List of Latin digraphs
Encyclopedia
This is a list of digraph
s used in various Latin alphabet
s. (See also List of Cyrillic digraphs.) Capitalization involves only the first letter (ch – Ch) unless otherwise stated (ij – IJ).
Letters with diacritics are arranged in alphabetic order according to their base. That is, ⟨å⟩ is alphabetized with ⟨a⟩, not at the end of the alphabet as it would be in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish. Substantially modified letters such as ⟨⟩ (a variant of ⟨s⟩) and ⟨⟩ (based on ⟨o⟩) are placed at the end.
⟨’d⟩ (capital ⟨’D⟩) is used in the Bari alphabet for /ɗ/.
⟨’y⟩ (capital ⟨’Y⟩) is used in the Bari alphabet for /ʔʲ/. It is also used for this sound in the Hausa language
in Nigeria, but in Niger, Hausa ⟨’y⟩ is replaced with ⟨ƴ⟩.
or creaky
vowel [a̰].
⟨aa⟩ is used in the orthographies of Dutch
and other languages with phonemic long vowels for [aː]. It was formerly used in Danish and Norwegian (and still is in some proper names) for the sound [ɔ], now spelled ⟨å
⟩.
⟨ae⟩ is used in Irish orthography
, where it represents [eː] between two "broad" (velarized
) consonants, e.g. Gael [ɡˠeːlˠ] ('a Gael
').
⟨ãe⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for /ɐ̃ĩ̯/.
⟨ah⟩ is used in Taa orthography, where it represents the breathy or murmured
/a̤/.
⟨ai⟩ is used in many language
s, typically representing the diphthong /ai/. In English
, as a result of the Great Vowel Shift
, the vowel of ⟨ai⟩ has shifted from this value to /eɪ/ as in pain and rain; while in French
, a different change, monophthongization, has occurred, resulting in the digraph representing /ɛ/. A similar change has also occurred during the development of Greek, resulting in ⟨αι⟩ and the ⟨ε⟩ both having the same sound; originally /ɛ/, later /e/. In German orthography
, it represents /aɪ/ as in Kaiser (which derived from Latin caesar). However, most German words use ⟨ei⟩ for /aɪ/.
⟨aí⟩ is used in Irish orthography
for /iː/ between a broad a slender consonant.
⟨aî⟩ is used in French orthography
for /ɛː/, as in aînesse /ɛːnɛs/ or maître /mɛːtʁ/.
⟨ái⟩ is used in Irish orthography
for /aː/ between a broad and a slender consonant.
⟨ãi⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for /ɐ̃ĩ̯/. It has, thus, the same value as ⟨ãe⟩, but the latter is much more common.
⟨am⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for /ɐ̃ũ̯/ at the end of a word, /ɐ̃/ before a consonant, and /am/ before a vowel; and in French orthography
for /ɑ̃/ (/am/ before a vowel).
⟨âm⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for /ɐ̃/ before a consonant.
⟨an⟩ is used in many languages to write a nasal vowel
. In Portuguese orthography
it is used for /ɐ̃/ before a consonant, in French it represents /ɑ̃/, and in many West Africa
n languages it represents /ã/.
⟨ân⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for a stressed
[ɐ̃] before a consonant.
⟨än⟩ is used in Tibetan Pinyin
for [ɛ̃]. It is alternately written ⟨ain⟩.
⟨ån⟩ is used in the Walloon language
, for the nasal vowel [ɔ̃].
⟨aŋ⟩ is used in Lakhota for the nasal vowel [ã]
⟨ao⟩ is used in the Irish orthography
for [iː] or [eː], depending on dialect, between broad consonants. In French orthography
, it is found in a few words such as paonne representing [a]. In Malagasy
, it represents [o].
⟨ão⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for [ɐ̃ũ̯].
⟨aq⟩ is used in Taa orthography, for the pharyngealized vowel [aˤ].
⟨au⟩ in English
is a result of various linguistic changes from Middle English, having shifted from *[au] to /ɔː/. In a number of dialects, this has merged with /ɑː/. It occasionally represents the diphthong /aʊ/, as in flautist. Other pronunciations are /æ/ in North American English aunt and laugh, /eɪ/ in gauge, /oʊ/ as in gauche and chauffeur, and /ə/ as in meerschaum
and restaurant.
In German
and Dutch
, it is used for the diphthong /ʌu/ (or /ɔu/ in some Dutch dialects).
In French orthography
, ⟨au⟩ represents /o/ or sometimes /ɔ/. It most frequently appears in the inflectional ending marking plurals of certain kinds of words like cheval ('horse') or canal ('channel'), respectively having a plural in chevaux and canaux. In Icelandic orthography
, it represents /œy/.
⟨äu⟩ is used in German orthography
for the diphthong /ɔɪ/ in declension of native words with au; elsewhere, /ɔʏ/ is written as ⟨eu⟩. In words where ä|u is separated in two sylables, mostly of Latin origin, ⟨äu⟩ is pronounced as /ɛ.ʊ/, as in Matthäus
(one German form for Matthew
).
⟨aû⟩ was used in French orthography
but has been replaced.
⟨aw⟩ is used in English orthography
in ways that parallel English ⟨au⟩, though it appears more often at the end of a word.
In Welsh orthography, ⟨aw⟩ represents the diphthong /au/.
⟨ay⟩ is used in English orthography
in ways that parallel English ⟨ai⟩, though it appears more often at the end of a word.
for /b/ in languages such as Yi
, where b stands for /p/. In English, doubling a letter indicates that the previous vowel is short (so bb represents /b/). In ISO romanized Korean
, it is used for the fortis sound /p͈/, otherwise spelled ⟨pp⟩; an example is hobbang
. In Hadza
it is the rare /pʼ/.
⟨bd⟩ is used in English orthography
for /d/ in a few words of Greek origin, such as bdellatomy. When not initial, it represents /bd/, as in abdicate.
⟨bh⟩ is used in transcriptions of Indo-Aryan languages for a murmured
voiced bilabial plosive
(/bʱ/). In Irish orthography
, it stands for the phoneme
s /w/ and /vʲ/, for example /mə waːd̪ˠ/ ('my boat'), /vʲɛx/ ('would be'). In the orthography used in Guinea before 1985
, ⟨bh⟩ was used in Pular
(a Fula language
) for the voiced bilabial implosive /ɓ/, whereas in Xhosa
, Zulu
, and Shona
, ⟨b⟩ represents the implosive and ⟨bh⟩ represents the plosive /b/.
⟨bp⟩ is used in Sandawe
and romanized Thai
for /p/, and in Irish
it represents /b/.
⟨bz⟩ is used in the Shona language
for a whistled sibilant cluster /bz͎/.
or Aymara
with [q], as in Ccozcco (modern Qusqu) ('Cuzco'). In many European languages, ⟨cc⟩ before front vowel
s represents a sequence such as [ks], e.g. English success, French occire, Spanish accidente (dialectally [ks] or [kθ]). In Hadza
it is the glottalized click /ᵑǀˀ/.
⟨cg⟩ is used for the click /ǀχ/ in Naro
. It was also used for /dʒ/ in Old English. Ecg in Old English sounds like 'edge' in Modern English.
⟨ch
⟩ (see article)
⟨čh⟩ is used in Romani orthography and the Chechen
Latin alphabet for /tʃʰ/. In the Ossete Latin alphabet, it was used for /tʃʼ/.
⟨ci⟩ is used in the Italian alphabet
for /tʃ/ before the non-front vowel letters ⟨a, o, u⟩. In English orthography
, it usually represents /ʃ/ whenever it precedes any vowel other than ⟨i⟩.
⟨ck⟩ is used in many Germanic languages
in lieu of ⟨kk⟩ or ⟨cc⟩ to indicate either a geminated /kː/, or a /k/ with a preceding (historically) short vowel. The latter is the case with English tack, deck, pick, lock, and buck (compare backer with baker). In German orthography
, ⟨ck⟩ indicates that the preceding vowel is short. Prior to the German spelling reform of 1996
, it was replaced by ⟨k-k⟩ for syllabification. The new spelling rules allow only syllabification of the ⟨ck⟩ as a whole:
⟨cn⟩ is used in English orthography
for /n/ in a few words of Greek origin, such as cnidarian. When not initial, it represents /kn/, as in acne.
⟨cö⟩ is used in the Seri
alphabet for a labialized velar plosive
, /kʷ/. It is placed between ⟨C
⟩ and ⟨E
⟩ in alphabetical order.
⟨cs⟩ is used in the Hungarian alphabet
for a voiceless postalveolar affricate
(IPA
: /tʃ/). It is considered a distinct letter, named csé, and is placed between ⟨C
⟩ and ⟨D
⟩ in alphabetical order. Examples of words with cs include csak ('only'), csésze ('cup'), cső ('pipe').
⟨ct⟩ is used in English orthography
for /t/ in a few words of Greek origin, such as ctenoid. When not initial, it represents /kt/, as in act.
⟨cu⟩ is used in the orthographies for languages such as Nahuatl (that is, based on Spanish or Portuguese orthography
) for /kʷ/. In Nahuatl, ⟨cu⟩ is used before a vowel, whereas ⟨uc⟩ is used after a vowel.
⟨cx⟩ is used unofficially in lieu of Esperanto orthography
's ⟨ĉ
⟩.
⟨cz⟩ is used in Polish orthography
for /t͡ʂ/ as in ('hello'). In Kashubian
, ⟨cz⟩ represents /tʃ/. This digraph was once common across Europe, but has largely been replaced. In French
and Catalan
, historical ⟨cz⟩ contracted to the ligature ⟨ç
⟩, and represents the sound /s/. In Hungarian
, it was formerly used for the sound /ts/, which is now written ⟨c⟩.
for the click /ᶢǀ/.
⟨dd⟩ is used in English orthography
to indicate a /d/ with a preceding (historically) short vowel (e.g. jaded /ˈdʒeɪdəd/ has a "long a" while ladder /ˈlædər/ has a "short a"). In Welsh orthography, ⟨dd⟩ represents a voiced dental fricative
/ð/. It is treated as a distinct letter, named èdd, and placed between ⟨D
⟩ and ⟨E
⟩ in alphabetical order. In the ISO romanization of Korean
, it is used for the fortis sound /t͈/, otherwise spelled ⟨tt⟩; examples are ddeokbokki and bindaeddeok. In the Basque alphabet
, it represents a voiced palatal plosive
/ɟ/, as in onddo, ('mushroom').
⟨dg⟩ is used in English orthography
for /dʒ/ in certain contexts, such as with judgement and hedge
⟨dh⟩ is used in the Albanian alphabet
, Swahili alphabet, and the orthography of the revived Cornish language
for the voiced dental fricative
/ð/.
⟨dj⟩ is used in the Faroese
, French
and many French-based orthographies for /dʒ/. In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
such as Warlpiri
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara, it represents a postalveolar stop such as /ṯ/ or /ḏ/; this sound is also written ⟨dy⟩, ⟨tj⟩, ⟨ty⟩, or ⟨c⟩.
⟨dl⟩ is used in the Hmong language
's Romanized Popular Alphabet
for /tˡ/. In the Navajo language
orthography, it represents /tɬ/, and in the orthography of Xhosa
it represents /ɮ̈/. In Hadza
it is ejective /cɬʼ/.
⟨dł⟩ is used in the Tlingit alphabet
for /tɬ/ (in Alaska, ⟨dl⟩ is used instead).
⟨dm⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
of Papua New Guinea
for doubly articulated
and nasally released
/t͡pn͡m/.
⟨dn⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
of Papua New Guinea
for nasally released
/tn/.
⟨dp⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
of Papua New Guinea
for doubly articulated
/t͡p/.
⟨dq⟩ is used for the click /ᶢǃ/ in the orthography of Naro
.
⟨dr⟩ is used in the orthography of Malagasy
for /ɖʐ/. See ⟨tr⟩.
⟨dt⟩ is used in Sandawe
orthography and the romanization of Thai
for /t/. In Irish orthography
it represents /d/.
⟨dx⟩ is used in the orthographies of some Zapotecan languages
for a voiced postalveolar fricative
/ʒ/. It is placed between ⟨D
⟩ and ⟨E
⟩ in alphabetical order.
⟨dy⟩ is used in the Xhosa language
orthography for /dʲʱ/. In the Shona
alphabet, it represents /dʒɡ/. In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
such as Warlpiri
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara, it represents a postalveolar stop such as /ṯ/ or /ḏ/. This sound is also written ⟨tj⟩, ⟨dj⟩, ⟨ty⟩, ⟨c⟩, or ⟨j⟩.
⟨dz
⟩ (see article)
⟨dź⟩ is used in the Polish
and Sorbian
alphabets for /d͡ʑ/, the voiced alveolo-palatal affricate, as in dźwięk [d͡ʑvʲɛŋk]. ⟨Dź⟩ is never written before a vowel
(⟨dzi⟩ is used instead, as in dziecko [d͡ʑɛt͡skɔ] 'child').
⟨dż⟩ is used in the Polish alphabet
for a voiced retroflex affricate
/d͡ʐ/ (e.g. 'jam').
⟨dž
⟩ (see article)
or creaky
vowel [ḛ].
⟨ea⟩ is used in many language
s. In English orthography
, ⟨ea⟩ usually represents the monophthong /i/ as in meat; due to a sound change that happened in Middle English, it also often represents the vowel /ɛ/ as in sweat. Rare pronunciations occur, like /eɪ/ in just break, great, steak, and yea, and /æ/ in the archaic ealdorman
. When followed by r, it can represent the standard outcomes of the previously mentioned three vowels in this environment: /ɪər/ as in beard, /ɜr/ as in heard, and /ɛər/ as in bear, respectively; as another exception, /ɑr/ occurs in the words hearken, heart and hearth. It often represents two independent vowels, like /eɪ.ɑː/ (seance), /i.æ/ (reality), /i.eɪ/ (create), and /i.ɨ/ (lineage). Unstressed, it may represent /jə/ (ocean) or /ɨ/ (Eleanor). In the Romanian alphabet
, it represents the diphthong [e̯a] as in beată ('drunk female'). In Irish orthography
, ⟨ea⟩ represents [a] between a slender and a broad consonant. ⟨Ea⟩ is also the transliteration of the ⟨ᛠ⟩ rune of the Anglo-Frisian Futhorc.
⟨eá⟩ is used in Irish orthography
for /aː/ between a slender and a broad consonant.
⟨éa⟩ is used in Irish orthography
for /eː/ between a slender and a broad consonant.
⟨ee⟩ represents a long mid vowel in a number of languages. In English orthography
, ⟨ee⟩ represents /iː/ as in teen. In both the Dutch
and German
alphabets, ⟨ee⟩ represents [eː].
⟨eh⟩ is used in the orthography of the Taa language for the murmured
vowel [e̤]. In the Wade-Giles
transliteration of Mandarin Chinese, it is used for [ɛ] after a consonant, as in yeh [jɛ].
⟨ei⟩ usually represents a diphthong
. In English orthography
, ⟨ei⟩ can represent many sounds, including /eɪ/, as in vein, /i/ as in seize, /aɪ/ as in heist, /ɛ/ as in heifer, /æ/ as in enceinte, and /ɨ/ as in forfeit. See also I before e except after c
. In the southern and western Faroese
dialects, it represents the diphthong [aɪ], while in the northern and eastern dialects, it represents the diphthong [ɔɪ].
In the Welsh alphabet
, ⟨ei⟩ represents [əi]. In the Irish
and Scottish Gaelic
orthographies, it represents [ɛ] before a slender consonant. In the Dutch alphabet
, ⟨ei⟩ represents [ɛi]. In the German alphabet
, it represents /aɪ/, as in Einstein. This digraph was taken over from Middle High German
writing systems, where it represented /eɪ/. In Modern German, ⟨ei⟩ is predominant in representing /aɪ/, while the equivalent digraph ⟨ai⟩ appears in only a few words. In French orthography
, ⟨ei⟩ represents /ɛ/, as in seiche.
⟨eî⟩ is used in French orthography
for /ɛː/, as in reître [ʁɛːtʁ].
⟨éi⟩ is used in Irish orthography
for /eː/ between slender consonants.
⟨em⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for [ɐĩ̯ ~ ẽĩ̯] at the end of a word and [ẽ] before a consonant.
⟨ém⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for [ɐĩ̯ ~ ẽĩ̯] at the end of a word.
⟨êm⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for [ɐĩ̯ ~ ẽĩ̯] at the end of a word and [ẽ] before a consonant.
⟨en⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for [ɐĩ̯ ~ ẽĩ̯] at the end of a word and [ẽ] before a consonant within a word. In French orthography
, it represents /ɑ̃/.
⟨én⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for [ɐĩ̯ ~ ẽĩ̯] before a consonant.
⟨ên⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for [ẽ] before a consonant.
⟨eo⟩ is used in Irish orthography
for /oː/ or occasionally /ɔ/ between a slender and a broad consonant. In the Jyutping
romanization of Cantonese, it represents [ɵ], an allophone of /œː/. In the Revised Romanization of Korean
, ⟨eo⟩ represents the open-mid back unrounded vowel /ʌ/. In English orthography
⟨eo⟩ is a rare digraph without a single pronunciation, representing /ɛ/ in feoff, jeopardy, leopard and the given name Geoffrey, /iː/ in people, /oʊ/ in yeoman
and /juː/ in the archaic feodary, while in the originally Gaelic name MacLeod
it represents /aʊ/. However, usually it represents two vowels, like /iː.ə/ in leotard and galleon, /iː.oʊ/ in stereo and, /iː.ɒ/ in geodesy
, and, uniquely, /uː.iː/ in geoduck
.
⟨eq⟩ is used in the orthography of the Taa language for the pharyngealized vowel [eˤ].
