , and which comes right after . Most other languages, including most of the Romance languages, treat digraphs as combinations of separate letters for alphabetization purposes.


Examples


Latin script


English

English has both homogeneous digraphs (doubled letters) and heterogeneous digraphs (digraphs consisting of two different letters). Those of the latter type include the following: * normally represents ( voiceless alveolar fricative - ''scene'') or (
voiceless postalveolar fricative A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some Speech, spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound #Voiceless palato-alveolar frica ...
- ''conscious'') before or . * represents ( velar nasal) as in ''thing''. * usually corresponds to ( voiceless postalveolar affricate - ''church''), to ( voiceless velar plosive) when used as an etymological digraph in words of Greek origin (''christ''), less commonly to (
voiceless postalveolar fricative A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some Speech, spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound #Voiceless palato-alveolar frica ...
) in words of French origin (''champagne''). * corresponds to as in ''check''. * represents ( voiced velar plosive) at the beginning of words (''ghost''), represents ( voiceless labiodental fricative in ''enough'') or is silent at the end of words (''sigh''). * represents ( voiceless labiodental fricative), as in ''siphon''. * represents English in words of Greek origin, such as ''rhythm''. * represents (
voiceless postalveolar fricative A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some Speech, spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound #Voiceless palato-alveolar frica ...
), as in ''sheep''. * usually represents word-medially before a vowel, as in ''education''. * usually corresponds to ( voiceless interdental fricative) in ''thin'' or ( voiced interdental fricative) in ''then''. See also Pronunciation of English . * represents in some conservative dialects; in other dialects (''while''); and in a few words in which it is followed by , such as ''who'' and ''whole''. See also Phonological history of . * represents in words transliterated from Slavic languages, and in American dictionary pronunciation spelling. * usually appears as before vowels, like in ''facial'' and ''artificial''. Otherwise it is as in ''fancier'' and ''icier'' or as in ''acid'' and ''rancid''. * represents . Originally, it stood for a labialized sound, while without was non-labialized, but the distinction has been lost in most dialects, the two sounds merging into a single alveolar approximant, allophonically labialized at the start of syllables, as in ''red'' . See also
rhotic consonant In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthography, orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek alphabet, Greek letter Rho (letter), rho (Ρ and ρ), including R, , i ...
. * usually represents ; is conventionally followed by and a vowel letter as in ''quick'', with some exceptions. Digraphs may also be composed of vowels. Some letters are preferred for the first position, others for the second . The latter have
allograph In graphemics and typography, the term allograph is used of a glyph that is a design variant of a letter or other grapheme, such as a letter, a number, an ideograph, a punctuation mark or other typographic symbol. In graphemics, an obvious exa ...
s in
English orthography English orthography comprises the set of rules used when writing the English language, allowing readers and writers to associate written graphemes with the sounds of spoken English, as well as other features of the language. English's orthograp ...
.


