Cyrillic digraphs

The Cyrillic script family contains many specially treated two-letter combinations, or digraphs, but few of these are used in Slavic languages. In a few alphabets, trigraphs and even the occasional tetragraph or pentagraph are used.

In early Cyrillic, the digraphs and were used for . As with the equivalent digraph in Greek, they were reduced to a typographic ligature, , and are now written . The modern letters and started out as digraphs, and . In Church Slavonic printing practice, both historical and modern, (which is considered as a letter from the alphabet's point of view) is mostly treated as two individual characters, but is a single letter. For example, letter-spacing affects as if they were two individual letters, and never affects components of . In a context of Old Slavonic language, is a digraph that can replace a letter and vice versa.

Modern Slavic languages written in the Cyrillic alphabet make little or no use of digraphs. There are only two true digraphs: for and for (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian). Sometimes these digraphs are even considered as special letters of their respective alphabets. In standard Russian, however, the letters in and are always pronounced separately. Digraph-like letter pairs include combinations of consonants with the soft sign (Serbian/Macedonian letters and are derived from and ), and or for the uncommon and optional Russian phoneme . Native descriptions of Cyrillic writing system often use the term "digraph" to combinations and (Bulgarian, Ukrainian) as they both correspond to a single letter of Russian and Belarusian alphabets ( is used for , and for ).

Cyrillic uses large numbers of digraphs only when used to write non-Slavic languages; in some languages such as Avar, these are completely regular in formation.

Many Caucasian languages use (Abkhaz), (Kabardian), or (Avar) for labialization, for instance Abkhaz for (sometimes ), just as many of them, like Russian, use for palatalization. Since such sequences are decomposable, regular forms will not be listed below. (In Abkhaz, with sibilants is equivalent to , for instance ж , жь , жә , but this is predictable phonetic detail.) Similarly, long vowels written double in some languages, such as for Abkhaz or for Kirghiz "bear", or with glottal stop, as Tajik ''аъ'' , are not included.

Archi

Archi: а́а , аӏ , а́ӏ , ааӏ , гв , гь , гъ , гъв , гъӏ , гъӏв , гӏ , е́е , еӏ , е́ӏ , жв , зв , и́и , иӏ , кк , кв , ккв , кӏ , кӏв , къ , къв , ккъ , къӏ , ккъӏ , къӏв , ккъӏв , кь , кьв , лъ , ллъ , лъв , ллъв , лӏ , лӏв , о́о , оӏ , о́ӏ , ооӏ , пп , пӏ , сс , св , тт , тӏ , тв , твӏ , у́у , уӏ , у́ӏ , хх , хв , ххв , хӏ , хьӏ , ххьӏ , хьӏв , ххьӏв , хъ , хъв , хъӏ , хъӏв , цв , цӏ , ццӏ , чв , чӏ , чӏв , шв , щв , ээ , эӏ

Avar

Avar uses for labialization, as in хьв . Other digraphs are:
* Ejective consonants in : кӏ , цӏ , чӏ
*Other consonants based on к : къ , кь ,
*Based on г : гъ , гь , гӏ
*Based on л : лъ
*Based on х : хъ , хь , хӏ

The ь digraphs are spelled this way even before vowels, as in "made", not *гябуна.

*Gemination: кк , кӏкӏ , хх , цц , цӏцӏ , чӏчӏ .
Note that three of these are tetragraphs. However, gemination for the 'strong' consonants in Avar orthography is sporadic, and the simple letters or digraphs are frequently used in their place.

Belarusian

The Belarusian language has the following digraphs:
*'дз' for affricates ͡zand ͡zʲ(see :uk:дз)
*'дж' for affricates ͡ʒand ʲ(see дж).

Chechen and Ingush

Chechen uses the following digraphs:
*Vowels: аь , яь , оь , ёь , уь , юь
*Ejectives in : кӏ , пӏ , тӏ , цӏ , чӏ
*Other consonants: гӏ , кх , къ , хь , хӏ
*The trigraph рхӏ

In Ingush, there are no ejectives, so for example ''кӏ'' is pronounced . Some of the other values are also different: аь ''etc.'', уь ''etc.'', кх (vs. къ ), хь

The vowel digraphs are used for front vowels for other Dagestanian languages and also the local Turkic languages Kumyk and Nogay. digraphs for ejectives is common across the North Caucasus, as is гӏ for .