⟨eu⟩ is found in many language
s, most commonly for the diphthong /eu/. Additionally, in English orthography
, ⟨eu⟩ represents /juː/ as in neuter (though in yod dropping accents /uː/ may occur). In the German alphabet
, it represents /ɔʏ/ as in Deutsch; and in the French
, Dutch
, Breton
, and Cornish
orthographies, it represents [ø] as in feu. In Yale Cantonese romanization it represents /œː/. In the orthographies of Sundanese
and Acehnese
, both Austronesian languages
, it represents /ɤ/ as in beureum ('red'). In the Revised Romanization of Korean
, it represents /ɯ/.
⟨eû⟩ is used in French orthography
for /ø/, as in jeûne [ʒøn].
⟨ew⟩ is used in English orthography
for /juː/ as in few and flew. An exception is the pronunciation /oʊ/ in sew, leading to the heteronym
sewer,(/ˈsuːər/, 'drain') vs sewer (/ˈsoʊər/, 'one who sews').
⟨ey⟩ is used in English orthography
for a variety of sounds, including /eɪ/ in they, /iː/ in key, and /aɪ/ in geyser. In the Faroese
alphabet, it represents the diphthong [ɛɪ].
for the same sound as single ⟨f⟩, /f/. The doubling is used to indicate that the preceding vowel is (historically) short, or for etymological
reasons, in latinism
s. Very rarely, ⟨ff⟩ may be found word-initially, such as in proper names (e.g. Rose ffrench, Jasper Fforde
). In the Welsh alphabet
, ⟨ff⟩ represents /f/, while ⟨f⟩ represents /v/. In Welsh, ⟨ff⟩ is considered a distinct letter, and placed between ⟨f⟩ and ⟨g⟩ in alphabetical order. In medieval Breton
, vowel nasalisation was represented by a following ⟨ff⟩. This notation was reformed during the 18th century, though proper names retain the former convention, which leads to occasional mispronunciation.
⟨fh⟩ is used in Irish orthography
for the lenition
of ⟨f⟩. This happens to be silent, so that ⟨fh⟩ in Irish corresponds to no sound at all. For example, the phrase ('how long') is pronounced kaː ad̪ˠ, where is the lenited form of [fɑd] ('long').
⟨fx⟩ in used in the orthography of Nambikwara
for a glottalized
/ɸʔ/.
for a voiced labial-velar plosive
(IPA
: [ɡ͡b]).
⟨gc⟩ is used in scripts for languages such as Xhosa
and Zulu
for the click [ᶢǀ] . In Irish orthography
, it indicates the eclipsis
of c and represents [ɡ].
⟨ge⟩ is used in French orthography
for [ʒ] before ⟨a o u⟩ as in geôle [ʒol].
⟨gg⟩ is used in English orthography
for /ɡ/ before ⟨i⟩ and ⟨e⟩. It is also used in Pinyin
for [ɡ] in languages such as Yi
. In the orthography of Central Alaskan Yup'ik
, it represents [x]. In Greenlandic orthography, it represents [çː]. In the ISO romanization of Korean
, it is used for the fortis sound [k͈], otherwise spelled ⟨kk⟩ (e.g. ggakdugi
). In Hadza
it is ejective /kxʼ/.
⟨gh
⟩ (see article)
⟨gi⟩ is used in the Vietnamese alphabet
for [z] in northern dialects and [j] in the southern ones. In the Italian alphabet
, it represents [dʒ] before the non-front vowel letters ⟨a o u⟩.
⟨gj⟩ is used in the Albanian alphabet
for the voiced palatal plosive
[ɟ], though for Gheg speakers it represents [dʒ]. In the Arbëresh
dialect, it represents the voiced velar plosive
[ɡʲ]. In the Norwegian and Swedish
alphabets, ⟨gj⟩ represents [j] in words like gjorde ('did'). In Faroese
, it represents [dʒ]. It is also used in the Romanization of Macedonian as a Latin equivalent of Cyrillic
⟨Ѓ⟩.
⟨gk⟩ is used in Sandawe
and the romanization of Thai
for [k]; in Limburgish
it represents [ɡ].
⟨gl⟩ is used in the Italian alphabet
for [ʎ] before ⟨i⟩. Elsewhere [ʎ] is represented by the trigraph ⟨gli⟩.
⟨gm⟩ is used in English orthography
for /m/ in a few words of Greek origin, such as gmina and paradigm. Between vowels, it simply represents /ɡm/, as in paradigmatic.
⟨gn⟩ is used in the Latin orthography, where it represented [ŋn] in the classical period. Latin velar
-coronal
sequences like this (and also ⟨cl cr ct gd gl gr x⟩) underwent a palatal
mutation to varying degrees in most Italo-Western Romance languages
. For most languages that preserve the ⟨gn⟩ spelling (such as Italian
and French
), it represents a palatal nasal
[ɲ]. This was not the case in Dalmatian
and the Eastern Romance languages
where a different mutation changed the velar component to a labial consonant
as well as the spelling to ⟨mn⟩.
⟨gñ⟩ was used in several Spanish-derived orthographies of the Pacific for [ŋ]. It is one of several variants of the digraph ⟨ñg⟩, and is preserved in the name of the town of Sagñay
, Philippines
.
⟨gq⟩ is used in scripts for languages such as Xhosa
and Zulu
for the click [ᶢǃ]. In the orthography of the Taa language, it represents [ɢ].
⟨gr⟩ is used in the orthography for Xhosa
for [ɣ̈].
⟨gu⟩ is used in the Spanish and Portuguese
orthographies for [ɡ] before front vowels ⟨i e⟩ where a "soft g" pronunciation (Spanish [x], Portuguese [ʒ]) would otherwise occur. In the Ossete Latin alphabet, it is used for [ɡʷ].
⟨gü⟩ is used in the Spanish orthography for [ɡw] before front vowels ⟨i e⟩ where the digraph ⟨gu⟩ would otherwise represent [ɡ].
⟨gw⟩ is used in various languages for [ɡʷ], and in the orthography for Dene Suline
it represents [kʷ].
⟨ǥw⟩, capital ⟨Ǥw⟩ (or ⟨G̱w⟩), is used in Alaskan Tlingit
for [qʷ]; in Canada, this sound is represented by ⟨ghw⟩.
⟨gx⟩ is used in scripts for languages such as Xhosa
and Zulu
for the click [ᶢǁ]. In Esperanto orthography
, it is an unofficial variant of ⟨ĝ
⟩.
⟨gy⟩ is used in the Hungarian alphabet
for a voiced palatal plosive
[ɟ]. In Hungarian, the letter's name is gyé. It is considered a single letter, and acronyms keep the digraph intact. The letter appears frequently in Hungarian words, such as the word for "Hungarian" itself: magyar.
to write the murmured glottal fricative /ɦ̤/, though this is often written h. In the Iraqw language
, hh is the voiceless epiglottal fricative /ʜ/, and in Chipewyan
it is a velar/uvular /χ/. In Esperanto, it is an official surrogate of ĥ
.
⟨hj⟩ is used in the Italian dialect of Albanian
for /xʲ/. In Faroese
, it represents either /tʃ/ or /j/.
⟨hl⟩ represents the sound /ɬ/ in various scripts, such as the Romanized Popular Alphabet
used to write Hmong
.
⟨hm⟩ is used in the Romanized Popular Alphabet
used to write Hmong
, where it represents the sound /m̥/.
⟨hn⟩ is used in the Romanized Popular Alphabet
used to write Hmong
, where it represents the sound /n̥/.
⟨hs⟩ is used in the Wade-Giles
transcription of Mandarin Chinese for the sound /ɕ/, equivalent to Pinyin
x.
⟨hu⟩ is used primarily in the Classical Nahuatl
language, in which it represents the /w/ sound before a vowel; for example, Wikipedia in Nahuatl is written Huiquipedia. After a vowel, ⟨uh⟩ is used. In the Ossete Latin alphabet, hu was used for /ʁʷ/, similar to French roi. The sequence hu is also found in Spanish words such as huevo or hueso; however, in Spanish this is not a digraph but a simple sequence of silent h and the vowel u.
⟨hw⟩ was used in Old English for /hw/. It is now spelled ⟨wh⟩.
⟨hx⟩ is used in Pinyin
for /h/ in languages such as Yi
(⟨h⟩ alone represents the fricative /x/), and in Nambikwara
it is a glottalized
/hʔ/. In Esperanto it is an unofficial surrogate of ⟨ĥ
⟩.
or creaky
vowel /ḭ/.
⟨ie⟩ is found in English
, where it usually represents the /aɪ/ sound as in pries and allied or the /iː/ sound as in priest and rallied. Followed by an r, these vowels follow the standard changes to /aɪə/ and /ɪə/, as in brier and bier. Unique pronunciations are /ɪ/ in sieve, /ɛ/ in friend and /eɪ/ in lingerie. Unstressed it can represent /jə/, as in spaniel and conscience, or /ɨ/ or /ə/ as in mischief and hurriedly. It also can represent many vowel combinations, including /aɪə/ in diet and client, /aɪɛ/ in diester and quiescent, /iːə/ in alien and skier, /iːɛ/ in oriental and hygienic, and /iːʔiː/ in British medieval.
⟨ig⟩ is used in Catalan
for /t͡ʃ/ in the coda.
⟨ih⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, represents the breathy or murmured
vowel /i̤/. It is also used in Tongyong Pinyin
and Wade-Giles
transcription for the fricative vowels of Mandarin Chinese, which are spelled i in Hanyu Pinyin.
⟨ii⟩ is used in many languages with phonemic long vowels for /iː/.
⟨ij (IJ)⟩ (see article)
⟨il⟩ is used in French
for /j/, historically /ʎ/, as in ail /aj/ "garlic".
⟨im⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for /ĩ/.
⟨ím⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for /ĩ/ before a consonant.
⟨in⟩ is used in many languages to write a nasal vowel
. In Portuguese orthography
before a consonant, and in many West Africa
n languages, it is /ĩ/, while in French it is /ɛ̃/.
⟨ín⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for /ĩ/ before a consonant.
⟨în⟩ is used in French
to write a vowel sound /ɛ̃/ that was once followed by a historical s, as in vous vîntes /vu vɛ̃t/ "you came".
⟨iŋ⟩ is used in Lakhota for the nasal vowel [ĩ].
⟨io⟩ is used in Irish
for /ɪ/, /ʊ/, and /iː/ between a slender and a broad consonant.
⟨ío⟩ is used in Irish
for /iː/ between a slender and a broad consonant.
⟨iq⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, it represents the pharyngealized vowel /iˤ/.
⟨iu⟩ is used in Irish
for /ʊ/ between a slender and a broad consonant. In Mandarin pinyin
, it is /i̯ou̯/ after a consonant. (In initial position, this is spelled you.)
⟨iú⟩ is used in Irish
for /uː/ between a slender and a broad consonant.
⟨ix⟩ is used in Catalan
for /ʃ/ after a vowel.
to write a sound that is variously /h/ or /ʒ/, depending on the dialect. In Tongyong pinyin
, it represents /tʂ/, written zh in standard pinyin. Jh is also the standard transliteration for the Devanāgarī
letter झ⟩ /dʒʱ/.
In the official Esperanto orthography
, it is a surrogate of ĵ
.
⟨jj⟩ is used in Pinyin
for /dʑ/ in languages such as Yi
. In romanized Korean
, it represents the fortis sound /tɕ͈/. In Hadza
it is ejective /tʃʼ/.
⟨jö⟩ is used as a letter of the Seri
alphabet, where it represents a labialized velar fricative
(IPA
: /xʷ/. It is placed between J
and L
in alphabetical order.
⟨jx⟩ is used in Esperanto as an unofficial surrogate of ⟨ĵ
⟩.
. For instance, the Kalahari is spelled Kgalagadi /kχalaχadi/ in Setswana.
⟨kh⟩, in transcriptions of Indo-Aryan languages, represents the aspirated
voiceless velar plosive
([kʰ]). For scores of other languages, it represents the voiceless velar fricative
[x], for example in transcriptions of the letter (خ) in standard Arabic, standard Persian, and Urdu, Cyrillic Х, х (Kha), Spanish j, etc. As the transcription of the letter (ח) in Sephardic Hebrew, it represents the voiceless pharyngeal fricative
[ħ]. It is also used to transcribe the Hebrew letter Kaf (כ) in instances when the letter is lenited
. When transliterating Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Bulgarian, all written only in the Cyrillic alphabet, the diagraph is equivalent to the Cyrillic letter Х.
⟨kj⟩ is used Swedish
and Norwegian
for [ɕ] or [ç]. See also ⟨tj⟩. In Faroese
, it represents [tʃ].
⟨kk⟩ is used in Icelandic and Faroese for the pre-aspirated sound /ʰk/, in romanized Korean
for the fortis sound /k͈/, and in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for ejective /kʼ/.
⟨kl⟩ is used in the Zulu language
to write a sound variously realized as /kʟ̥ʼ/ or /kxʼ/.
⟨km⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
of Papua New Guinea
for doubly articulated
and nasally released
/k͡pŋ͡m/.
⟨kn⟩ is used in English to write the word-initial sound /n/ in some words of Germanic origin, such as knee and knife. It is used in Yélî Dnye
of Papua New Guinea
for nasally released
/kŋ/.
⟨kp⟩ is used as a letter in some African languages
, where it represents a voiceless labial-velar plosive
(simultaneous k and p; IPA
: /k͡p/).
⟨kr⟩ is used in the Xhosa language
for /kxʼ/.
⟨ku⟩ was used in the Ossete Latin alphabet for /kʷ/.
⟨kw⟩ is used in various languages for /kʷ/, and in Dene Suline
(Chipewyan) for /kʷʰ/.
⟨ḵw⟩ is used in Alaskan Tlingit
for /qʷʰ/, which in Canada is written khw.
⟨kx⟩ in used in Nambikwara
for a glottalized
/kʔ/.
⟨ky⟩ is used in Tibetan Pinyin
for /tʃʰ/.
, and Portuguese
, represents a palatal lateral approximant
[ʎ]. In many American Indian languages it represents a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
[ɬ]. In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
it represents a dental lateral, [l̪]. In the Gwoyeu Romatzyh
romanization of Mandarin Chinese, initial ⟨lh⟩ indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in [l], which is otherwise spelled ⟨l⟩.
⟨lj⟩ is a letter in some Slavic languages, such as the Latin orthographies of Serbo-Croatian
, where it represents a palatal lateral approximant
/ʎ/. For example, the word ljiljan is pronounced /ʎiʎan/. Ljudevit Gaj
first used the digraph ⟨lj⟩ in 1830; he devised it by analogy with a Cyrillic
digraph, which developed into the ligature љ
.
⟨ll
⟩ and ⟨l·l⟩ (see article)
⟨ḷḷ⟩ is used in Asturian
for a sound that was historically [ʎ] but which is now an affricate, [t͡s], [t͡ʃ], [d͡ʒ].
⟨lv⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
of Papua New Guinea
for doubly articulated
/l͜β/.
⟨lw⟩ is used for /lʷ/ in Arrernte.
⟨lx⟩ in used in Nambikwara
for a glottalized
/ˀl/.
⟨ly
⟩ (see article)
n languages, represents (IPA
) /mb/ or /ᵐb/. It is used in Irish
to indicate the eclipsis
of b and represents [mˠ]; for example ár mbád [ɑːɾˠ mˠɑːdˠ̪] "our boat" (cf. [bˠɑːd̪ˠ] "boat"). The Irish digraph is capitalized mB, for example i mBaile Átha Cliath "in Dublin". In English, mb represents /m/ when final, as in lamb.
⟨md⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
of Papua New Guinea
for doubly articulated
and prenasalized /n͡mt͡p/.
⟨mg⟩ is used in Pinyin
for /ŋɡ/ in languages such as Yi
. (The more common diacritic ng⟩ is restricted in Pinyin to the sound /ŋ/.) It is used in Yélî Dnye
of Papua New Guinea
for doubly articulated
and prenasalized /ŋ͡mk͡p/.
⟨mh⟩, in Irish
, stands for the lenition
of m⟩ and represents [v] or [w]; for example mo mháthair [mə ˈwɑːhəɾʲ] or [mˠə ˈvˠɑːhəɾʲ] "my mother" (cf. máthair [ˈmˠɑːhəɾʲ] "mother"). In Welsh
it stands for the nasal mutation
of p⟩ and represents [m̥]; for example fy mhen [ə m̥ɛn] "my head" (cf. pen [pɛn] "head"). In both languages it is considered a sequence of the two letters m⟩ and h⟩ for purposes of alphabetization. It also occurs in Shona
. In the Gwoyeu Romatzyh
romanization of Mandarin Chinese, initial mh- indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in /m/, which is otherwise spelled m-.
⟨ml⟩ is used in the Romanized Popular Alphabet
used to write Hmong
, where it represents the sound /mˡ/.
⟨mm⟩ is used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for glottalized /ˀm/.
⟨mn⟩ is used in English to write the word-initial sound /n/ in a few words of Greek origin, such as mnemonic. When final, it represents /m/, as in damn, and between vowels it represents /mn/, as in damnation. In French
it represents /n/, as in automne and condemner.
⟨mp⟩, in many Africa
n languages, represents (IPA
) /mp/ or /ᵐp/. Modern Greek uses the equivalent digraph μ
π
for /b/, as β
is used for /v/.
⟨mt⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
of Papua New Guinea
for doubly articulated
and prenasalized /n̪͡mt̪͡p/.
⟨mv⟩, in many Africa
n languages, represents (IPA
) /mv/ or /ᵐv/.
⟨mw⟩ is used for /mʷ/ in Arrernte.
⟨mx⟩ in used in Nambikwara
for a glottalized
/ˀm/.
and Shona language
s for /ŋ/. Since ⟨’⟩ is not a letter in either language, ⟨n’⟩ is not technically a digraph.
⟨nb⟩ is used in Pinyin
for /mb/ in languages such as Yi
.
⟨nc⟩ is used in various scripts. In the Romanized Popular Alphabet
used to write Hmong
, it represents the sound /ɲɟ/. In Xhosa
and Zulu
it represents the click /ᵑǀ/.