Other languages using the Latin alphabet

In
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...
: * corresponds to , ( palatal lateral approximant) * corresponds to ( palatal nasal) * corresponds to ( voiced postalveolar affricate) Note that in the Cyrillic orthography, those sounds are represented by single letters (љ, њ, џ). In Czech and Slovak: * corresponds to ( voiceless velar fricative), counted as a distinct letter * corresponds to ( voiced alveolar affricate), counted as a distinct letter in Slovak, relatively rare digraph * corresponds to ( voiced postalveolar affricate), counted as a distinct letter in Slovak, relatively rare digraph In Danish and Norwegian: * The digraph represented until 1917 in Norway and 1948 in Denmark, but is today spelt . The digraph is still used in older names, but sorted as if it were the letter with the diacritic mark. In Norwegian, several sounds can be represented only by a digraph or a combination of letters. They are the most common combinations, but extreme regional differences exists, especially those of the eastern dialects. A noteworthy difference is the aspiration of in eastern dialects, where it corresponds to and . Among many young people, especially in the western regions of Norway and in or around the major cities, the difference between and has been completely wiped away and are now pronounced the same. * represents * represents . * represents . * represents . * represents (before i or y). * represents as in ng in English ''thing''. In Catalan: * represents ( palatal lateral approximant) * represents ( palatal nasal) * represents ( post-alveolar trill) * represents (
voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant The voiceless alveolar fricatives are a type of fricative consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are at le ...
) * represents ( voiceless velar plosive) * represents ( voiced velar plosive) * postvocalic represents (
voiceless postalveolar fricative A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some Speech, spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound #Voiceless palato-alveolar frica ...
) in Eastern dialects, in Western dialects it represents . In Dutch: * corresponds to (see above for its possible status as a separate letter). * represents ( velar nasal) * represents ( voiceless velar fricative) * represents (
voiceless postalveolar fricative A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some Speech, spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound #Voiceless palato-alveolar frica ...
) * represents ( close front unrounded vowel) * represents ( close back rounded vowel) * represents ( close-mid front rounded vowel) In French: * represents (
voiceless postalveolar fricative A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some Speech, spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound #Voiceless palato-alveolar frica ...
) * represents ( palatal nasal) * represents ( voiceless velar stop), typically before historic
front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned approximately as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction th ...
s :: See also
French phonology French phonology is the sound system of French language, French. This article discusses mainly the phonology of all the varieties of Standard French. Notable phonological features include the uvular r present in some accents, nasal vowels, and ...
. In German: * represents ( voiceless velar fricative) or ( voiceless palatal fricative) * represents ( voiceless velar plosive) * represents ( open front unrounded vowel) followed by ( near-close near-front unrounded vowel) * represents ( open-mid back rounded vowel) followed by ( near-close near-front rounded vowel) In Hungarian: * represents ( voiceless postalveolar affricate) * represents ( voiced postalveolar fricative) * represents ( voiced palatal plosive) * originally represented ( palatal lateral approximant), but in the modern language stands for (
palatal approximant The voiced palatal approximant is a type of consonant used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ; the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j, and in the Americanist phonetic notation i ...
) * represents ( palatal nasal) * represents ( voiceless palatal plosive) * represents ( voiced postalveolar affricate) * represents ( voiceless alveolar fricative) ( is pronounced ) * The Hungarian alphabet additionally contains also a trigraph, . In Italian: * corresponds to , (
voiceless postalveolar fricative A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some Speech, spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound #Voiceless palato-alveolar frica ...
) before -i and -e (but to before other letters) * corresponds to (only before i, e) * corresponds to (only before i, e) * represents , palatal lateral approximant, before -i (with some exceptions) * represents ( palatal nasal) In Manx Gaelic, represents , but represents . In Polish: * corresponds to ( voiceless velar fricative) * corresponds to ( voiceless retroflex affricate) * corresponds to ( voiced alveolar affricate) * corresponds to ( voiced alveolo-palatal affricate) * corresponds to ( voiced retroflex affricate) * corresponds to ( voiced retroflex fricative) * corresponds to ( voiceless retroflex fricative) In Portuguese: * corresponds to (
voiceless postalveolar fricative A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some Speech, spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound #Voiceless palato-alveolar frica ...
) * corresponds to ( palatal lateral approximant) * corresponds to ( palatal nasal) * usually represents ( voiceless velar stop) *: In Spanish: * is traditionally pronounced , but in dialects with yeísmo is pronounced * represents ( voiceless postalveolar affricate). Since 2010, neither is considered part of the alphabet. They used to be sorted as separate letters, but a reform in 1994 by the Spanish Royal Academy has allowed that they be split into their constituent letters for collation. The digraph , pronounced as a distinct
alveolar trill The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental consonant, dental, alveolar consonant, alveolar, and postalveolar consonant, postalve ...
, was never officially considered to be a letter in the Spanish alphabet, and the same is true and (for and respectively before or ). In Welsh: * represents ( velar nasal), the same sound as in English (but in some words it represents two separate letters, and is pronounced ). * represents ( voiceless uvular fricative) * represents ( voiceless alveolar trill), pronounced roughly like the combination ''hr'' (but again in some words it represents two separate letters, and is pronounced ). * represents ( voiceless interdental fricative) * represents ( voiced dental fricative), like the English in ''then'' (but is pronounced as voiceless in many contexts). * represents ( voiceless labiodental fricative), like English , since Welsh is pronounced like an English . * also represents (voiceless labiodental fricative) but, in modern orthography, is used only for the aspirate mutation of words starting with . * represents ( voiceless alveolar lateral fricative) The digraphs listed above represent distinct phonemes and are treated as separate letters for collation purposes. On the other hand, the digraphs , , and the trigraph , which stand for voiceless consonants but occur only at the beginning of words as a result of the nasal mutation, are not treated as separate letters, and thus are not included in the alphabet. Daighi tongiong pingim, a transcription system used for
Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien ( , ), or simply Taiwanese, also known as Taigi ( zh, c=臺語, tl=Tâi-gí), Taiwanese Southern Min ( zh, c=臺灣閩南語, tl=Tâi-uân Bân-lâm-gí), Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively ...
, includes or that represents ( mid central vowel) or ( close-mid back rounded vowel), as well as other digraphs. In Yoruba, is a letter that represents a plosive most accurately pronounced by trying to say and at the same time.


