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A digraph, bigraph[citation needed], or digram (from the Greek: , dís, "double" and --, gráph-, "write") is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme (distinct sound) or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined. The sound is often, but not necessarily, one which cannot be expressed using a single character in the orthography used by the language. Usually, the term "digraph" is reserved for graphemes whose pronunciation is always or nearly always the same.
When digraphs do not represent a special sound, they may be relics from an earlier period of the language when they did have a different pronunciation, or represent a distinction which is made only in certain dialects, like wh in English. They may also be used for purely etymological reasons, like rh in English.
In some language orthographies, like that of Serbian (when written with the Latin alphabet) or Czech (ch), digraphs are considered individual letters, meaning that they have their own place in the alphabet, in the standard orthography, and cannot be separated into their constituent graphemes; e.g.: when sorting, abbreviating or hyphenating. In others, like English, this is not the case.
Some schemes of Romanization make extensive use of digraphs (e.g. Cyrillic to Roman for English readers), while others rely solely on diacritics (e.g. Cyrillic to the modified Roman used for Turkish). To avoid ambiguity, transliteration based on diacritics is generally preferred in academic circles. Many languages, like Serbian (written in Cyrillic) and Turkish, have no digraphs, and so transliterations into these languages also cannot use digraphs.
Types of digraphs
There are two main kinds of digraphs, sequences and double letters.
Sequences
This is a pair of different letters in a specific order. Examples in English are:
- ch usually corresponds to /t-/ (voiceless postalveolar affricate), to /k/ (voiceless velar plosive) when used as an etymological digraph in words of Greek origin, more rarely to /-/ (voiceless postalveolar fricative)
- ci usually appears as /-/ before vowels.
- ck represents /k/ (voiceless velar plosive)
- gh represents /g/ (voiced velar plosive) at the beginning of words. Represents /f/ (voiceless labiodental fricative), or is silent at the end of words, and in compounds formed from such words.
- ng represents /-/ (velar nasal)
- ph represents /f/ (voiceless labiodental fricative)
- qu usually represents /kw/ or /k/; q is conventionally followed by u in native words.
- rh represents /-/ (alveolar approximant), and is an etymological digraph found in words of Greek origin.
- sc normally represents /s/ (voiceless alveolar fricative) or /-/ (voiceless postalveolar fricative) before e or i
- sh represents /-/ (voiceless postalveolar fricative)
- th usually corresponds to /-/ (voiceless interdental fricative) or /ð/ (voiced interdental fricative). See also Pronunciation of English th.
- wh represents /-/ (voiceless labial-velar fricative) in some conservative dialects; /w/ (voiced labial-velar approximant) in other dialects; and /h/ (voiceless glottal fricative) in a few words where it is followed by o, such as who and whole. See also Phonological history of wh.
- wr represents /-/ (alveolar approximant). Originally, it stood for a labialized sound, while r without w was non-labialized, but this distinction was lost in most dialects, the two sounds merging into a single phoneme, allophonically labialized at the start of syllables, as in red [d]. See also Rhotic consonant.
Digraphs may also be composed of vowels. Common examples in English are:
- ea usually pronounced /i:/, /-/ or /e-/.
- ie usually pronounced /i:/ or /a-/
- ai usually pronounced /-/ or /e-/.
- ei usually pronounced /i:/, more rarely /a-/.
- au usually pronounced /-/.
- eu usually pronounced /ju/.
- ou usually pronounced /a-/, more rarely /u:/.
- aw usually pronounced /-/.
- ew usually pronounced /ju/.
- ow usually pronounced /o-/ or /a-/.
For further information on English, see English orthography.
In Dutch, the digraph ij, which often resembles a y (or a ÿ) in handwriting, represents the diphthong /--/. Opinions are divided on whether it should be considered part of the alphabet.
Double letters
These are pairs of identical letters that have a special pronunciation. In some languages they indicate consonant length or vowel length, a stressed syllable or a new sound, but in other cases they are just part of the spelling convention. Ll is the most common in English, though it does not represent a different sound from l, being essentially an etymological digraph. In Welsh, however, it stands for a voiceless lateral, and in Spanish it stands for a palatal consonant. Ee and oo are common English digraphs made up of vowels. Some more examples:
- In several languages of western Europe, including English and French, ss is used between vowels for the voiceless sibilant /s/ (voiceless alveolar fricative), since an s alone between vowels is normally voiced, /z/ (voiced alveolar fricative). In German, an archaic version of this digraph originated the letter ß.
- In Romance languages such as Spanish or Italian, rr is used between vowels for the alveolar trill /r/, since an r alone between vowels represents an alveolar flap /-/ (the two are different phonemes in these languages).
- In Spanish the digraph nn, which used to indicate /-/ (palatal nasal), was turned into the letter ñ, while ll indicates /-/ (traditionally a palatal lateral approximant, though it has several dialectal variants in modern Spanish).
- In Italian, zz (as in the word pizza) is an affricate, /ts/ or /dz/.
- In several Germanic languages, including English, CC (where C stands for a given consonant) corresponds to C and signifies that the preceding vowel is short.