⟨nd⟩, in many Africa
n languages, represents /nd/ or /ⁿd/, and capitalized ⟨Nd⟩. It is used in Irish
for the eclipsis
of ⟨d⟩, and represents /n/, for example in ár ndoras [ɑːɾˠ ˈnˠɔɾˠəsˠ] "our door" (cf. doras [ˈd̪ˠɔɾˠəsˠ] "door"). In this function it is capitalized ⟨nD⟩, e.g. i nDoire "in Derry".
⟨ng⟩, in English
and several other Europe
an and derived orthographies, generally represents the velar nasal
[ŋ]. It is considered a single letter in many Austronesian languages
(Māori
, Tagalog
, Tongan
, Kiribatian
, Tuvaluan
, Indonesian
), the Welsh
language, and Rheinische Dokumenta
, for velar nasal
(IPA
: /ŋ/); and in some African languages
(Lingala
, Bambara
, Wolof
) for prenasalized ɡ (/ⁿɡ/).
⟨ńg⟩ is used in Central Alaskan Yup'ik
to write the voiceless nasal sound /ŋ̊/.
⟨ñg⟩, or more precisely ⟨⟩, was a digraph in several Spanish-derived orthographies of the Pacific, such as that of Tagalog
and Chamorro
, where it represented the sound /ŋ/, as opposed to ng, which originally represented /ŋɡ/. An example is Chamorro (modern agangñaihon) "to declare". Besides ñg, variants of include gñ (as in Sagñay
), , and a , that is preceded by a vowel (but not a consonant).
⟨ng’⟩ is used for /ŋ/ in Swahili and languages with Swahili-based orthographies. Since ⟨’⟩ is not a letter in Swahili, ⟨ng’⟩ is technically a digraph, not a trigraph
.
⟨nh
⟩ (see article)
⟨nj⟩ is a letter present in the Latin orthographies of Serbo-Croatian
. Ljudevit Gaj
, a Croat, first used this digraph in 1830. It is also used in the Albanian alphabet
. In all of these languages, it represents the palatal nasal
/ɲ/. For example, the Croatian and Serbian word konj (horse) is pronounced /koɲ/. The digraph was created in the 19th century by analogy with a digraph of the Cyrillic alphabet
, which developed into the ligature ⟨Њ
⟩. There are dedicated glyphs in Unicode, NJ, Nj, nj.
⟨nk⟩ is used in the orthography of many Bantu languages
like Lingala, Tshiluba, and Kikongo, for /ŋk/ or /ᵑk/. In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
such as Warlpiri
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara, it distinguishes a prenasalized velar stop, /ŋ͡k ~ ŋ͡ɡ/, from the nasal /ŋ/.
⟨nm⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
of Papua New Guinea
for doubly articulated
/n͡m/.
⟨ńm⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
of Papua New Guinea
for doubly articulated
/n̪͡m/.
⟨nn⟩ is used in Irish orthography
for the Old Irish
"fortis sonorants" /Nˠ/ ("broad", i.e. non-palatalized or velarized) and /Nʲ/ ("slender", i.e. palatalized) in non-initial position. In modern Irish
, the "broad" sound is /n̪ˠ/, while the slender sound can be any of /nʲ/, /n̠ʲ/, or /ɲ/, depending on dialect and position in the word. In Spanish
historical nn⟩ has contracted to the ligature
ñ
⟩ and represents the sound /ɲ/. In the Gwoyeu Romatzyh
romanization of Mandarin Chinese, final -nn indicates a falling tone on a syllable ending in /n/, which is otherwise spelled -n. It is used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for glottalized /ˀn/.
⟨np⟩ is used in the Romanized Popular Alphabet
used to write Hmong
, where it represents the sound /mb/.
⟨nq⟩ is used in various scripts. In the Romanized Popular Alphabet
used to write Hmong
, it represents the sound /ɴɢ/. In Xhosa
and Zulu
it represents the click /ᵑǃ/. In the Gwoyeu Romatzyh
romanization of Mandarin Chinese, final -nq indicates a falling tone on a syllable ending in /ŋ/, which is otherwise spelled -ng.
⟨nr⟩ is used in the Romanized Popular Alphabet
used to write Hmong
, where it represents the sound /ɳɖ/.
⟨ns⟩, in many Africa
n languages, represents (IPA
) /ns/ or /ⁿs/.
⟨nt⟩ is a letter present in many Africa
n languages where it represents(IPA
) /nt/ or /ⁿt/ .
⟨nw⟩ is used in Igbo
for /ŋʷ/, and in Arrernte for /nʷ/.
⟨nx⟩ is used for the click /ᵑǁ/ in scripts such as Xhosa
and Zulu
, and in Nambikwara
for a glottalized
/ˀn/.
⟨ny⟩ (see article)
⟨nz⟩, in many Africa
n languages, represents (IPA
) /nz/ ~ /ⁿz/, /ndz/ ~ /ⁿdz/, /nʒ/ ~ /ⁿʒ/, or /ndʒ/ ~ /ⁿdʒ/.
or creaky
vowel /o̰/. It is also used for [o] and [ø] in Romanized Uzbek
(Cyrillic ⟨ў⟩). Technically it is not a digraph in Uzbek, since ⟨ʻ⟩ is not a letter of the Uzbek alphabet, but rather a typographic convention for a diacritic. In handwriting the letter is written ⟨ō⟩ or ⟨ŏ⟩.
⟨oa⟩ is used in English
, where it commonly represents the /oʊ/ sound as in road, coal, boast, coaxing, etc.. In Middle English
, where the digraph originated, it represented /ɔː/, a pronunciation retained in the word broad and derivatives, and when the digraph is followed by an "r", as in soar and bezoar
. The letters also represent two vowels, as in koala /oʊ.ɑː/, boa
s /oʊ.ə/, coaxial
/oʊ.æ/, oasis /oʊ.eɪ/, and doable /uː.ə/.
In Malagasy
, it is occasionally used for /o/.
⟨oe⟩ is found in many language
s. In English
, oe represents the /oʊ/ sound as in hoe and sometimes the /uː/ sound as in shoe. Afrikaans and Dutch
oe is [u], as in doen. In French
it stands for the vowels [œ], as in œil [œj], and [e] as in oesophage [ezɔfaʒ ~ øzɔfaʒ], and in Cantonese Pinyin it represents the vowel [ɵ] ~ [œː]. It is an alternative way to write the letter ö in German when this character is unavailable.
⟨oê⟩ is used in French
to write the vowel sound [wa] in a few words before what had historically been an s, as in poêle [pwal] "stove".
⟨õe⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for [õĩ̯]. It is used in plural forms of some words ended in ⟨ão⟩, such as anão–anões and campeão–campeões.
⟨oh⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, represents the breathy or murmured
vowel /o̤/.
⟨oi⟩ is used in various language
s. In English
, oi represents the /oɪ̯/ sound as in coin and join. In French
, it represents /wa/, which was historically – and still is in some cases – written "oy." In Irish
it's used for /ɛ/, /ɔ/, /ɪ/, /əi̯/, /iː/, /oː/ between a broad and a slender consonant.
⟨oí⟩ is used in Irish
for /iː/ between a broad and a slender consonant.
⟨oî⟩ is used in French
to write /wa/ before what had historically been an s, as in boîtier or cloître.
⟨ói⟩ is used in Irish
for /oː/ between a broad and a slender consonant.
⟨om⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for /õ/.
⟨ôm⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for /õ/ before a consonant.
⟨on⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for /õ/ before a consonant, and in French to write /ɔ̃/.
⟨ôn⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for /õ/ before a consonant.
⟨ön⟩ is used in Tibetan Pinyin
for /ø̃/. It is alternately written oin.
⟨oo⟩ is used in many language
s. In English
, oo commonly represents two sounds: /uː/ as in "moon" and "food", and /ʊ/ as in "wood" and "foot". Historically, both derive from the sound [oː], which is also the digraph’s pronunciation in most other languages. In German
, the digraph represents [oː] in a few words such as Moor.
⟨oq⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, represents the pharyngealized vowel /oˤ/.
⟨or⟩, in Taiwanese
, represents mid central vowel /ə/ or close-mid back rounded vowel /o/.
⟨ou⟩ is used in English
for the diphthong
/aʊ/, as in out /aʊt/. This spelling is generally used before consonants, with ⟨ow⟩ being used instead before vowels and at the ends of words. Occasionally ou may also represent other vowels – /ʌ/ as in trouble, /oʊ/ as in soul, /ʊ/ as in would, or /uː/ as in group. The ou in out originally represented [uː], as in French, but its pronunciation has changed as part of the Great Vowel Shift
.
In Dutch
ou represents [ʌu] in the Netherlands or [oʊ] in Flanders. In French
, ou represents the vowel
[u], as in vous [vu] "you", or the approximant consonant
[w], as in oui [wi] "yes".
This digraph stands for the close-mid back rounded vowel [o] or for the falling diphthong
[ou], according to dialect.
⟨oû⟩ is used in French
to write the vowel sound /u/ before what had historically been an s, as in soûl /sul/ "drunk".
⟨ow⟩, in English
, usually represents the /aʊ/ sound as in coward, sundowner, and now or the /oʊ/ sound, as in froward, landowner, and know. An exceptional pronunciation is /ɒ/ in knowledge and rowlock
. There are many English heteronyms
distinguished only by the pronunciation of this digraph, like: bow (front of ship or weapon), bower (a dwelling or string player), lower (to frown or drop), mow (to grimace or cut), row (a dispute or line-up), shower (rain or presenter), sow (a pig or to seed), tower (a building or towboat).
⟨oy⟩ is found in many language
s. In English
and Faroese
, oy represents the diphthong /ɔɪ/. Examples in English include toy and annoy.
⟨oŷ⟩ is an obsolete digraph once used in French
.
⟨øy⟩ is used in Norwegian
for /øʏ/.
represents a labial affricate /pf/. It can be initial (Pferd, 'horse'), medial (Apfel, 'apple'), or final (Knopf, 'button').
Where it appears in English, usually in names or words recently derived from German, it is ordinarily simplified to ⟨f⟩.
⟨ph⟩, in the English Language
and many other languages, represents /f/. Ph in English generally occurs in words derived from Greek
, due to Latin transcription of Greek phi
(Φ φ) as ⟨ph⟩. In Ancient Greek
, this letter originally represented /pʰ/ (an aspirated
voiceless bilabial plosive
). In some non-standard spellings of English, like leet
, ph may be used as a replacement of all occurrences of f. Exceptionally, ⟨ph⟩ represents /v/ in the name Stephen
and some speakers' pronunciation of the word nephew
.
The French
and German
languages and the auxiliary languages Interlingua
and Occidental
also use the digraph for Greek loanwords. In German, ph can be replaced by f; the replacement is allowed in certain cases according to the German spelling reform of 1996
. In most Romance (such as Spanish
) and Germanic languages, f is used in place of ph. Languages written in a Cyrillic script, such as Russian, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian, regularly use Ф ф – similar to the Greek Φ φ – where the Romance and Germanic languages use ph or f. In Welsh
, ph represents /f/ in native words, but only word-initially as the result of an initial consonant mutation
of a word beginning with p. Irish
uses f for words of Greek origin, while ph represents the lenited
form of p, resulting in the sound /f/ as well. In Vietnamese
, ph is exclusively used because the letter f does not exist. In Old High German
, ph stands for the affricate
/pf/. In the romanizations of Indo-Aryan languages
and of Thai
, ph represents the aspirated sound
[pʰ]. In the Ossete Latin alphabet, it was used for [pʼ].
⟨pl⟩ is used in the Romanized Popular Alphabet
used to write Hmong
, where it represents the sound [pˡ].
⟨pm⟩ is used for /ᵖm/ in Arrernte.
⟨pn⟩ is used in English for an initial sound /n/ in words of Greek origin such as pneumatic. When not initial, it represents the sequence /pn/, as in apnea.
⟨pp⟩ is used in romanized Korean
for the fortis sound /p͈/.
⟨ps⟩ is used in English for an initial sound /s/ in words of Greek origin such as psyche. When not initial, it represents the sequence /ps/, as in ellipse. It is also used in the Shona language
to write a whistled sibilant cluster /ps͎/.
⟨pt⟩ is used in several languages for /t/ in words of Greek origin, where it was /pt/. An example in English is pterosaur
/ˈtɛrəsɔr/, and an exception is ptarmigan /ˈtɑrmɨɡən/, which is Gaelic, not Greek. When not initial, pt represents the sequence /pt/, as in apt.
⟨pw⟩ is used for /pʷ/ in Arrernte.
.
⟨qh⟩ is used in various scripts. In Quechua
and the Romanized Popular Alphabet
used to write Hmong
, it represents the sound /qʰ/. In Xhosa
, it represents the click /ǃʰ/.
⟨qq⟩ is used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for ejective /qʼ/. In Hadza
it is the glottalized click /ᵑǃˀ/.
⟨qu⟩ is used in Catalan
, French
, Galician
, Occitan, Portuguese
and Spanish orthographies for /k/ before the vowel letters e, i, where the letter c represents the sound /θ/ (Castilian Spanish
and most of Galicia
) or /s/ (Catalan
, French
, Latin American Spanish. Occitan and Portuguese
). In the Ossete Latin alphabet, it was used for /qʷ/.
⟨qw⟩ is used in some languages for the sound /qʷ/. In Mi'kmaq
it is used for /xʷ/.
such as Warlpiri
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara for a retroflex stop (IPA
: /ʈ/).
⟨rh⟩ is found in English language
with words from the Greek language
and transliterated
through the Latin language. Examples include "rhapsody", "rhetoric" and "rhythm". These were pronounced in Ancient Greek with a voiceless
"r" sound, [r̥], as in Old English ⟨hr⟩. The digraph may also be found within words, but always at the start of a word component, e.g., "polyrhythmic". German
, French
, and the auxiliary language Interlingua
use rh in the same way. ⟨Rh⟩ is also found in the Welsh language
where it represents a voiceless
alveolar trill
(r̥), that is a voiceless "r" sound. It can be found anywhere; the most common occurrence in the English language from Welsh is in the slightly respelled given name "Rhonda". In Wade-Giles
transliteration, ⟨rh⟩ is used for the syllable-final rhotic of Mandarin Chinese. In the Gwoyeu Romatzyh
romanization of Mandarin Chinese, initial rh- indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in /ʐ/, which is otherwise spelled r-.
⟨rl⟩ is used in the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
such as Warlpiri
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara for a retroflex lateral, written /ɭ/ in the IPA. In the Greenlandic language, it represents [ɬː] as the result of an assimilation of a consonant cluster with a uvular consonant as the first component.
⟨rm⟩ is used in Inuktitut
for [ɴm].
⟨rn⟩ represents the retroflex nasal /ɳ/ in Warlpiri
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara (see transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
). In the Greenlandic language, it represents /ɴ/. In Inuktitut
, it represents [ɴn].
⟨rp⟩ is used in the Greenlandic language for [pː] as the result of an assimilation of a consonant cluster with a uvular consonant as the first component.
⟨rr⟩ is used in English language
for ⟨r⟩, depending on etymology
. It normally appears in words of Latin
or Romance
origin, and "rrh" in words of ancient Greek
origin. It is quite a common digraph, found in words as diverse as arrest, carry, and sorry. Some words with "rr" are relatively recent loanword
s from other languages; examples include burro
from Spanish
. It is often used in impromptu pronunciation guides to denote either an alveolar tap
or an alveolar trill
. It is a letter in the Albanian alphabet.
In several European languages, such as Catalan
, Spanish
, Portuguese
or Albanian
, "rr" represents the alveolar trill
/r/ and contrasts with the single "r", which represents the alveolar tap
/ɾ/ (in Catalan and Spanish a single "r" also represents the alveolar trill at the beginning of words or syllables). In Italian, "rr" is furthermore a geminate (long) consonant /rː/. In Central Alaskan Yup'ik
it is used for /χ/.
⟨rs⟩ was equivalent to ⟨rz⟩ and stood for /r̝/ (modern ř) in medieval Czech
. In the Greenlandic language, it represents [sː] as the result of an assimilation of a consonant cluster with a uvular consonant as the first component.
⟨rt⟩ is used for Australian Aboriginal languages such as Warlpiri
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara for a retroflex stop /ʈ/.
⟨rw⟩ is used for /ɻʷ/ in Arrernte.
⟨rz⟩ is used in Polish
and Kashubian
for a voiced retroflex fricative ʐ, similar to English "zh" as in Zhivago. Examples from Polish are "March" and "river". ⟨Rz⟩ represents the same sound as ⟨ż
⟩, the only difference being that ⟨ż⟩ evolved from a *g while ⟨rz⟩ is descended from a palatalized ar ( *rʲ ). ⟨Rz⟩ usually corresponds to Czech ⟨ř
⟩, though the pronunciations are different. When preceded by a voiceless consonant (ch, k, p, t) or end of a word
, ⟨rz⟩ devoices to ⟨sz⟩, as in przed "before", pronounced ˈpʂɛt.
⟨sç⟩ is used in French
for /s/ in a few verb forms such as simple past acquiesça /akjɛsa/.
⟨sh
⟩ (see article; see also ſh⟩ below, which has the capitalized forms SH and ŞH)
⟨si⟩ is used in English for /ʒ/ in words such as fusion.
⟨sj⟩ is used Swedish
to write the sje sound
/ɧ/ (see also ⟨sk⟩) and in Dutch
, Faroese
, Danish
and Norwegian
to write Voiceless postalveolar fricative
/ʃ/.
⟨sk⟩ is used in Swedish
to write the sje sound
/ɧ/. It takes by rule this sound value before the front vowels (e, i, y, ä and ö) word or root initially (as in sked (spoon)), while normally representing [sk] in other positions. In Norwegian and Faroese, it is used to write voiceless postalveolar fricative
/ʃ/ (only in front of i, y, ei and øy/oy).
⟨sl⟩ is used in the Iraqw language
to write the lateral fricative /ɬ/. (Sl is used in the French tradition to transcribe /ɬ/ in other languages as well.)
⟨sp⟩ is used in German
for /ʃp/ as in Spaß [ʃpaːs] instead of using schp (or chp).
