Għ

Gh is a digraph found in many languages.

In Latin-based orthographies

Indo-European languages

Germanic languages

=English

=
In English historically represented (the voiceless velar fricative, as in the Scottish Gaelic word ), and still does in ''lough'' and certain other Hiberno-English words, especially proper nouns. In the dominant dialects of modern English, is almost always either silent or pronounced (see Ough). It is thought that before disappearing, the sound became partially or completely voiced to or , which would explain the new spelling — Old English used a simple  — and the diphthongization of any preceding vowel.

Alexander John Ellis reported it being pronounced as on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border and in close to the Scottish border in the late nineteenth century.

It is also occasionally pronounced , such as in Edinburgh.

When gh occurs at the beginning of a word in English, it is pronounced as in "ghost", "ghastly", "ghoul", "ghetto", "ghee" etc. In this context, it does not derive from a former .

American Literary Braille has a dedicated cell pattern for the digraph (dots 126, ⠣).

=Middle Dutch

=
In Middle Dutch, was often used to represent (the voiced velar fricative) before , , and . This usage survives in place name such as Ghent.

The spelling of English word ''ghost'' with a (from Middle English ) was likely influenced by the Middle Dutch spelling ( Modern Dutch ).

Latin languages

In Italian and Romanian, represents (the voiced velar plosive) before and . In Esperanto orthography, (or ) can be used when the is missing, which represents . In Galician, it is often used to represent the pronunciation of gheada.

Irish

In Irish, represents (the voiced velar fricative) and (the voiced palatal approximant). Word-initially it represents the lenition of , for example 'my jaw' (compare 'jaw').

Juǀʼhoan

In Juǀʼhoan, it's used for the prevoiced aspirated velar plosive .

Malay

In the Malay and Indonesian alphabet, is used to represent the voiced velar fricative () in Arabic origin words.

Maltese

The Maltese language has a related digraph, . It is considered a single letter, called ''għajn'' (the same word for eye and spring, named for the corresponding Arabic letter ʿayn). It is usually silent, but it is necessary to be included because it changes the pronunciation of neighbouring letters, usually lengthening the succeeding vowels. At the end of a word, when not substituted by an apostrophe, it is pronounced . Its function is thus not unlike modern English ''gh'', except that the English version comes after vowels rather than before like Maltese ''għ'' (''għajn'' would come out something like ''ighn'' if spelled as in English).

Swahili

In the Roman Swahili alphabet, is used to represent the voiced velar fricative () in Arabic origin words.

Tlingit

In Canadian Tlingit represents , which in Alaska is written .

Taiwanese

In Daighi tongiong pingim, represents (the voiced velar stop) before , , , , and .

Uyghur

In Uyghur Latin script, gh represents .

Vietnamese

In Vietnamese alphabet, represents before , , .

In romanization

In the romanization of various languages, usually represents the voiced velar fricative (). Like , may also be pharyngealized, as in several Caucasian and Native American languages.
In transcriptions of Indo-Aryan languages such as Sanskrit and Hindi, as well as their ancestor, Proto-Indo-European, represents a voiced velar aspirated plosive (often referred to as a breathy or murmured voiced velar plosive).

In the romanization of Ukrainian language is used seldom to avoid occurrence of another digraph, usually which is used for another type of phoneme. Such as the word "flock" in Ukrainian would be Romanized as zghraya ( uk, зграя) rather than zhraya, which could be misconstrued to intend .

See also

* Phonological history of English consonants
* Yogh

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gh (Digraph)
Latin-script digraphs