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. In
German, for example, the pentagraph ''tzsch'' represents the sound of the English
digraph ''ch,'' and indeed is found in the English word ''
Nietzschean''.
Irish has several pentagraphs.
Latin-script pentagraphs
Cyrillic-script pentagraphs
In
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
used for
languages of the Caucasus, there are a couple five-letter sequences used for 'strong' (typically transcribed in the IPA as geminate, and doubled in Cyrillic) labialized consonants. Since both features are predictable from the orthography, their pentagraph status is dubious.
The pentagraph is used in
Archi for : a
labialized , which is the '
strong' counterpart of the
pharyngealized voiceless uvular fricative (), written using the trigraph , whose graph is in turn an unpredictable derivation of () and thus a true trigraph. It occurs, for example, in the word ("rummage through someone else's things").
See also
*
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 ...
*
Hexagraph
*
Heptagraph
A heptagraph (from the , and , ) is a sequence of seven letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds, that do not correspond to the individual values of the letters.
Heptagraphs are extremely rare. Most other f ...
References
{{reflist
5