⟨sr⟩ is used in Kosraean
for /ʂ/.
⟨ss⟩ is used in Pinyin
for /z/ in languages such as Yi
. In other languages, such as Catalan
, French
, Italian
, Occitan, Portuguese
and Central Alaskan Yup'ik
, where s⟩ transcribes /z/ between vowels (and elsewhere in the case of Yup'ik), ⟨ss⟩ is used for /s/ in that position (/sː/ in Italian). In romanized Korean
, it represents the fortis sound /s͈/.
⟨st⟩ is used in German
for /ʃt/ as in Stadt [ʃtat] instead of using scht (or cht).
⟨sv⟩ is used in the Shona language
to write the whistled sibilant /s͎/. This was written ȿ from 1931 to 1955.
⟨sx⟩ in used in Nambikwara
for a glottalized
/sʔ/, and in Esperanto as an unofficial surrogate of ⟨ŝ
⟩.
⟨sy⟩ is used to write the sound /ʃ/ in Malay
.
⟨sz⟩ (see article)
, and to write the affricate /tʃ/ in Sandawe
and Hadza
.
⟨tg⟩ is used for /tχ/ in the orthography of Naro
. In the Catalan spelling
, it represents /d͡ʒ/.
⟨th
⟩ (see article)
⟨ti⟩, before a vowel, is usually pronounced /sj/ in French.
⟨tj⟩ is used in Norwegian and Faroese words like tjære/tjøra ('tar') for /ç/ (Norwegian) and /tʃ/ (Faroese). In the closely related Swedish alphabet
, it represents /ɕ/, as in tjära /ˈɕæːɾa/. It is, or was, also used for /tʃ/ in many Dutch-based orthographies in Indonesia and Surinam. In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
such as Warlpiri
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara, it represents a postalveolar stop, written /ṯ/ or /ḏ/. This sound is also written ⟨dj⟩, ⟨ty⟩, ⟨dy⟩, ⟨c⟩, or ⟨j⟩. In Catalan spelling it represents /d͡ʒ/
⟨tl⟩ is used in various orthographies for the affricate /tɬ/.
⟨tł⟩ is used in the transcription of Athabascan languages for a lateral affricate /tɬ/ or /tɬʰ/.
⟨tm⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
of Papua New Guinea
for doubly articulated
and nasally released
/t̪͡pn̪͡m/.
⟨tn⟩ is used for a prestopped nasal /ᵗn/ in the orthography of Arrernte, and for the similar /t̪n̪/ in Yélî Dnye
.
⟨tp⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
of Papua New Guinea
for doubly articulated
/t̪͡p/.
⟨tr⟩ generally represents a sound like a retroflex
version of English "ch" in areas of German influence, such as Truk lagoon
, now spelled ⟨chuuk⟩. For instance, in the orthography of Malagasy
it represents /tʂ/. In southern dialect
s of Vietnamese
, ⟨tr⟩ represents a voiceless retroflex affricate
/tʂ/. In the northern dialects, this sound is pronounced [tɕ], just like what ⟨ch⟩ represents. ⟨Tr⟩ was formerly considered a distinct letter of the Vietnamese alphabet
, but today is not.
⟨ts⟩ is used in the orthography of Basque
, where it represents an apical
voiceless alveolar affricate
/t̺s̺/. It contrasts with ⟨tz⟩, which is laminal
/t̻s̻/. In the orthography of Hausa
, ⟨ts⟩ represents an alveolar ejective fricative /sʼ/ or affricate /tsʼ/), depending on dialect. It is considered a distinct letter, and placed between ⟨t⟩ and ⟨u⟩ in alphabetical order. It is also used in the Catalan spelling
for /t͡s/
The Wade-Giles
and Yale
romanizations of Chinese
use ⟨ts⟩ for an unaspirated
voiceless alveolar affricate
/ts/). Wade-Giles also uses ⟨ts⟩ for the aspirated equivalent /tsʰ/). These are equivalent to Pinyin
⟨z⟩ and ⟨c⟩, respectively. The Hepburn romanization
of Japanese
uses ⟨ts⟩ for a voiceless alveolar affricate
[ts]). In native Japanese words, this sound only occurs before ⟨u⟩, but it may occur before other vowels in loanword
s. Other romanization systems write [tsu] as ⟨tu⟩. ⟨Ts⟩ in the orthography of Tagalog
is used for [tʃ]. The sequence ⟨ts⟩ occurs in English, but it has no special function and simply represents a sequence of ⟨t⟩ and ⟨s⟩. It occurs word-initially only in some loanword
s, such as tsunami
and tsar
. Most English-speakers do not pronounce a /t/ in such words and pronounce them as if they were spelled ⟨sunami⟩ and ⟨sar⟩, respectively.
⟨⟩ was used in the orthography of medieval Basque
for a voiceless postalveolar affricate
[t͡ʃ]; this is now represented by ⟨tx⟩.
⟨tt⟩ is used in the orthography of Basque
for /c/, and in romanized Kabyle
for [ts]. In romanized Korean
, it represents the fortis sound [t͈], and in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) it is ejective /tʼ/.
⟨tw⟩ is used for /tʷ/ in the orthography of Arrernte.
⟨tx⟩ is used in the orthographies of Basque
, Catalan
, as well as some indigenous languages of South America
, for a voiceless postalveolar affricate
[t͡ʃ]. In the orthography of Nambikwara
it represents a glottalized
/tʔ/.
⟨ty⟩ is used in the Hungarian alphabet
for /cç/, a voiceless palatal affricate
; in Hungarian, digraphs are considered single letters, and acronyms keep them intact. In the orthography of Xhosa, ⟨ty⟩ represents [tʲʼ]. In that of Shona
, it represents [tʃk]. In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
such as Warlpiri
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara, it represents a postalveolar stop, either voiceless [ṯ] or voiced [ḏ]. (This sound is also written ⟨tj⟩, ⟨dj⟩, ⟨dy⟩, ⟨c⟩, and ⟨j⟩).
⟨tz⟩ is used in the orthographies of Basque
and German
for the voiceless alveolar affricate
[t͡s]). In Basque, this sound is laminal and contrasts with the apical
affricate represented by ⟨ts⟩. It is also used in Catalan to represent the voiced alveolar affricate /d͡z/.
or creaky
vowel /ṵ/.
⟨uc⟩ is used in Nahuatl for /kʷ/ before a consonant. Before a vowel, ⟨cu⟩ is used.
⟨ue⟩ is found in many language
s. In English
, ⟨ue⟩ represents /ju/ or /u/ as in cue or true, respectively. In German
, it is equivalent to Ü
, and as such may appear in proper names of people, representing [ʏ] or [yː].
⟨ug⟩ is used in Central Alaskan Yup'ik
for /ɣʷ/.
⟨uh⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, represents the breathy or murmured
vowel /ṳ/. In Nahuatl, it's used for /w/ before a consonant. Before a vowel, ⟨hu⟩ is used.
⟨ui⟩, in Dutch
, it stands for the diphthong [œy]. In Irish
and Scottish Gaelic
, it's [ɪ] after a velarized
(broad) consonant, and in Irish, it is used for /ɪ/ /ʊ/ /iː/ /uː/ between a broad and a slender consonant. In German
, it represents the diphthong [ʊɪ̯], which appears only in interjection
s such as "pfui!". In English
, it represents the sound [uː] in fruit, juice, suit and pursuit. However, in many English words, this does not hold. For example, it fails in words where the u in ui functions as a modifier of a preceding g (forcing g to remain [ɡ] rather than shifting to [dʒ] in guild, guilt, guilty, sanguine, Guinea
, etc.), doing the same with c (in words like circuit and biscuit), or in cases of unusual etymological spelling or syllable separation (e.g. build, suite, and intuition). In Mandarin pinyin
, it is /wei̯/ after a consonant. (In initial position, this is spelled wei.) In French
, it is not a digraph, but a predictable sequence [ɥi], as in huit "eight".
⟨uí⟩ is used in Irish
for /iː/ between a broad and a slender consonant.
⟨úi⟩ is used in Irish
for /uː/ between a broad and a slender consonant.
⟨um⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for /ũ/, and in French
to write /œ̃/ (/œm/ before a vowel).
⟨úm⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for /ũ/ before a consonant.
⟨un⟩ is used in many languages to write a nasal vowel
. In Portuguese orthography
before a consonant, and in many West Africa
n languages, it is /ũ/, while in French it is /œ̃/, or among the younger generation /ɛ̃/. In pinyin
, /u̯ən/ is spelled un after a consonant, wen initially.
⟨ún⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
for /ũ/ before a consonant.
⟨ün⟩ is used in Tibetan Pinyin
for /ỹ/.
⟨uŋ⟩ is used in Lakhota for the nasal vowel [ũ].
⟨uo⟩ is used in Pinyin
to write the vowel /o/ in languages such as Yi
, where o stands for /ɔ/.
⟨uq⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, represents the pharyngealized vowel /uˤ/.
⟨ur⟩ is used in Central Alaskan Yup'ik
for /ʁʷ/, and in Pinyin
to write the trill
ed vowel /ʙ̝/ in languages such as Yi
.
⟨uu⟩ is used in Dutch
for /y/. In languages with phonemic long vowels, it may be used to write /uː/.
⟨uw⟩ occurs in Dutch
, as in ⟨uw⟩ (yours), duwen (to push)
⟨ux⟩ is used in Esperanto as an unofficial surrogate of ⟨ŭ
⟩.
.
⟨vv⟩ is used in Central Alaskan Yup'ik
for [f].
for /hw/, the continuation of the PIE
labiovelar formerly spelled hw. Most English interrogative word
s begin with this phoneme, whence their name wh-words. However, this digraph has usually come for /h/ when followed by the letter 'o', as in "who" or "whole". /hw/ has merged with /w/ in most varieties of English in the wine–whine merger
. In the Māori language
, ⟨wh⟩ represents [ɸ] or more commonly [f], with some regional variations approaching [h] or [hw]. In the Taranaki region, for some speakers, this represents a glottalized [wʼ]. In Xhosa
, it represents [w̤], a murmured variant of [w] found in loan words.
⟨wr⟩ is now used by most English
dialects for /r/. It once was not a digraph but represented the predictable sequence /wr/, a value it retains in a few dialects documented in the twentieth century.
⟨wu⟩ is used in Mandarin pinyin
to write the vowel /u/ in initial position, as in the name Wuhan
. It is sometimes found with this value in Romanized Korean as well, as in hanwu.
⟨ww⟩ in used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for glottalized /ˀw/.
⟨wx⟩ in used in Nambikwara
for a glottalized
/ˀw/.
.
⟨xh⟩, in Albanian
, represents the sound of the voiced postalveolar affricate
consonant /dʒ/, as in the surname Hoxha /ˈhɔdʒa/. In Pashto
too it represents /dʒ/. In Zulu
and Xhosa
it represents the voiceless aspirated
alveolar lateral click [kǁʰ], for example in the name of the language Xhosa
[ˈkǁʰoːsa]. In Walloon
to write a sound that is variously /h/ or /ʃ/, depending on the dialect. In Canadian Tlingit
it represents /χ/, which in Alaska is written x̱.
⟨xi⟩ is used in English for /kʃ/ in words such as flexion. (It is equivalent to ⟨c⟩ plus the digraph ⟨ti⟩, as in action.)
⟨xu⟩ was used in the Ossete Latin alphabet for /χʷ/.
⟨xw⟩ is used in the Tlingit language
for /xʷ/.
⟨xy⟩ is used in the Romanized Popular Alphabet
used to write Hmong
, where it represents the sound /ç/.
⟨xö⟩ is used as a letter of the Seri
alphabet, where it represents a labialized uvular fricative (IPA
: /χʷ/). It is placed between X
and Y
in alphabetical order.
⟨⟩ is used in Alaskan Tlingit
for /χʷ/, which in Canada is written xhw.
⟨xx⟩ is used in Hadza
for the glottalized click /ᵑǁˀ/.
, for the "ejective y" or palatalized
glottal stop
(IPA
: /ʔʲ/) in Pular
(a Fula language
). In the current orthography it is now written . In Xhosa
it is used for the sound / j̈ /. In a handful of Australian languages, it represents a "dental semivowel".
⟨yi⟩ is used in Mandarin pinyin
and Romanized Korean to write the vowel /i/ in initial position.
⟨yk⟩ is used in Yanyuwa
for a pre-velar
stop, /ɡ̟ ~ k̟/.
⟨ym⟩ is used in French
to write the vowel sound /ɛ̃/ (/im/ before another vowel), as in thym /tɛ̃/ "thyme".
⟨yn⟩ is used in French
to write the vowel sound /ɛ̃/ in some words of Greek origin, such as syncope /sɛ̃kɔp/ "syncope".
⟨yr⟩ is used in Pinyin
to write the trill
ed vowel /r̝/ in languages such as Yi
.
⟨yu⟩ is used in romanized Chinese to write the vowel /y/. In Mandarin pinyin
it is used for /y/ in initial position, whereas in Cantonese Jyutping
it is used for /y/ in non-initial position. (See jyu.)
⟨yw⟩ is used for /jʷ/ in Arrernte and for doubly articulated
/ɥ/ in Yélî Dnye
.
⟨yx⟩ in used in Nambikwara
for a glottalized
/ˀj/.
⟨yy⟩ is used in some languages such as Finnish
to write the long vowel /yː/. In Haida (Bringhurst orthography) it's glottalized /ˀj/.
([ʒ]), like the ⟨s⟩ in pleasure, in Albanian
and in Native American orthographies such as Navajo
. It is used for the same sound in some English-language dictionaries, as well as to transliterate Cyrillic ⟨ж⟩ and Persian ⟨ژ⟩ , which also represent postalveolar fricatives. ⟨Zh⟩ as a digraph is rare in European languages using the Latin alphabet
; in addition to Albanian it is found in Breton
in words that are pronounced with /z/ in some dialects and /h/ in others. In Hanyu Pinyin, ⟨zh⟩ represents the voiceless retroflex affricate
/tʂ/. When the Tamil language
is transliterated into the roman script, ⟨zh⟩ represents a retroflex approximant.
⟨zs⟩ is the last (forty-fourth) letter of the Hungarian alphabet
. Its name is "zsé" and represents /ʒ/, a voiced postalveolar fricative
, similar to J in Jacques and si in vision. A few examples are rózsa "rose" and zsír "fat".
⟨zv⟩ is used in the Shona language
to write the whistled sibilant /z͎/. This was written ɀ from 1931 to 1955.
⟨zz⟩ is used in Pinyin
for /dz/ in languages such as Yi
. It is also used with that value in romanized Kabyle
. In medieval Czech
, it stood for /s/. In Hadza
it is ejective /tsʼ/.
n languages for the nasal vowel /ɛ̃/. Ɛ is an "open e
".
⟨⟩, capital ⟨⟩, is used in many West Africa
n languages for the nasal vowel /ɔ̃/. Ɔ is an "open o
".
⟨œu⟩, capitalized ⟨Œu⟩, is used in French
for the vowels /œ/ and /ø/. The first element of the digraph, œ, is itself is a ligature of o and e, and ⟨œu⟩ may also be written as the trigraph
⟨oeu⟩.
⟨ſh⟩, capitalized ⟨SH⟩ or sometimes ⟨ŞH⟩, was a digraph used in the Slovene Bohorič alphabet
for /ʃ/. The first element, ⟨ſ⟩, is an archaic non-final form of the letter ⟨s⟩.
Digraph (orthography)
A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
s used in various Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
s. (See also List of Cyrillic digraphs.) Capitalization involves only the first letter (ch – Ch) unless otherwise stated (ij – IJ).
Letters with diacritics are arranged in alphabetic order according to their base. That is, ⟨å⟩ is alphabetized with ⟨a⟩, not at the end of the alphabet as it would be in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish. Substantially modified letters such as ⟨⟩ (a variant of ⟨s⟩) and ⟨⟩ (based on ⟨o⟩) are placed at the end.
Apostrophe
⟨’b⟩ (capital ⟨’B⟩) is used in the Bari alphabet for /ɓ/.⟨’d⟩ (capital ⟨’D⟩) is used in the Bari alphabet for /ɗ/.
⟨’y⟩ (capital ⟨’Y⟩) is used in the Bari alphabet for /ʔʲ/. It is also used for this sound in the Hausa language
Hausa language
Hausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 25 million people, and as a second language by about 18 million more, an approximate total of 43 million people...
in Nigeria, but in Niger, Hausa ⟨’y⟩ is replaced with ⟨ƴ⟩.
A
⟨a’⟩ is used in Taa orthography, where it represents the glottalizedGlottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
or creaky
Creaky voice
In linguistics, creaky voice , is a special kind of phonation in which the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together; as a result, the vocal folds are compressed rather tightly, becoming relatively slack and compact...
vowel [a̰].
⟨aa⟩ is used in the orthographies of Dutch
Dutch alphabet
The modern Dutch alphabet consists of the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet and is used for the Dutch language. Five letters are vowels and 21 letters are consonants.- History :...
and other languages with phonemic long vowels for [aː]. It was formerly used in Danish and Norwegian (and still is in some proper names) for the sound [ɔ], now spelled ⟨å
Å
Å represents various sounds in several languages. Å is part of the alphabets used for the Alemannic and the Bavarian-Austrian dialects of German...
⟩.
⟨ae⟩ is used in Irish orthography
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
, where it represents [eː] between two "broad" (velarized
Velarization
Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of three diacritics:...
) consonants, e.g. Gael [ɡˠeːlˠ] ('a Gael
Gaels
The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
').
- In Latin orthographyLatin spelling and pronunciationLatin spelling or orthography refers to the spelling of Latin words written in the scripts of all historical phases of Latin from Old Latin to the present. They all use some phase of the same alphabet even though conventional spellings may vary from phase to phase...