Cyrillic

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


Arabic script

Because vowels are not generally written, digraphs are rare in
abjad An abjad ( or abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving the vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels. The term was introd ...
s like Arabic. For example, if ''sh'' were used for ''š,'' then the sequence ''sh'' could mean either ''ša'' or ''saha.'' However, digraphs are used for the aspirated and murmured consonants (those spelled with ''h-''digraphs in Latin transcription) in languages of
South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...
such as
Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
that are written in the
Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...
by a special form of the letter ''h'', which is used only for aspiration digraphs, as can be seen with the following connecting ''(kh)'' and non-connecting ''(ḍh)'' consonants: :


Armenian

In the
Armenian language Armenian (endonym: , , ) is an Indo-European languages, Indo-European language and the sole member of the independent branch of the Armenian language family. It is the native language of the Armenians, Armenian people and the official language of ...
, the digraph ''
ու The Armenian alphabet (, or , ) or, more broadly, the Armenian script, is an alphabetic writing system developed for Armenian language, Armenian and occasionally used to write other languages. It is one of the three Alphabets of the South C ...
'' transcribes , a convention that comes from Greek.


Georgian

The
Georgian alphabet The Georgian scripts are the three writing systems used to write the Georgian language: #Asomtavruli, Asomtavruli, #Nuskhuri, Nuskhuri and #Mkhedruli, Mkhedruli. Although the systems differ in appearance, their Letter (alphabet), letters share ...
uses a few digraphs to write other languages. For example, in Svan, is written ჳე , and as ჳი .


Greek

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


Hebrew

In the
Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicase, unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably ...
, and may sometimes be found for . Modern Hebrew also uses digraphs made with the symbol for non-native sounds: , , ; and other digraphs of letters when it is written without vowels: for a consonantal letter in the middle of a word, and for or , etc., that is, a consonantal letter in places where it might not have been expected.
Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...
has its own tradition of transcription and so uses different digraphs for some of the same sounds: , , , and (literally '')'' for , , also available as a single
Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...
character , or as a single character in Unicode , or , and . The single-character digraphs are called " ligatures" in Unicode. may also be used following a consonant to indicate palatalization in Slavic loanwords.


Indic

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


Inuit

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


CJK Characters


Chinese

Several combinations of
Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represe ...
(Hanzi) formed from two or more different characters that are known as digraphs.


Japanese

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


Korean

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


Ligatures and new letters

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


In Unicode

Generally, a digraph is simply represented using two characters in
Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...
. However, for various reasons, Unicode sometimes provides a separate
code point A code point, codepoint or code position is a particular position in a Table (database), table, where the position has been assigned a meaning. The table may be one dimensional (a column), two dimensional (like cells in a spreadsheet), three dime ...
for a digraph, encoded as a single character. The DZ and IJ digraphs and the Serbian/Croatian digraphs DŽ, LJ, and NJ have separate code points in Unicode. : See also Ligatures in Unicode.


See also

*
Multigraph (orthography) A multigraph (or pleograph) is a sequence of letters that behaves as a unit and is not the sum of its parts, such as English ( ) or French (). The term is infrequently used, as the number of letters is usually specified: Combinations longer th ...
* Trigraph *
Tetragraph A tetragraph, , is a sequence of four letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds, that do not necessarily correspond to the individual values of the letters. In German, for example, the tetragraph ''tsch'' repre ...
*
Pentagraph A pentagraph (from the , ''pénte'', "five" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a sequence of five letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds, that do not correspond to the individual values of the letters ...
*
Hexagraph A hexagraph (from the , ''héx'', "six" and γράφω, ''gráphō'', "write") is a sequence of six letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds that do not correspond to the individual values of the letters. They ...
* Bigram *
Diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...
* List of Latin letters * Digraph (programming)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Digraph (Orthography) 2