Kabardian

Kabardian uses for labialization, as ӏу . гу is , though г is ); ку is , despite the fact that к is not used outside loan words. Other digraphs are:
*Slavic дж , дз
*Ejectives in : кӏ (but кӏу is ), лӏ , пӏ , тӏ , фӏ , цӏ , щӏ
*Other consonants: гъ , жь , къ , лъ (from л ), хь , хъ
*The trigraph кхъ
Labialized, the trigraph becomes the unusual tetragraph кхъу .

Tabasaran

Tabasaran uses gemination for its 'strong' consonants, but this has a different value with г.

*Front vowels: аь , уь
*Gemination for 'strong' consonants: кк , пп , тт , цц , чч
*Ejectives with : кӏ , пӏ , тӏ , цӏ , чӏ
*Based on г : гг , гъ , гь
*Other consonants based on к : къ , кь ,
*Based on х : хъ , хь

It uses for labialization of its postalveolar consonants: шв , жв , чв , джь , ь , ччь ).

Tatar

Tatar has a number of vowels which are written with ambiguous letters that are normally resolved by context, but which are resolved by discontinuous digraphs when context is not sufficient. These ambiguous vowel letters are е, front or back , ю, front or back ; and я, front or back . They interact with the ambiguous consonant letters к, velar or uvular , and г, velar or uvular .

In general, velar consonants occur before front vowels and uvular consonants before back vowels, so it is frequently not necessary to specify these values in the orthography. However, this is not always the case. A uvular followed by a front vowel, as in "kinsman", for example, is written with the corresponding back vowel to specify the uvular value: кардәш. The front value of а is required by vowel harmony with the following front vowel ә, so this spelling is unambiguous.

If, however, the proper value of the vowel is not recoverable through vowel harmony, then the letter ь is added at the end of the syllable, as in "poet". That is, is written with a ы rather than a и to show that the г is pronounced rather than , then the ь is added to show that the ы is pronounced as if it were a и, so the discontinuous digraph ы...ь is used here to write the vowel . This strategy is also followed with the ambiguous letters е, ю, and я in final syllables, for instance in ''cheap''. That is, the discontinuous digraphs е...ь, ю...ь, я...ь are used for plus the front vowels .

Exceptional final-syllable velars and uvulars, however, are written with simple digraphs, with ь for velars and ъ for uvulars: ''pure'', ''promise''.

Ukrainian

The Ukrainian language has the following digraphs:
*'ьо', for �ɔand �o(see :uk:Ьо)
*'дз' for affricates ͡zand ͡zʲ(see :uk:дз)
*'дж' for affricates ͡ʒand ʲ(see дж).

Other alphabets

;Dungan
*ан (ян) , он , эр , etc.

;Mandarin Chinese
In the Cyrillization of Mandarin, there are digraphs цз and чж, which correspond to Pinyin ''z/j'' and ''zh.'' Final ''n'' is нь, while н stands for final ''ng.'' юй is ''yu,'' but ю ''you'', ю- ''yu-'', -уй ''-ui''.

;Karachay-Balkar
*гъ , дж , къ , нг~нъ . Нг is also found in Uzbek.

;Khanty
*л’ , ч’

; Lezgian
*гъ, гь, къ, кь, кӏ, пӏ, тӏ, уь, хъ, хь, цӏ, чӏ

; Ossetian
*Slavic дж , дз
*Ejectives in : къ , пъ , тъ , цъ , чъ
*гъ , хъ

; Komi
*дж , дз , тш (ч is .)

; Turkmen (now using Latin alphabet)
*Long үй , from ү .

; Yakut
*дь , нь

See also

*Languages using Cyrillic
*List of Cyrillic letters
*Bigram
*Diacritic
* Diphthong
*Typographic ligature

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cyrillic Digraphs

Orthography
Digraphs (orthography)