, ⟨ae⟩ originally represented the diphthongDiphthongA diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
[ai], before it was monophthongMonophthongA monophthong is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation....
ized in the Vulgar LatinVulgar LatinVulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
period to [ɛ]; in medieval manuscripts, the digraph was frequently replaced by the ligatureLigature (typography)In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes are joined as a single glyph. Ligatures usually replace consecutive characters sharing common components and are part of a more general class of glyphs called "contextual forms", where the specific shape of a letter depends on...
⟨æÆÆ is a grapheme formed from the letters a and e. Originally a ligature representing a Latin diphthong, it has been promoted to the full status of a letter in the alphabets of some languages, including Danish, Faroese, Norwegian and Icelandic...
⟩. - In Modern English, Latin loanwords with ⟨ae⟩ are generally pronounced with /iː/ (e.g. Caesar), prompting Noah WebsterNoah WebsterNoah Webster was an American educator, lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author...
to shorten this to ⟨e⟩ in his 1806 American EnglishAmerican EnglishAmerican English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
spelling reformSpelling reformMany languages have undergone spelling reform, where a deliberate, often officially sanctioned or mandated, change to spelling takes place. Proposals for such reform are also common....
. - In German orthographyGerman orthographyGerman orthography, although largely phonemic, shows many instances of spellings that are historic or analogous to other spellings rather than phonemic. The pronunciation of almost every word can be derived from its spelling, once the spelling rules are known, but the opposite is not generally the...
, ⟨ae⟩ is a variant of ⟨äÄ"Ä" and "ä" are both characters that represent either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter A with an umlaut mark or diaeresis.- Independent letter :...
⟩ found in some proper names or in contexts where ⟨ä⟩ is unavailable. In the Dutch alphabetDutch alphabetThe modern Dutch alphabet consists of the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet and is used for the Dutch language. Five letters are vowels and 21 letters are consonants.- History :...
, ⟨ae⟩ is an old spelling variant of the ⟨aa⟩ digraph but now only occurs in names of people or (less often) places and in a few loanwords from Greek.
⟨ãe⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for /ɐ̃ĩ̯/.
⟨ah⟩ is used in Taa orthography, where it represents the breathy or murmured
Breathy voice
Breathy voice is a phonation in which the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal voicing, but are held further apart, so that a larger volume of air escapes between them. This produces an audible noise...
/a̤/.
⟨ai⟩ is used in many language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s, typically representing the diphthong /ai/. In English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, as a result of the Great Vowel Shift
Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in England between 1350 and 1500.The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen , a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term....
, the vowel of ⟨ai⟩ has shifted from this value to /eɪ/ as in pain and rain; while in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, a different change, monophthongization, has occurred, resulting in the digraph representing /ɛ/. A similar change has also occurred during the development of Greek, resulting in ⟨αι⟩ and the ⟨ε⟩ both having the same sound; originally /ɛ/, later /e/. In German orthography
German orthography
German orthography, although largely phonemic, shows many instances of spellings that are historic or analogous to other spellings rather than phonemic. The pronunciation of almost every word can be derived from its spelling, once the spelling rules are known, but the opposite is not generally the...
, it represents /aɪ/ as in Kaiser (which derived from Latin caesar). However, most German words use ⟨ei⟩ for /aɪ/.
⟨aí⟩ is used in Irish orthography
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for /iː/ between a broad a slender consonant.
⟨aî⟩ is used in French orthography
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
for /ɛː/, as in aînesse /ɛːnɛs/ or maître /mɛːtʁ/.
⟨ái⟩ is used in Irish orthography
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for /aː/ between a broad and a slender consonant.
⟨ãi⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for /ɐ̃ĩ̯/. It has, thus, the same value as ⟨ãe⟩, but the latter is much more common.
⟨am⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for /ɐ̃ũ̯/ at the end of a word, /ɐ̃/ before a consonant, and /am/ before a vowel; and in French orthography
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
for /ɑ̃/ (/am/ before a vowel).
⟨âm⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for /ɐ̃/ before a consonant.
⟨an⟩ is used in many languages to write a nasal vowel
Nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...
. In Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
it is used for /ɐ̃/ before a consonant, in French it represents /ɑ̃/, and in many West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
n languages it represents /ã/.
⟨ân⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for a stressed
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
[ɐ̃] before a consonant.
⟨än⟩ is used in Tibetan Pinyin
Tibetan Pinyin
The SASM/GNC/SRC romanization of Tibetan, commonly known as Tibetan pinyin, is the official transcription system for the Tibetan language in the People's Republic of China for personal name and place names. It is based on the Lhasa dialect of Standard Tibetan and reflects the pronunciation very...
for [ɛ̃]. It is alternately written ⟨ain⟩.
⟨ån⟩ is used in the Walloon language
Walloon language
Walloon is a Romance language which was spoken as a primary language in large portions of the Walloon Region of Belgium and some villages of Northern France until the middle of the 20th century. It belongs to the langue d'oïl language family, whose most prominent member is the French language...
, for the nasal vowel [ɔ̃].
⟨aŋ⟩ is used in Lakhota for the nasal vowel [ã]
⟨ao⟩ is used in the Irish orthography
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for [iː] or [eː], depending on dialect, between broad consonants. In French orthography
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
, it is found in a few words such as paonne representing [a]. In Malagasy
Malagasy language
Malagasy is the national language of Madagascar, a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.-History:...
, it represents [o].
⟨ão⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for [ɐ̃ũ̯].
⟨aq⟩ is used in Taa orthography, for the pharyngealized vowel [aˤ].
⟨au⟩ in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
is a result of various linguistic changes from Middle English, having shifted from *[au] to /ɔː/. In a number of dialects, this has merged with /ɑː/. It occasionally represents the diphthong /aʊ/, as in flautist. Other pronunciations are /æ/ in North American English aunt and laugh, /eɪ/ in gauge, /oʊ/ as in gauche and chauffeur, and /ə/ as in meerschaum
Meerschaum
Meerschaum , also sepiolite, is a soft white mineral sometimes found floating on the Black Sea, and rather suggestive of sea-foam, whence the German origin of the name, as well as the French name for the same substance, écume de mer.-Overview:...
and restaurant.
In German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, it is used for the diphthong /ʌu/ (or /ɔu/ in some Dutch dialects).
In French orthography
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
, ⟨au⟩ represents /o/ or sometimes /ɔ/. It most frequently appears in the inflectional ending marking plurals of certain kinds of words like cheval ('horse') or canal ('channel'), respectively having a plural in chevaux and canaux. In Icelandic orthography
Icelandic orthography
Icelandic orthography is the way in which Icelandic words are spelt and how their spelling corresponds with their pronunciation.-Function of symbols:...
, it represents /œy/.
⟨äu⟩ is used in German orthography
German orthography
German orthography, although largely phonemic, shows many instances of spellings that are historic or analogous to other spellings rather than phonemic. The pronunciation of almost every word can be derived from its spelling, once the spelling rules are known, but the opposite is not generally the...
for the diphthong /ɔɪ/ in declension of native words with au; elsewhere, /ɔʏ/ is written as ⟨eu⟩. In words where ä|u is separated in two sylables, mostly of Latin origin, ⟨äu⟩ is pronounced as /ɛ.ʊ/, as in Matthäus
Matthäus
Matthäus is a given name or surname, and may refer to:* Lothar Matthäus, German former football player and now manager* Matthäus Aurogallus, Professor of Hebrew at the University of Wittenberg...
(one German form for Matthew
Matthew
Matthew may refer to:* Matthew , the given name* Matthew * Matthew , the ship sailed by John Cabot in 1497 from Bristol to North America* Matthew , an album by rapper Kool KeithIn Christianity:...
).
⟨aû⟩ was used in French orthography
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
but has been replaced.
⟨aw⟩ is used in English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
in ways that parallel English ⟨au⟩, though it appears more often at the end of a word.
In Welsh orthography, ⟨aw⟩ represents the diphthong /au/.
⟨ay⟩ is used in English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
in ways that parallel English ⟨ai⟩, though it appears more often at the end of a word.
B
⟨bb⟩ is used in PinyinPinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
for /b/ in languages such as Yi
Yi language
Nuosu , also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language and, as such, is the only one taught in school, both in its oral and written form...
, where b stands for /p/. In English, doubling a letter indicates that the previous vowel is short (so bb represents /b/). In ISO romanized Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, it is used for the fortis sound /p͈/, otherwise spelled ⟨pp⟩; an example is hobbang
Hobbang
Hobbang is a hot snack sold throughout South Korea. It is a pre-cooked ball of rice flour filled with something such as red bean paste, similar to Chinese Doushabao...
. In Hadza
Hadza language
Hadza is a language isolate spoken by fewer than a thousand Hadza people along the shores of Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, the last full-time hunter-gatherers in Africa. Despite the small number of speakers, language use is vigorous, with most children learning it...
it is the rare /pʼ/.
⟨bd⟩ is used in English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
for /d/ in a few words of Greek origin, such as bdellatomy. When not initial, it represents /bd/, as in abdicate.
⟨bh⟩ is used in transcriptions of Indo-Aryan languages for a murmured
Breathy voice
Breathy voice is a phonation in which the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal voicing, but are held further apart, so that a larger volume of air escapes between them. This produces an audible noise...
voiced bilabial plosive
Voiced bilabial plosive
The voiced bilabial plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is b. The voiced bilabial plosive occurs in English, and it is the sound denoted by the...
(/bʱ/). In Irish orthography
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
, it stands for the phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s /w/ and /vʲ/, for example /mə waːd̪ˠ/ ('my boat'), /vʲɛx/ ('would be'). In the orthography used in Guinea before 1985
Orthography for languages of Guinea (pre-1985)
Following independence, the government of Guinea adopted rules of transcription for the languages of Guinea based on the 26-letter basic Latin alphabet...
, ⟨bh⟩ was used in Pular
Pular language
Pular is a Fula language spoken primarily by Fula people in the Fouta Jalon area in Guinea. It is also spoken in parts of Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, and Senegal. There are a small number of speakers in Mali. Pular is spoken by 2.5 million Guineans, about 28% of the national population. This makes...
(a Fula language
Fula language
The Fula or Fulani language is a language of West Africa. It is spoken as a first language by the and related groups from Senegambia and Guinea to Cameroon and Sudan...
) for the voiced bilabial implosive /ɓ/, whereas in Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
, Zulu
Zulu language
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...
, and Shona
Shona language
Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore...
, ⟨b⟩ represents the implosive and ⟨bh⟩ represents the plosive /b/.
⟨bp⟩ is used in Sandawe
Sandawe language
Sandawe or Sandawi is a tonal language spoken by about 40,000 Sandawe people in the Dodoma region of Tanzania. Language use is vigorous among both adults and children, with people in some areas monolingual. Sandawe had generally been classified as a member of the defunct Khoisan family since Albert...
and romanized Thai
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
for /p/, and in Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
it represents /b/.
⟨bz⟩ is used in the Shona language
Shona language
Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore...
for a whistled sibilant cluster /bz͎/.
C
⟨cc⟩ is used in Andean Spanish for loanwords from QuechuaQuechua languages
Quechua is a Native South American language family and dialect cluster spoken primarily in the Andes of South America, derived from an original common ancestor language, Proto-Quechua. It is the most widely spoken language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably...
or Aymara
Aymara language
Aymara is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over three million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia...
with [q], as in Ccozcco (modern Qusqu) ('Cuzco'). In many European languages, ⟨cc⟩ before front vowel
Front vowel
A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...
s represents a sequence such as [ks], e.g. English success, French occire, Spanish accidente (dialectally [ks] or [kθ]). In Hadza
Hadza language
Hadza is a language isolate spoken by fewer than a thousand Hadza people along the shores of Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, the last full-time hunter-gatherers in Africa. Despite the small number of speakers, language use is vigorous, with most children learning it...
it is the glottalized click /ᵑǀˀ/.
⟨cg⟩ is used for the click /ǀχ/ in Naro
Naro language
Naro is a Khoe language spoken in the Ghanzi District of Botswana and in eastern Namibia, where it is sometimes called Nharo. There are about 14,000 speakers: 10,000 in Botswana and 4,000 in Namibia . This makes it probably the most-spoken of the Tshu–Khwe languages...
. It was also used for /dʒ/ in Old English. Ecg in Old English sounds like 'edge' in Modern English.
⟨ch
Ch (digraph)
Ch is a digraph in the Roman alphabet and Uyghur. It is treated as a letter of its own in Chamorro, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Igbo, Quechua, Guarani, Welsh, Cornish, Breton and Belarusian Łacinka alphabets. In Vietnamese, it also used to be considered a letter for collation purposes but this is no...
⟩ (see article)
⟨čh⟩ is used in Romani orthography and the Chechen
Chechen language
The Chechen language is spoken by more than 1.5 million people, mostly in Chechnya and by Chechen people elsewhere. It is a member of the Northeast Caucasian languages.-Classification:...
Latin alphabet for /tʃʰ/. In the Ossete Latin alphabet, it was used for /tʃʼ/.
⟨ci⟩ is used in the Italian alphabet
Italian alphabet
The Italian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used by the Italian language.-Vowels:The Italian alphabet has five vowel letters, ⟨a e i o u⟩. Of those, only ⟨a⟩ represents one sound value while each of the others has two...
for /tʃ/ before the non-front vowel letters ⟨a, o, u⟩. In English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
, it usually represents /ʃ/ whenever it precedes any vowel other than ⟨i⟩.
⟨ck⟩ is used in many Germanic languages
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
in lieu of ⟨kk⟩ or ⟨cc⟩ to indicate either a geminated /kː/, or a /k/ with a preceding (historically) short vowel. The latter is the case with English tack, deck, pick, lock, and buck (compare backer with baker). In German orthography
German orthography
German orthography, although largely phonemic, shows many instances of spellings that are historic or analogous to other spellings rather than phonemic. The pronunciation of almost every word can be derived from its spelling, once the spelling rules are known, but the opposite is not generally the...
, ⟨ck⟩ indicates that the preceding vowel is short. Prior to the German spelling reform of 1996
German spelling reform of 1996
The German orthography reform of 1996 was an attempt to simplify the spelling of the German language and thus to make it easier to learn, without substantially changing the rules familiar to all living users of the language....
, it was replaced by ⟨k-k⟩ for syllabification. The new spelling rules allow only syllabification of the ⟨ck⟩ as a whole:
- Old spelling: Säcke: Säk-ke ('sacks')
- New spelling: Säcke: Sä-cke
- Among the modern Germanic languages, ⟨ck⟩ is used mainly in AlsatianAlsatian languageAlsatian is a Low Alemannic German dialect spoken in most of Alsace, a region in eastern France which has passed between French and German control many times.-Language family:...
, EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, LuxembourgishLuxembourgish languageLuxembourgish is a High German language spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 320,000 people worldwide speak Luxembourgish.-Language family:...
, ScotsScots languageScots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
, SwedishSwedish languageSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
, and other West Germanic languagesWest Germanic languagesThe West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages, and Yiddish...
in AustriaAustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and SwitzerlandSwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Similarly, ⟨kk⟩ is used for the same purpose in Afrikaans, DanishDanish languageDanish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
, DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, IcelandicIcelandic languageIcelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
, NorwegianNorwegian languageNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
, and other West Germanic languages in the NetherlandsNetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
and BelgiumBelgiumBelgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
. Compare the word nickel, which is the same in many of these languages except for the customary ⟨ck⟩ or ⟨kk⟩ spelling. The word is nickel in English and Swedish, Nickel in German, and nikkel in Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, Icelandic and Norwegian.
⟨cn⟩ is used in English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
for /n/ in a few words of Greek origin, such as cnidarian. When not initial, it represents /kn/, as in acne.
⟨cö⟩ is used in the Seri
Seri language
Seri is a language isolate spoken by the Seri people by between 716 and 900 people in two villages on the coast of Sonora, Mexico.-Classification:...
alphabet for a labialized velar plosive
Voiceless velar plosive
The voiceless velar stop or voiceless velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k....
, /kʷ/. It is placed between ⟨C
C
Ĉ or ĉ is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing the sound .Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for all four of its postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets...
⟩ and ⟨E
E
E is the fifth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used letter in the Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Latin, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish languages.-History:...
⟩ in alphabetical order.
⟨cs⟩ is used in the Hungarian alphabet
Hungarian alphabet
The Hungarian alphabet is an extension of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Hungarian language.One sometimes speaks of the smaller and greater Hungarian alphabets, depending on whether or not the letters Q, W, X, Y are listed, which can only be found in foreign words and traditional...
for a voiceless postalveolar affricate
Voiceless postalveolar affricate
The voiceless palato-alveolar affricate or domed postalveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨⟩ or ⟨⟩...
(IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
: /tʃ/). It is considered a distinct letter, named csé, and is placed between ⟨C
C
Ĉ or ĉ is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing the sound .Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for all four of its postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets...
⟩ and ⟨D
D
D is the fourth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History :The Semitic letter Dâlet may have developed from the logogram for a fish or a door. There are various Egyptian hieroglyphs that might have inspired this. In Semitic, Ancient Greek, and Latin, the letter represented ; in the...
⟩ in alphabetical order. Examples of words with cs include csak ('only'), csésze ('cup'), cső ('pipe').
⟨ct⟩ is used in English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
for /t/ in a few words of Greek origin, such as ctenoid. When not initial, it represents /kt/, as in act.
⟨cu⟩ is used in the orthographies for languages such as Nahuatl (that is, based on Spanish or Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
) for /kʷ/. In Nahuatl, ⟨cu⟩ is used before a vowel, whereas ⟨uc⟩ is used after a vowel.
⟨cx⟩ is used unofficially in lieu of Esperanto orthography
Esperanto orthography
Esperanto is written in a Latin alphabet of twenty-eight letters, with upper and lower case. This is supplemented by punctuation marks and by various logograms, such as the numerals 0–9, currency signs such as $, and mathematical symbols....
's ⟨ĉ
C
Ĉ or ĉ is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing the sound .Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for all four of its postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets...
⟩.