Ambiguity
Some letter pairs should not be interpreted as digraphs, but appear due to compounding, like in hogshead and cooperate. This is often not marked in any way (it is an exception which must simply be memorized), but some authors indicate it either by breaking up the digraph with a hyphen, as in hogs-head, co-operate, or with a diaeresis mark, as in coöperate, though usage of a diaeresis is extremely rare in English.
In Czech also (and analogically in other Slavic languages), double letters may appear in compound words, but they are not considered digraphs. Examples: bezzubý (bez + zubý, toothless), cenný (cen + ný, valuable), -ernooký (-erno + oký, black-eyed).
Discontinuous digraphs
The pair of letters making up a phoneme are not always adjacent. This is the case with English silent e. For example, the sequence a-e has the sound /e-/ in English cake. This is the result of historical sound changes: cake was originally /kak-/, the open syllable /ka/ came to be pronounced with a long vowel, and later the final schwa dropped off, leaving /ka-k/. Later still, the vowel /a-/ became /e-/.
However, alphabets may also be designed with discontinuous digraphs. In the Tatar Cyrillic alphabet, for example, the letter - is used to write both /ju/ and /jy/. Usually the difference is evident from the rest of the word, but when it is not, the sequence „...“ is used for /jy/, as in /jyn/ 'cheap'.
The Indic alphabets are famous for their discontinuous vowels, such as Thai /--/ in /k--/. Technically, however, these are diacritics, not full letters; whether they are digraphs is thus a matter of definition.
Digraphs versus letters
In some languages, digraphs and trigraphs are counted as distinct letters in themselves, and assigned to a specific place in the alphabet, separate from that of the sequence of characters which composes them, in orthography or collation. Other languages, such as English, make no such convention, and split digraphs into their constituent letters for collation purposes. A few language alphabets that include digraphs are:
- Spanish. In addition to ll (see above), there is the digraphch, which represents /t-/ (voiceless postalveolar affricate). Both are 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. Note that the digraph rr has never been included in the Spanish alphabet, in spite of having a distinct pronunciation (alveolar trill).
- Welsh. The digraphs listed below represent distinct phonemes. On the other hand, the digraphs mh, nh, and the trigraph ngh, which stand for voiceless consonants, but only occur at the beginning of words as a result of the nasal mutation, are not included in the alphabet.
In non-Latin alphabets
Digraphs are found in alphabets other than the Latin alphabet.
Greek
Modern Greek has the following digraphs:
- -- (ai) represents /e-/
- -- (ei) represents /i/
- -- (oi) represents /i/
- -- (ou) represents /u/
- -- (yi) represents /i/
These are called "diphthongs" in Greek; in Classical times they did represent diphthongs, and the name has stuck.
- -- (gg) represents /--/ or /-/
- -- represents the affricate /ts/
- -- represents the affricate /dz/
- Initial -- (gk) represents /-/
- Initial -- (mp) represents /b/
- Initial -- (nt) represents /d/
Arabic
Because vowels are not generally written, digraphs are rare in abjads like Arabic. For example, if sh were used for -, then the sequence sh could mean either -a 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 such as Urdu that are written in the Arabic script. This is accomplished with a special form of the letter h which is only used for aspiration digraphs, as seen with the following connecting (kh) and non-connecting (-h) consonants:
-
| Urdu |
connecting |
|
non-connecting |
| digraph: |
|
/k/ |
|
|
/-/ |
|
| sequence: |
|
/k-/ |
|
|
/--/ |
|
Cyrillic
-
Modern Russian and other Slavic languages written in the Cyrillic alphabet makes little use of digraphs apart from <--> for /d-/ (in loan words only in Russian, but used for native words in Bulgarian), <--> for /dz/ (in loans), and <-->, <-->, or <--> for the uncommon Russian phoneme /--/. Since <--> and <--> have decomposable pronunciations, and <-->, <--> reflect a common phonological rule, only <--> is a true digraph. Cyrillic only has large numbers of digraphs when used to write non-Slavic languages, especially Caucasian languages.
Georgian
The Georgian alphabet uses a few diacritics when writing other languages. For example, in Svan, /ø/ is -- "we", and /y/ is -- "wi".
Hangul
As was the case in Greek, Korean has vowels descended from diphthongs that are still written with two letters. These digraphs, - /-/ and - /e/ (also - /j-/, - /je/), and in some dialects - /ø/ and - /y/, all end in historical - /i/.
Hangul was designed with a great number of digraphs to represent Chinese. These became obsolete, but the doubled consonants were resurrected in the 19th century to write consonants which had not existed when hangul was devised: - /p-/, - /t-/, - /t--/, - /k-/, - /s-/.
Thai
Indic scripts do not use digraphs for consonants. However, most have compound vowel diacritics. Though perhaps not technically digraphs, since they are not full letters, a number of them have the appearance of full letters on the page. This can be illustrated with Thai:
-
| single vowel sign: |
-- |
/ka-/, |
-- |
/ke-/, |
-- |
/k--/ |
| vowel sign plus -: |
|
/kaw/, |
-- |
/k--/, |
|
/k--/ |
Yiddish
The Hebrew has no digraphs for writing Hebrew, except that -- and -- are sometimes found for - /ts/. However, in Yiddish there are also -- /dz/, -- /-/, -- /t-/, and (literally dz-) for /d-/.
See also
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