⟨cz⟩ is used in Polish orthography
Polish orthography
Polish orthography is the system of writing the Polish language. The language is written using the Polish alphabet, which derives from the Latin alphabet, but includes some additional letters with diacritics...
for /t͡ʂ/ as in ('hello'). In Kashubian
Kashubian language
Kashubian or Cassubian is one of the Lechitic languages, a subgroup of the Slavic languages....
, ⟨cz⟩ represents /tʃ/. This digraph was once common across Europe, but has largely been replaced. In French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, historical ⟨cz⟩ contracted to the ligature ⟨ç
Ç
is a Latin script letter, used in the Albanian, Azerbaijani, Ligurian, Tatar, Turkish, Turkmen, Kurdish and Zazaki alphabets. This letter also appears in Catalan, French, Friulian, Occitan and Portuguese as a variant of the letter “c”...
⟩, and represents the sound /s/. In Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
, it was formerly used for the sound /ts/, which is now written ⟨c⟩.
D
⟨dc⟩ is used in the orthography of NaroNaro language
Naro is a Khoe language spoken in the Ghanzi District of Botswana and in eastern Namibia, where it is sometimes called Nharo. There are about 14,000 speakers: 10,000 in Botswana and 4,000 in Namibia . This makes it probably the most-spoken of the Tshu–Khwe languages...
for the click /ᶢǀ/.
⟨dd⟩ is used in English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
to indicate a /d/ with a preceding (historically) short vowel (e.g. jaded /ˈdʒeɪdəd/ has a "long a" while ladder /ˈlædər/ has a "short a"). In Welsh orthography, ⟨dd⟩ represents a voiced dental fricative
Voiced dental fricative
The voiced dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound, eth, is . The symbol was taken from the Old English letter eth, which could stand for either a voiced or unvoiced...
/ð/. It is treated as a distinct letter, named èdd, and placed between ⟨D
D
D is the fourth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History :The Semitic letter Dâlet may have developed from the logogram for a fish or a door. There are various Egyptian hieroglyphs that might have inspired this. In Semitic, Ancient Greek, and Latin, the letter represented ; in the...
⟩ and ⟨E
E
E is the fifth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used letter in the Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Latin, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish languages.-History:...
⟩ in alphabetical order. In the ISO romanization of Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, it is used for the fortis sound /t͈/, otherwise spelled ⟨tt⟩; examples are ddeokbokki and bindaeddeok. In the Basque alphabet
Basque alphabet
The Basque alphabet is a Latin-derived alphabet used to write the Basque language. It consists of 27 letters.- List of letters :The letters of the Basque alphabet are the 26 letters of the basic modern Latin alphabet plus the ñ .This is the whole list:-Digraphs:There are several digraphs The Basque...
, it represents a voiced palatal plosive
Voiced palatal plosive
The voiced palatal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨⟩, a barred dotless ⟨j⟩ , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J\.The sound does not exist as a phoneme in English, but is...
/ɟ/, as in onddo, ('mushroom').
⟨dg⟩ is used in English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
for /dʒ/ in certain contexts, such as with judgement and hedge
⟨dh⟩ is used in the Albanian alphabet
Albanian alphabet
The modern Albanian alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, and consists of 36 letters:Note: The vowels are shown in bold. to the pronunciation of the letters.-History:...
, Swahili alphabet, and the orthography of the revived Cornish language
Cornish language
Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...
for the voiced dental fricative
Voiced dental fricative
The voiced dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound, eth, is . The symbol was taken from the Old English letter eth, which could stand for either a voiced or unvoiced...
/ð/.
- In early traditional Cornish ⟨ȝ⟩ (yoghYoghThe letter yogh , was used in Middle English and Older Scots, representing y and various velar phonemes. It was derived from the Old English form of the letter g.In Middle English writing, tailed z came to be indistinguishable from yogh....
), and later ⟨th⟩, were used for this purpose. Edward LhuydEdward LhuydEdward Lhuyd was a Welsh naturalist, botanist, linguist, geographer and antiquary. He is also known by the Latinized form of his name, Eduardus Luidius....
is credited for introducing the grapheme to Cornish orthography in 1707 in his Archaeologia Britannica. In Irish orthographyIrish orthographyIrish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
it represents the voiced velar fricativeVoiced velar fricativeThe voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in various spoken languages. It is not found in English today, but did exist in Old English...
/ɣ/ or the voiced palatal approximant /j/; at the beginning of a word it shows the lenitionIrish initial mutationsIrish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions...
of /d̪ˠ/, for example mo dhoras /mˠə ɣoɾˠəsˠ/ ('my door' cf. doras /d̪ˠorˠəsˠ/ 'door'). In the pre-1985 orthography of GuineaOrthography for languages of Guinea (pre-1985)Following independence, the government of Guinea adopted rules of transcription for the languages of Guinea based on the 26-letter basic Latin alphabet...
, ⟨dh⟩ was used for the voiced alveolar implosive /ɗ/ in PularPular languagePular is a Fula language spoken primarily by Fula people in the Fouta Jalon area in Guinea. It is also spoken in parts of Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, and Senegal. There are a small number of speakers in Mali. Pular is spoken by 2.5 million Guineans, about 28% of the national population. This makes...
, a Fula languageFula languageThe Fula or Fulani language is a language of West Africa. It is spoken as a first language by the and related groups from Senegambia and Guinea to Cameroon and Sudan...
. It is currently written ⟨⟩. In the orthography of ShonaShona languageShona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore...
it is the opposite: ⟨dh⟩ represents /d/, and ⟨d⟩ /ɗ/. In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languagesTranscription of Australian Aboriginal languagesPrior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. The Latin alphabet of the colonizers was inevitably used for the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details of how the sounds were represented has...
, ⟨dh⟩ represents a dental stop, /t̪/. - In addition, ⟨dh⟩ is used in various romanization systems. In transcriptions of Indo-Aryan languages, for example, it represents the murmuredBreathy voiceBreathy voice is a phonation in which the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal voicing, but are held further apart, so that a larger volume of air escapes between them. This produces an audible noise...
voiced dental plosiveVoiced dental plosiveThe voiced dental plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is...
[d̪ʱ] and in the romanization of Arabic, it denotes ⟨ﺫ⟩, which represents /ð/ in Modern Standard Arabic.
⟨dj⟩ is used in the Faroese
Faroese alphabet
The Faroese alphabet consists of 29 letters derived from the Latin alphabet:- See also :* Alphabets derived from the Latin* Icelandic alphabet* Faroese language* Faroese orthography* Danish and Norwegian alphabet...
, French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
and many French-based orthographies for /dʒ/. In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. The Latin alphabet of the colonizers was inevitably used for the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details of how the sounds were represented has...
such as Warlpiri
Warlpiri
The Warlpiri are a group of Indigenous Australians, many of whom speak the Warlpiri language. There are 5,000–6,000 Warlpiri, living mostly in a few towns and settlements scattered through their traditional land in Australia's Northern Territory, north and west of Alice Springs...
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara, it represents a postalveolar stop such as /ṯ/ or /ḏ/; this sound is also written ⟨dy⟩, ⟨tj⟩, ⟨ty⟩, or ⟨c⟩.
⟨dl⟩ is used in the Hmong language
Hmong language
Hmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
's Romanized Popular Alphabet
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet or Hmong RPA , is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has gone on to become the most widespread system for writing the Hmong language in the...
for /tˡ/. In the Navajo language
Navajo language
Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...
orthography, it represents /tɬ/, and in the orthography of Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
it represents /ɮ̈/. In Hadza
Hadza language
Hadza is a language isolate spoken by fewer than a thousand Hadza people along the shores of Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, the last full-time hunter-gatherers in Africa. Despite the small number of speakers, language use is vigorous, with most children learning it...
it is ejective /cɬʼ/.
⟨dł⟩ is used in the Tlingit alphabet
Tlingit alphabet
The Tlingit language has been recorded in a number of orthographies over the two hundred years since European contact. The first transcriptions of Tlingit were done by Russian Orthodox ministers, hence they were in the Cyrillic script...
for /tɬ/ (in Alaska, ⟨dl⟩ is used instead).
⟨dm⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
for doubly articulated
Double articulation
In linguistics, the term double articulation or duality of patterning refers to the way in which the stream of speech can be divided into meaningful signs, which can be further subdivided into meaningless elements...
and nasally released
Nasal release
In phonetics, a nasal release is the release of a plosive consonant into a nasal stop. Such sounds are transcribed in the IPA with superscript nasal letters, for example as . In English words such as sudden in which historically the tongue made separate contacts with the alveolar ridge for the /d/...
/t͡pn͡m/.
⟨dn⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
for nasally released
Nasal release
In phonetics, a nasal release is the release of a plosive consonant into a nasal stop. Such sounds are transcribed in the IPA with superscript nasal letters, for example as . In English words such as sudden in which historically the tongue made separate contacts with the alveolar ridge for the /d/...
/tn/.
⟨dp⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
for doubly articulated
Double articulation
In linguistics, the term double articulation or duality of patterning refers to the way in which the stream of speech can be divided into meaningful signs, which can be further subdivided into meaningless elements...
/t͡p/.
⟨dq⟩ is used for the click /ᶢǃ/ in the orthography of Naro
Naro language
Naro is a Khoe language spoken in the Ghanzi District of Botswana and in eastern Namibia, where it is sometimes called Nharo. There are about 14,000 speakers: 10,000 in Botswana and 4,000 in Namibia . This makes it probably the most-spoken of the Tshu–Khwe languages...
.
⟨dr⟩ is used in the orthography of Malagasy
Malagasy language
Malagasy is the national language of Madagascar, a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.-History:...
for /ɖʐ/. See ⟨tr⟩.
⟨dt⟩ is used in Sandawe
Sandawe language
Sandawe or Sandawi is a tonal language spoken by about 40,000 Sandawe people in the Dodoma region of Tanzania. Language use is vigorous among both adults and children, with people in some areas monolingual. Sandawe had generally been classified as a member of the defunct Khoisan family since Albert...
orthography and the romanization of Thai
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
for /t/. In Irish orthography
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
it represents /d/.
⟨dx⟩ is used in the orthographies of some Zapotecan languages
Zapotecan languages
The Zapotecan languages are a group of related Oto-Manguean languages which descend from the common proto-Zapotecan language spoken by the Zapotec people during the era of the dominance of Monte Albán....
for a voiced postalveolar fricative
Voiced postalveolar fricative
The voiced palato-alveolar fricative or voiced domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is Z. An alternative symbol used in some...
/ʒ/. It is placed between ⟨D
D
D is the fourth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History :The Semitic letter Dâlet may have developed from the logogram for a fish or a door. There are various Egyptian hieroglyphs that might have inspired this. In Semitic, Ancient Greek, and Latin, the letter represented ; in the...
⟩ and ⟨E
E
E is the fifth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used letter in the Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Latin, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish languages.-History:...
⟩ in alphabetical order.
⟨dy⟩ is used in the Xhosa language
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
orthography for /dʲʱ/. In the Shona
Shona language
Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore...
alphabet, it represents /dʒɡ/. In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. The Latin alphabet of the colonizers was inevitably used for the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details of how the sounds were represented has...
such as Warlpiri
Warlpiri
The Warlpiri are a group of Indigenous Australians, many of whom speak the Warlpiri language. There are 5,000–6,000 Warlpiri, living mostly in a few towns and settlements scattered through their traditional land in Australia's Northern Territory, north and west of Alice Springs...
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara, it represents a postalveolar stop such as /ṯ/ or /ḏ/. This sound is also written ⟨tj⟩, ⟨dj⟩, ⟨ty⟩, ⟨c⟩, or ⟨j⟩.
⟨dz
Dz (digraph)
Dz is a digraph of the Latin alphabet, used in Polish, Kashubian, Macedonian, Slovak, and Hungarian to represent . In Dene Suline and Cantonese Pinyin it represents .-In Polish:dz generally represents...
⟩ (see article)
⟨dź⟩ is used in the Polish
Polish alphabet
The Polish alphabet is the script of the Polish language, the basis for the Polish system of orthography . It is based on the Latin alphabet, but includes certain letters with diacritics: the line or kreska, which is graphically similar to an acute accent ; the overdot or kropka ; the tail or...
and Sorbian
Sorbian alphabet
The Sorbian alphabet is based on the basic Latin alphabet but uses diacritics such as the acute accent and the caron, making it similar to the Czech and Polish alphabets...
alphabets for /d͡ʑ/, the voiced alveolo-palatal affricate, as in dźwięk [d͡ʑvʲɛŋk]. ⟨Dź⟩ is never written before a vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
(⟨dzi⟩ is used instead, as in dziecko [d͡ʑɛt͡skɔ] 'child').
⟨dż⟩ is used in the Polish alphabet
Polish alphabet
The Polish alphabet is the script of the Polish language, the basis for the Polish system of orthography . It is based on the Latin alphabet, but includes certain letters with diacritics: the line or kreska, which is graphically similar to an acute accent ; the overdot or kropka ; the tail or...
for a voiced retroflex affricate
Voiced retroflex affricate
The voiced retroflex affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound are , sometimes simplified to ,...
/d͡ʐ/ (e.g. 'jam').
⟨dž
Dz (digraph)
Dz is a digraph of the Latin alphabet, used in Polish, Kashubian, Macedonian, Slovak, and Hungarian to represent . In Dene Suline and Cantonese Pinyin it represents .-In Polish:dz generally represents...
⟩ (see article)
E
⟨e′⟩ is used in the orthography of the Taa language, where it represents the glottalizedGlottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
or creaky
Creaky voice
In linguistics, creaky voice , is a special kind of phonation in which the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together; as a result, the vocal folds are compressed rather tightly, becoming relatively slack and compact...
vowel [ḛ].
⟨ea⟩ is used in many language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s. In English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
, ⟨ea⟩ usually represents the monophthong /i/ as in meat; due to a sound change that happened in Middle English, it also often represents the vowel /ɛ/ as in sweat. Rare pronunciations occur, like /eɪ/ in just break, great, steak, and yea, and /æ/ in the archaic ealdorman
Ealdorman
An ealdorman is the term used for a high-ranking royal official and prior magistrate of an Anglo-Saxon shire or group of shires from about the ninth century to the time of King Cnut...
. When followed by r, it can represent the standard outcomes of the previously mentioned three vowels in this environment: /ɪər/ as in beard, /ɜr/ as in heard, and /ɛər/ as in bear, respectively; as another exception, /ɑr/ occurs in the words hearken, heart and hearth. It often represents two independent vowels, like /eɪ.ɑː/ (seance), /i.æ/ (reality), /i.eɪ/ (create), and /i.ɨ/ (lineage). Unstressed, it may represent /jə/ (ocean) or /ɨ/ (Eleanor). In the Romanian alphabet
Romanian alphabet
The Romanian alphabet is a modification of the Latin alphabet and consists of 31 letters:The letters Q , W , and Y were officially introduced in the Romanian alphabet in 1982, although they had been used earlier...
, it represents the diphthong [e̯a] as in beată ('drunk female'). In Irish orthography
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
, ⟨ea⟩ represents [a] between a slender and a broad consonant. ⟨Ea⟩ is also the transliteration of the ⟨ᛠ⟩ rune of the Anglo-Frisian Futhorc.
⟨eá⟩ is used in Irish orthography
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for /aː/ between a slender and a broad consonant.
⟨éa⟩ is used in Irish orthography
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for /eː/ between a slender and a broad consonant.
⟨ee⟩ represents a long mid vowel in a number of languages. In English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
, ⟨ee⟩ represents /iː/ as in teen. In both the Dutch
Dutch alphabet
The modern Dutch alphabet consists of the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet and is used for the Dutch language. Five letters are vowels and 21 letters are consonants.- History :...
and German
German alphabet
The modern German alphabet is an extended Latin alphabet consisting of 30 letters – the same letters that are found in the Basic modern Latin alphabet plus four extra letters.In German, the individual letters have neuter gender: das A, das B etc....
alphabets, ⟨ee⟩ represents [eː].
⟨eh⟩ is used in the orthography of the Taa language for the murmured
Breathy voice
Breathy voice is a phonation in which the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal voicing, but are held further apart, so that a larger volume of air escapes between them. This produces an audible noise...
vowel [e̤]. In the Wade-Giles
Wade-Giles
Wade–Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade during the mid-19th century , and was given completed form with Herbert Giles' Chinese–English dictionary of 1892.Wade–Giles was the most...
transliteration of Mandarin Chinese, it is used for [ɛ] after a consonant, as in yeh [jɛ].
⟨ei⟩ usually represents a diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
. In English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
, ⟨ei⟩ can represent many sounds, including /eɪ/, as in vein, /i/ as in seize, /aɪ/ as in heist, /ɛ/ as in heifer, /æ/ as in enceinte, and /ɨ/ as in forfeit. See also I before e except after c
I before e except after c
"I before E, except after C" is a mnemonic rule of thumb for English spelling. If one is unsure whether a word is spelled with the sequence ei or ie, the rhyme suggests that the correct order is ie unless the preceding letter is c or the combination is being pronounced as an 'A' , in which case it...
. In the southern and western Faroese
Faroese language
Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...
dialects, it represents the diphthong [aɪ], while in the northern and eastern dialects, it represents the diphthong [ɔɪ].
In the Welsh alphabet
Welsh alphabet
Welsh orthography uses 28 letters of the Latin script to write native Welsh words as well as older loanwords.The acute accent, the grave accent, the circumflex and the diaeresis mark are also used on vowels, but accented letters are not regarded as part of the alphabet.The letter j is accepted in...
, ⟨ei⟩ represents [əi]. In the Irish
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
and Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic alphabet
The Scottish Gaelic alphabet contains 18 letters, five of which are vowels. The letters are :The five vowels also appear with grave accents, the absence or presence of which can change the meaning of a word drastically as in bàta versus bata :The acute accent is also used on some vowels:Since the...
orthographies, it represents [ɛ] before a slender consonant. In the Dutch alphabet
Dutch alphabet
The modern Dutch alphabet consists of the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet and is used for the Dutch language. Five letters are vowels and 21 letters are consonants.- History :...
, ⟨ei⟩ represents [ɛi]. In the German alphabet
German alphabet
The modern German alphabet is an extended Latin alphabet consisting of 30 letters – the same letters that are found in the Basic modern Latin alphabet plus four extra letters.In German, the individual letters have neuter gender: das A, das B etc....
, it represents /aɪ/, as in Einstein. This digraph was taken over from Middle High German
Middle High German
Middle High German , abbreviated MHG , is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350. It is preceded by Old High German and followed by Early New High German...
writing systems, where it represented /eɪ/. In Modern German, ⟨ei⟩ is predominant in representing /aɪ/, while the equivalent digraph ⟨ai⟩ appears in only a few words. In French orthography
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
, ⟨ei⟩ represents /ɛ/, as in seiche.
⟨eî⟩ is used in French orthography
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
for /ɛː/, as in reître [ʁɛːtʁ].
⟨éi⟩ is used in Irish orthography
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for /eː/ between slender consonants.
⟨em⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for [ɐĩ̯ ~ ẽĩ̯] at the end of a word and [ẽ] before a consonant.
⟨ém⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for [ɐĩ̯ ~ ẽĩ̯] at the end of a word.
⟨êm⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for [ɐĩ̯ ~ ẽĩ̯] at the end of a word and [ẽ] before a consonant.
⟨en⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for [ɐĩ̯ ~ ẽĩ̯] at the end of a word and [ẽ] before a consonant within a word. In French orthography
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
, it represents /ɑ̃/.
⟨én⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for [ɐĩ̯ ~ ẽĩ̯] before a consonant.
⟨ên⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for [ẽ] before a consonant.
⟨eo⟩ is used in Irish orthography
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for /oː/ or occasionally /ɔ/ between a slender and a broad consonant. In the Jyutping
Jyutping
Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
romanization of Cantonese, it represents [ɵ], an allophone of /œː/. In the Revised Romanization of Korean
Revised Romanization of Korean
The Revised Romanization of Korean is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea proclaimed by Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, replacing the older McCune–Reischauer system...
, ⟨eo⟩ represents the open-mid back unrounded vowel /ʌ/. In English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
⟨eo⟩ is a rare digraph without a single pronunciation, representing /ɛ/ in feoff, jeopardy, leopard and the given name Geoffrey, /iː/ in people, /oʊ/ in yeoman
Yeoman
Yeoman refers chiefly to a free man owning his own farm, especially from the Elizabethan era to the 17th century. Work requiring a great deal of effort or labor, such as would be done by a yeoman farmer, came to be described as "yeoman's work"...
and /juː/ in the archaic feodary, while in the originally Gaelic name MacLeod
MacLeod
MacLeod and McLeod are surnames in the English language. Variant forms of the names are Macleod and Mcleod.Generally, the names are considered to be Anglicised forms of the Scottish Gaelic MacLeòid, meaning "son of Leòd". However, in some cases the names can also be Anglicised forms of the Irish...
it represents /aʊ/. However, usually it represents two vowels, like /iː.ə/ in leotard and galleon, /iː.oʊ/ in stereo and, /iː.ɒ/ in geodesy
Geodesy
Geodesy , also named geodetics, a branch of earth sciences, is the scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation of the Earth, including its gravitational field, in a three-dimensional time-varying space. Geodesists also study geodynamical phenomena such as crustal...
, and, uniquely, /uː.iː/ in geoduck
Geoduck
The geoduck , Panopea generosa, is a species of very large saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusk in the family Hiatellidae.The shell of this clam is large, about to over in length, but the very long siphons make the clam itself very much longer than this: the "neck" or siphons alone can be ...
.
⟨eq⟩ is used in the orthography of the Taa language for the pharyngealized vowel [eˤ].
⟨eu⟩ is found in many language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s, most commonly for the diphthong /eu/. Additionally, in English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
, ⟨eu⟩ represents /juː/ as in neuter (though in yod dropping accents /uː/ may occur). In the German alphabet
German alphabet
The modern German alphabet is an extended Latin alphabet consisting of 30 letters – the same letters that are found in the Basic modern Latin alphabet plus four extra letters.In German, the individual letters have neuter gender: das A, das B etc....
, it represents /ɔʏ/ as in Deutsch; and in the French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
, Dutch
Dutch alphabet
The modern Dutch alphabet consists of the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet and is used for the Dutch language. Five letters are vowels and 21 letters are consonants.- History :...
, Breton
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
, and Cornish
Cornish language
Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...
orthographies, it represents [ø] as in feu. In Yale Cantonese romanization it represents /œː/. In the orthographies of Sundanese
Sundanese language
Sundanese is the language of about 27 million people from the western third of Java or about 15% of the Indonesian population....
and Acehnese
Acehnese language
Acehnese or Aceh is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by Acehnese people natively in Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia...
, both Austronesian languages
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
, it represents /ɤ/ as in beureum ('red'). In the Revised Romanization of Korean
Revised Romanization of Korean
The Revised Romanization of Korean is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea proclaimed by Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, replacing the older McCune–Reischauer system...
, it represents /ɯ/.
⟨eû⟩ is used in French orthography
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
for /ø/, as in jeûne [ʒøn].
⟨ew⟩ is used in English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
for /juː/ as in few and flew. An exception is the pronunciation /oʊ/ in sew, leading to the heteronym
Heteronym (linguistics)
In linguistics, heteronyms are words that are written identically but have different pronunciations and meanings. In other words, they are homographs that are not homophones. Thus, row and row are heteronyms, but mean and mean are not...
sewer,(/ˈsuːər/, 'drain') vs sewer (/ˈsoʊər/, 'one who sews').
⟨ey⟩ is used in English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
for a variety of sounds, including /eɪ/ in they, /iː/ in key, and /aɪ/ in geyser. In the Faroese
Faroese language
Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...
alphabet, it represents the diphthong [ɛɪ].
F
⟨ff⟩ is used in English orthographyEnglish orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
for the same sound as single ⟨f⟩, /f/. The doubling is used to indicate that the preceding vowel is (historically) short, or for etymological
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
reasons, in latinism
Latinism
A Latinism is an idiom, structure, or word derived from or suggestive of the Latin language. For Latinistic words in English, see Latin influence in English....
s. Very rarely, ⟨ff⟩ may be found word-initially, such as in proper names (e.g. Rose ffrench, Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde is a British novelist. Fforde's first novel, The Eyre Affair, was published in 2001. Fforde is mainly known for his Thursday Next novels, although he has written several books in the loosely connected Nursery Crime series and begun two more independent series: The Last Dragonslayer...
). In the Welsh alphabet
Welsh alphabet
Welsh orthography uses 28 letters of the Latin script to write native Welsh words as well as older loanwords.The acute accent, the grave accent, the circumflex and the diaeresis mark are also used on vowels, but accented letters are not regarded as part of the alphabet.The letter j is accepted in...
, ⟨ff⟩ represents /f/, while ⟨f⟩ represents /v/. In Welsh, ⟨ff⟩ is considered a distinct letter, and placed between ⟨f⟩ and ⟨g⟩ in alphabetical order. In medieval Breton
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
, vowel nasalisation was represented by a following ⟨ff⟩. This notation was reformed during the 18th century, though proper names retain the former convention, which leads to occasional mispronunciation.
⟨fh⟩ is used in Irish orthography
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for the lenition
Irish initial mutations
Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions...
of ⟨f⟩. This happens to be silent, so that ⟨fh⟩ in Irish corresponds to no sound at all. For example, the phrase ('how long') is pronounced kaː ad̪ˠ, where is the lenited form of [fɑd] ('long').
⟨fx⟩ in used in the orthography of Nambikwara
Nambikwara language
The Nambikwara language is an indigenous language of Brazil, spoken by about 1200 Nambikwara people in the Mato Grosso state...
for a glottalized
Glottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
/ɸʔ/.
G
⟨gb⟩ is used in some African languagesAfrican languages
There are over 2100 and by some counts over 3000 languages spoken natively in Africa in several major language families:*Afro-Asiatic spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel...
for a voiced labial-velar plosive
Voiced labial-velar plosive
The voiced labial–velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is a and pronounced simultaneously. To make this sound, say go, but close your lips as if you were saying Bo; release your lips at the same times as or a fraction of a second after you pronounce the...
(IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
: [ɡ͡b]).
⟨gc⟩ is used in scripts for languages such as Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
and Zulu
Zulu language
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...
for the click [ᶢǀ] . In Irish orthography
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
, it indicates the eclipsis
Irish initial mutations
Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions...
of c and represents [ɡ].
⟨ge⟩ is used in French orthography
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
for [ʒ] before ⟨a o u⟩ as in geôle [ʒol].
⟨gg⟩ is used in English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
for /ɡ/ before ⟨i⟩ and ⟨e⟩. It is also used in Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
for [ɡ] in languages such as Yi
Yi language
Nuosu , also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language and, as such, is the only one taught in school, both in its oral and written form...
. In the orthography of Central Alaskan Yup'ik
Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
Central Alaskan Yup'ik or just Yup'ik is a Yupik language of the Eskimo language family, in turn a member of the Eskimo–Aleut language group, spoken in western and southwestern Alaska. Both in ethnic population and in number of speakers, Central Alaskan Yup'ik is the largest of the languages...
, it represents [x]. In Greenlandic orthography, it represents [çː]. In the ISO romanization of Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, it is used for the fortis sound [k͈], otherwise spelled ⟨kk⟩ (e.g. ggakdugi
Ggakdugi
Kkakdugi is a variety of kimchi in Korean cuisine. Usually, it has all the ingredients of kimchi, but the baechu used for kimchi is substituted with Korean white radish...
). In Hadza
Hadza language
Hadza is a language isolate spoken by fewer than a thousand Hadza people along the shores of Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, the last full-time hunter-gatherers in Africa. Despite the small number of speakers, language use is vigorous, with most children learning it...
it is ejective /kxʼ/.
⟨gh
Gh (digraph)
Gh is a digraph found in many languages.-English:In English, ⟨gh⟩ historically represented . In modern English, ⟨gh⟩ is almost always either silent or pronounced...
⟩ (see article)
⟨gi⟩ is used in the Vietnamese alphabet
Vietnamese alphabet
The Vietnamese alphabet, called Chữ Quốc Ngữ , usually shortened to Quốc Ngữ , is the modern writing system for the Vietnamese language...
for [z] in northern dialects and [j] in the southern ones. In the Italian alphabet
Italian alphabet
The Italian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used by the Italian language.-Vowels:The Italian alphabet has five vowel letters, ⟨a e i o u⟩. Of those, only ⟨a⟩ represents one sound value while each of the others has two...
, it represents [dʒ] before the non-front vowel letters ⟨a o u⟩.
⟨gj⟩ is used in the Albanian alphabet
Albanian alphabet
The modern Albanian alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, and consists of 36 letters:Note: The vowels are shown in bold. to the pronunciation of the letters.-History:...
for the voiced palatal plosive
Voiced palatal plosive
The voiced palatal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨⟩, a barred dotless ⟨j⟩ , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J\.The sound does not exist as a phoneme in English, but is...
[ɟ], though for Gheg speakers it represents [dʒ]. In the Arbëresh
Arbëresh language
Arbëreshë, also known as Arbërisht, is an ethnolect spoken by the Arbëreshë, the group of Albanian-speaking minorities in Italy.-Classification:...
dialect, it represents the voiced velar plosive
Voiced velar plosive
The voiced velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is g. Strictly, the IPA symbol is the so-called "opentail G" , though the "looptail G" is...
[ɡʲ]. In the Norwegian and Swedish
Swedish alphabet
Modern Swedish is written with a 29-letter Latin alphabet:Prior to the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens ordlista in 2006, the letters and were collated together....
alphabets, ⟨gj⟩ represents [j] in words like gjorde ('did'). In Faroese
Faroese language
Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...
, it represents [dʒ]. It is also used in the Romanization of Macedonian as a Latin equivalent of Cyrillic
Macedonian alphabet
The orthography of Macedonian includes an alphabet , which is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script, as well as language-specific conventions of spelling and punctuation....
⟨Ѓ⟩.
⟨gk⟩ is used in Sandawe
Sandawe language
Sandawe or Sandawi is a tonal language spoken by about 40,000 Sandawe people in the Dodoma region of Tanzania. Language use is vigorous among both adults and children, with people in some areas monolingual. Sandawe had generally been classified as a member of the defunct Khoisan family since Albert...
and the romanization of Thai
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
for [k]; in Limburgish
Limburgish language
Limburgish, also called Limburgian or Limburgic is a group of East Low Franconian language varieties spoken in the Limburg and Rhineland regions, near the common Dutch / Belgian / German border...
it represents [ɡ].
⟨gl⟩ is used in the Italian alphabet
Italian alphabet
The Italian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used by the Italian language.-Vowels:The Italian alphabet has five vowel letters, ⟨a e i o u⟩. Of those, only ⟨a⟩ represents one sound value while each of the others has two...
for [ʎ] before ⟨i⟩. Elsewhere [ʎ] is represented by the trigraph ⟨gli⟩.
⟨gm⟩ is used in English orthography
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
for /m/ in a few words of Greek origin, such as gmina and paradigm. Between vowels, it simply represents /ɡm/, as in paradigmatic.
⟨gn⟩ is used in the Latin orthography, where it represented [ŋn] in the classical period. Latin velar
Velar consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
-coronal
Coronal consonant
Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such...
sequences like this (and also ⟨cl cr ct gd gl gr x⟩) underwent a palatal
Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
mutation to varying degrees in most Italo-Western Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
. For most languages that preserve the ⟨gn⟩ spelling (such as Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
), it represents a palatal nasal
Palatal nasal
The palatal nasal is a type of consonant, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase letter n with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bottom of the left stem of the letter. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J...
[ɲ]. This was not the case in Dalmatian
Dalmatian language
Dalmatian was a Romance language spoken in the Dalmatia region of Croatia, and as far south as Kotor in Montenegro. The name refers to a pre-Roman tribe of the Illyrian linguistic group, Dalmatae...
and the Eastern Romance languages
Eastern Romance languages
The Eastern Romance languages in their narrow conception, sometimes known as the Vlach languages, are a group of Romance languages that developed in Southeastern Europe from the local eastern variant of Vulgar Latin. Some classifications include the Italo-Dalmatian languages; when Italian is...
where a different mutation changed the velar component to a labial consonant
Labial consonant
Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...
as well as the spelling to ⟨mn⟩.
- In English orthographyEnglish orthographyEnglish orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
, ⟨gn⟩ represents /n/ initially and finally (i.e. gnome, gnu, benign, sign). When it appears between two syllables, it represents /ɡn/ (e.g. signal). In the Norwegian and SwedishSwedish alphabetModern Swedish is written with a 29-letter Latin alphabet:Prior to the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens ordlista in 2006, the letters and were collated together....
alphabets, ⟨gn⟩ represents [ŋn] in monosyllabic words like, agn and between two syllables, tegne. Initially, it represents [ɡn], eg. Swedish gnista [ˈɡnɪsta].
⟨gñ⟩ was used in several Spanish-derived orthographies of the Pacific for [ŋ]. It is one of several variants of the digraph ⟨ñg⟩, and is preserved in the name of the town of Sagñay
Sagñay, Camarines Sur
Sagñay is a 4th class municipality in the province of Camarines Sur, Philippines. According to the 2007 census, it has a population of 29,082 people.-History:Sagñay is an old town established in the late 17th century by the Spanish friars...
, Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
.
⟨gq⟩ is used in scripts for languages such as Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
and Zulu
Zulu language
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...
for the click [ᶢǃ]. In the orthography of the Taa language, it represents [ɢ].
⟨gr⟩ is used in the orthography for Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
for [ɣ̈].
⟨gu⟩ is used in the Spanish and Portuguese
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
orthographies for [ɡ] before front vowels ⟨i e⟩ where a "soft g" pronunciation (Spanish [x], Portuguese [ʒ]) would otherwise occur. In the Ossete Latin alphabet, it is used for [ɡʷ].
⟨gü⟩ is used in the Spanish orthography for [ɡw] before front vowels ⟨i e⟩ where the digraph ⟨gu⟩ would otherwise represent [ɡ].
⟨gw⟩ is used in various languages for [ɡʷ], and in the orthography for Dene Suline
Dene Suline language
Dene Suline or Chipewyan is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of central Canada. It is a part of the Athabaskan family...
it represents [kʷ].
⟨ǥw⟩, capital ⟨Ǥw⟩ (or ⟨G̱w⟩), is used in Alaskan Tlingit
Tlingit language
The Tlingit language ) is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada. It is a branch of the Na-Dené language family. Tlingit is very endangered, with fewer than 140 native speakers still living, all of whom are bilingual or near-bilingual in English...
for [qʷ]; in Canada, this sound is represented by ⟨ghw⟩.
⟨gx⟩ is used in scripts for languages such as Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
and Zulu
Zulu language
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...
for the click [ᶢǁ]. In Esperanto orthography
Esperanto orthography
Esperanto is written in a Latin alphabet of twenty-eight letters, with upper and lower case. This is supplemented by punctuation marks and by various logograms, such as the numerals 0–9, currency signs such as $, and mathematical symbols....
, it is an unofficial variant of ⟨ĝ
G
G is the seventh letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter 'G' was introduced in the Old Latin period as a variant of ⟨c⟩ to distinguish voiced, from voiceless, . The recorded originator of ⟨g⟩ is freedman Spurius Carvilius Ruga, the first Roman to open a fee-paying school,...
⟩.
⟨gy⟩ is used in the Hungarian alphabet
Hungarian alphabet
The Hungarian alphabet is an extension of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Hungarian language.One sometimes speaks of the smaller and greater Hungarian alphabets, depending on whether or not the letters Q, W, X, Y are listed, which can only be found in foreign words and traditional...
for a voiced palatal plosive
Voiced palatal plosive
The voiced palatal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨⟩, a barred dotless ⟨j⟩ , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J\.The sound does not exist as a phoneme in English, but is...
[ɟ]. In Hungarian, the letter's name is gyé. It is considered a single letter, and acronyms keep the digraph intact. The letter appears frequently in Hungarian words, such as the word for "Hungarian" itself: magyar.
H
⟨hh⟩ is used in the Xhosa languageXhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
to write the murmured glottal fricative /ɦ̤/, though this is often written h. In the Iraqw language
Iraqw language
Not to be confused with Iroquois language.Iraqw is a Cushitic language spoken in Tanzania in the Arusha and Manyara Regions. It is expanding in numbers, as the Iraqw people absorb neighboring ethnic groups. The language has a large number of Datooga loanwords, especially in poetic language...
, hh is the voiceless epiglottal fricative /ʜ/, and in Chipewyan
Dene Suline language
Dene Suline or Chipewyan is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of central Canada. It is a part of the Athabaskan family...
it is a velar/uvular /χ/. In Esperanto, it is an official surrogate of ĥ
H
H .) is the eighth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The Semitic letter ⟨ח⟩ most likely represented the voiceless pharyngeal fricative . The form of the letter probably stood for a fence or posts....
.
⟨hj⟩ is used in the Italian dialect of Albanian
Arbëresh language
Arbëreshë, also known as Arbërisht, is an ethnolect spoken by the Arbëreshë, the group of Albanian-speaking minorities in Italy.-Classification:...
for /xʲ/. In Faroese
Faroese language
Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...
, it represents either /tʃ/ or /j/.
⟨hl⟩ represents the sound /ɬ/ in various scripts, such as the Romanized Popular Alphabet
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet or Hmong RPA , is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has gone on to become the most widespread system for writing the Hmong language in the...
used to write Hmong
Hmong language
Hmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
.
⟨hm⟩ is used in the Romanized Popular Alphabet
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet or Hmong RPA , is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has gone on to become the most widespread system for writing the Hmong language in the...
used to write Hmong
Hmong language
Hmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
, where it represents the sound /m̥/.
⟨hn⟩ is used in the Romanized Popular Alphabet
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet or Hmong RPA , is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has gone on to become the most widespread system for writing the Hmong language in the...
used to write Hmong
Hmong language
Hmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
, where it represents the sound /n̥/.
⟨hs⟩ is used in the Wade-Giles
Wade-Giles
Wade–Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade during the mid-19th century , and was given completed form with Herbert Giles' Chinese–English dictionary of 1892.Wade–Giles was the most...
transcription of Mandarin Chinese for the sound /ɕ/, equivalent to Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
x.
⟨hu⟩ is used primarily in the Classical Nahuatl
Classical Nahuatl
Classical Nahuatl is a term used to describe the variants of the Nahuatl language that were spoken in the Valley of Mexico — and central Mexico as a lingua franca — at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Mexico...
language, in which it represents the /w/ sound before a vowel; for example, Wikipedia in Nahuatl is written Huiquipedia. After a vowel, ⟨uh⟩ is used. In the Ossete Latin alphabet, hu was used for /ʁʷ/, similar to French roi. The sequence hu is also found in Spanish words such as huevo or hueso; however, in Spanish this is not a digraph but a simple sequence of silent h and the vowel u.
⟨hw⟩ was used in Old English for /hw/. It is now spelled ⟨wh⟩.
⟨hx⟩ is used in Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
for /h/ in languages such as Yi
Yi language
Nuosu , also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language and, as such, is the only one taught in school, both in its oral and written form...
(⟨h⟩ alone represents the fricative /x/), and in Nambikwara
Nambikwara language
The Nambikwara language is an indigenous language of Brazil, spoken by about 1200 Nambikwara people in the Mato Grosso state...
it is a glottalized
Glottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
/hʔ/. In Esperanto it is an unofficial surrogate of ⟨ĥ
H
H .) is the eighth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The Semitic letter ⟨ח⟩ most likely represented the voiceless pharyngeal fricative . The form of the letter probably stood for a fence or posts....
⟩.
I
⟨i′⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, represents the glottalizedGlottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
or creaky
Creaky voice
In linguistics, creaky voice , is a special kind of phonation in which the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together; as a result, the vocal folds are compressed rather tightly, becoming relatively slack and compact...
vowel /ḭ/.
⟨ie⟩ is found in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, where it usually represents the /aɪ/ sound as in pries and allied or the /iː/ sound as in priest and rallied. Followed by an r, these vowels follow the standard changes to /aɪə/ and /ɪə/, as in brier and bier. Unique pronunciations are /ɪ/ in sieve, /ɛ/ in friend and /eɪ/ in lingerie. Unstressed it can represent /jə/, as in spaniel and conscience, or /ɨ/ or /ə/ as in mischief and hurriedly. It also can represent many vowel combinations, including /aɪə/ in diet and client, /aɪɛ/ in diester and quiescent, /iːə/ in alien and skier, /iːɛ/ in oriental and hygienic, and /iːʔiː/ in British medieval.
- In DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, the ⟨ie⟩ represents /i/. In GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, it may represent the lengthened vowel [iː] as in Liebe (love) as well as the vowel combination [iə] as in Belgien (Belgium). In LatvianLatvian languageLatvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
and LithuanianLithuanian languageLithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
, the ⟨ie⟩ is considered two letters for all purposes and represents /iæ̯/, commonly (although less precisely) transcribed as /i̯e/. In MalteseMaltese languageMaltese is the national language of Malta, and a co-official language of the country alongside English,while also serving as an official language of the European Union, the only Semitic language so distinguished. Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic...
, ⟨ie⟩ is a distinct letter and represents a long close front unrounded vowelClose front unrounded vowelThe close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ....
(IPAInternational Phonetic AlphabetThe International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
: /iː/) or /iɛ/. In PinyinPinyinPinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
it is used to write the vowel /e/ in languages such as YiYi languageNuosu , also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language and, as such, is the only one taught in school, both in its oral and written form...
, where e stands for /ɛ/.
⟨ig⟩ is used in Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
for /t͡ʃ/ in the coda.
⟨ih⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, represents the breathy or murmured
Breathy voice
Breathy voice is a phonation in which the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal voicing, but are held further apart, so that a larger volume of air escapes between them. This produces an audible noise...
vowel /i̤/. It is also used in Tongyong Pinyin
Tongyong Pinyin
Tongyong Pinyin was the official Romanization of Mandarin Chinese in the Republic of China between 2002 and 2008. The system was unofficially used between 2000 and 2002, when a new romanization system for the Republic of China was being evaluated for adoption. The ROC's Ministry of Education...
and Wade-Giles
Wade-Giles
Wade–Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade during the mid-19th century , and was given completed form with Herbert Giles' Chinese–English dictionary of 1892.Wade–Giles was the most...
transcription for the fricative vowels of Mandarin Chinese, which are spelled i in Hanyu Pinyin.
⟨ii⟩ is used in many languages with phonemic long vowels for /iː/.
⟨ij (IJ)⟩ (see article)
⟨il⟩ is used in French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
for /j/, historically /ʎ/, as in ail /aj/ "garlic".
⟨im⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for /ĩ/.
⟨ím⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for /ĩ/ before a consonant.
⟨in⟩ is used in many languages to write a nasal vowel
Nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...
. In Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
before a consonant, and in many West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
n languages, it is /ĩ/, while in French it is /ɛ̃/.
⟨ín⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for /ĩ/ before a consonant.
⟨în⟩ is used in French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
to write a vowel sound /ɛ̃/ that was once followed by a historical s, as in vous vîntes /vu vɛ̃t/ "you came".
⟨iŋ⟩ is used in Lakhota for the nasal vowel [ĩ].
⟨io⟩ is used in Irish
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for /ɪ/, /ʊ/, and /iː/ between a slender and a broad consonant.
⟨ío⟩ is used in Irish
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for /iː/ between a slender and a broad consonant.
⟨iq⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, it represents the pharyngealized vowel /iˤ/.
⟨iu⟩ is used in Irish
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for /ʊ/ between a slender and a broad consonant. In Mandarin pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
, it is /i̯ou̯/ after a consonant. (In initial position, this is spelled you.)
⟨iú⟩ is used in Irish
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for /uː/ between a slender and a broad consonant.
⟨ix⟩ is used in Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
for /ʃ/ after a vowel.
J
⟨jh⟩ is used in WalloonWalloon language
Walloon is a Romance language which was spoken as a primary language in large portions of the Walloon Region of Belgium and some villages of Northern France until the middle of the 20th century. It belongs to the langue d'oïl language family, whose most prominent member is the French language...
to write a sound that is variously /h/ or /ʒ/, depending on the dialect. In Tongyong pinyin
Tongyong Pinyin
Tongyong Pinyin was the official Romanization of Mandarin Chinese in the Republic of China between 2002 and 2008. The system was unofficially used between 2000 and 2002, when a new romanization system for the Republic of China was being evaluated for adoption. The ROC's Ministry of Education...
, it represents /tʂ/, written zh in standard pinyin. Jh is also the standard transliteration for the Devanāgarī
Devanagari
Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...
letter झ⟩ /dʒʱ/.
In the official Esperanto orthography
Esperanto orthography
Esperanto is written in a Latin alphabet of twenty-eight letters, with upper and lower case. This is supplemented by punctuation marks and by various logograms, such as the numerals 0–9, currency signs such as $, and mathematical symbols....
, it is a surrogate of ĵ
J
Ĵ or ĵ is a letter in Esperanto orthography representing the sound .While Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for its four postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets, the base letters are Romano-Germanic...
.
⟨jj⟩ is used in Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
for /dʑ/ in languages such as Yi
Yi language
Nuosu , also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language and, as such, is the only one taught in school, both in its oral and written form...
. In romanized Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, it represents the fortis sound /tɕ͈/. In Hadza
Hadza language
Hadza is a language isolate spoken by fewer than a thousand Hadza people along the shores of Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, the last full-time hunter-gatherers in Africa. Despite the small number of speakers, language use is vigorous, with most children learning it...
it is ejective /tʃʼ/.
⟨jö⟩ is used as a letter of the Seri
Seri language
Seri is a language isolate spoken by the Seri people by between 716 and 900 people in two villages on the coast of Sonora, Mexico.-Classification:...
alphabet, where it represents a labialized velar fricative
Voiceless velar fricative
The voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English....
(IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
: /xʷ/. It is placed between J
J
Ĵ or ĵ is a letter in Esperanto orthography representing the sound .While Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for its four postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets, the base letters are Romano-Germanic...
and L
L
Ł or ł, described in English as L with stroke, is a letter of the Polish, Kashubian, Sorbian, Łacinka , Łatynka , Wilamowicean, Navajo, Dene Suline, Inupiaq, Zuni, Hupa, and Dogrib alphabets, several proposed alphabets for the Venetian language, and the ISO 11940 romanization of the Thai alphabet...
in alphabetical order.
⟨jx⟩ is used in Esperanto as an unofficial surrogate of ⟨ĵ
J
Ĵ or ĵ is a letter in Esperanto orthography representing the sound .While Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for its four postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets, the base letters are Romano-Germanic...
⟩.
K
⟨kg⟩ is used for /kχ/ in southern African languages such as SetswanaTswana language
Tswana or Setswana is a language spoken in Southern Africa by about 4.5 million people. It is a Bantu language belonging to the Niger–Congo language family within the Sotho languages branch of Zone S , and is closely related to the Northern- and Southern Sotho languages, as well as the Kgalagadi...
. For instance, the Kalahari is spelled Kgalagadi /kχalaχadi/ in Setswana.
⟨kh⟩, in transcriptions of Indo-Aryan languages, represents the aspirated
Aspiration (phonetics)
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
voiceless velar plosive
Voiceless velar plosive
The voiceless velar stop or voiceless velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k....
([kʰ]). For scores of other languages, it represents the voiceless velar fricative
Voiceless velar fricative
The voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English....
[x], for example in transcriptions of the letter (خ) in standard Arabic, standard Persian, and Urdu, Cyrillic Х, х (Kha), Spanish j, etc. As the transcription of the letter (ח) in Sephardic Hebrew, it represents the voiceless pharyngeal fricative
Voiceless pharyngeal fricative
The voiceless pharyngeal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is h-bar .-Features:Features of the voiceless pharyngeal fricative:...
[ħ]. It is also used to transcribe the Hebrew letter Kaf (כ) in instances when the letter is lenited
Lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...
. When transliterating Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Bulgarian, all written only in the Cyrillic alphabet, the diagraph is equivalent to the Cyrillic letter Х.
- In Canadian TlingitTlingit languageThe Tlingit language ) is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada. It is a branch of the Na-Dené language family. Tlingit is very endangered, with fewer than 140 native speakers still living, all of whom are bilingual or near-bilingual in English...
it represents [qʰ], which in Alaska is written k. In the Ossete Latin alphabet, it was used for [kʼ].
⟨kj⟩ is used Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
and Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
for [ɕ] or [ç]. See also ⟨tj⟩. In Faroese
Faroese language
Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...
, it represents [tʃ].
⟨kk⟩ is used in Icelandic and Faroese for the pre-aspirated sound /ʰk/, in romanized Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
for the fortis sound /k͈/, and in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for ejective /kʼ/.
⟨kl⟩ is used in the Zulu language
Zulu language
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...
to write a sound variously realized as /kʟ̥ʼ/ or /kxʼ/.
⟨km⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
for doubly articulated
Double articulation
In linguistics, the term double articulation or duality of patterning refers to the way in which the stream of speech can be divided into meaningful signs, which can be further subdivided into meaningless elements...
and nasally released
Nasal release
In phonetics, a nasal release is the release of a plosive consonant into a nasal stop. Such sounds are transcribed in the IPA with superscript nasal letters, for example as . In English words such as sudden in which historically the tongue made separate contacts with the alveolar ridge for the /d/...
/k͡pŋ͡m/.
⟨kn⟩ is used in English to write the word-initial sound /n/ in some words of Germanic origin, such as knee and knife. It is used in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
for nasally released
Nasal release
In phonetics, a nasal release is the release of a plosive consonant into a nasal stop. Such sounds are transcribed in the IPA with superscript nasal letters, for example as . In English words such as sudden in which historically the tongue made separate contacts with the alveolar ridge for the /d/...
/kŋ/.
⟨kp⟩ is used as a letter in some African languages
African languages
There are over 2100 and by some counts over 3000 languages spoken natively in Africa in several major language families:*Afro-Asiatic spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel...
, where it represents a voiceless labial-velar plosive
Voiceless labial-velar plosive
The voiceless labial–velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is a and pronounced simultaneously. To make this sound, say Coe, but close your lips as if you were saying Poe; release your lips at the same times as or a fraction of a second after you pronounce...
(simultaneous k and p; IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
: /k͡p/).
⟨kr⟩ is used in the Xhosa language
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
for /kxʼ/.
⟨ku⟩ was used in the Ossete Latin alphabet for /kʷ/.
⟨kw⟩ is used in various languages for /kʷ/, and in Dene Suline
Dene Suline language
Dene Suline or Chipewyan is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of central Canada. It is a part of the Athabaskan family...
(Chipewyan) for /kʷʰ/.
⟨ḵw⟩ is used in Alaskan Tlingit
Tlingit language
The Tlingit language ) is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada. It is a branch of the Na-Dené language family. Tlingit is very endangered, with fewer than 140 native speakers still living, all of whom are bilingual or near-bilingual in English...
for /qʷʰ/, which in Canada is written khw.
⟨kx⟩ in used in Nambikwara
Nambikwara language
The Nambikwara language is an indigenous language of Brazil, spoken by about 1200 Nambikwara people in the Mato Grosso state...
for a glottalized
Glottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
/kʔ/.
⟨ky⟩ is used in Tibetan Pinyin
Tibetan Pinyin
The SASM/GNC/SRC romanization of Tibetan, commonly known as Tibetan pinyin, is the official transcription system for the Tibetan language in the People's Republic of China for personal name and place names. It is based on the Lhasa dialect of Standard Tibetan and reflects the pronunciation very...
for /tʃʰ/.
L
⟨lh⟩, in Occitan, GalloGallo language
Gallo is a regional language of France. Gallo is a Romance language, one of the Oïl languages. It is the historic language of the region of Upper Brittany and some neighboring portions of Normandy, but today is spoken by only a small minority of the population, having been largely superseded by...
, and Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, represents a palatal lateral approximant
Palatal lateral approximant
The palatal lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a rotated lowercase letter ⟨y⟩ , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is L.-Features:Features of the palatal lateral...
[ʎ]. In many American Indian languages it represents a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar fricatives is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is K...
[ɬ]. In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. The Latin alphabet of the colonizers was inevitably used for the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details of how the sounds were represented has...
it represents a dental lateral, [l̪]. In the Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh , abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Y.R. Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself later published influential works in linguistics using GR...
romanization of Mandarin Chinese, initial ⟨lh⟩ indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in [l], which is otherwise spelled ⟨l⟩.
⟨lj⟩ is a letter in some Slavic languages, such as the Latin orthographies of Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
, where it represents a palatal lateral approximant
Palatal lateral approximant
The palatal lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a rotated lowercase letter ⟨y⟩ , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is L.-Features:Features of the palatal lateral...
/ʎ/. For example, the word ljiljan is pronounced /ʎiʎan/. Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj was a Croatian linguist, politician, journalist and writer. He was one of the central figures of the Croatian national reformation, also known as the Illyrian Movement.-Origin:...
first used the digraph ⟨lj⟩ in 1830; he devised it by analogy with a Cyrillic
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
digraph, which developed into the ligature љ
Lje
Lje is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet.Lje represents a palatal lateral , a sound similar to the palatalized alveolar lateral which is represented by the digraph ЛЬ and pronounced like the ⟨ll⟩ in "million".Lje was invented by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić...
.
- The sound /ʎ/ is written ⟨gl⟩ in Italian, in Castilian Spanish and Catalan as ⟨ll⟩, in Portuguese as ⟨lh⟩, in some Hungarian dialects as ⟨lly⟩, and in LatvianLatvian languageLatvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
as ⟨ļ⟩. In CzechCzech languageCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
and SlovakSlovak languageSlovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
, it is often transcribed as ⟨ľ⟩; it is used more frequently in the latter language. There are dedicated Unicode glyphs, lj, Lj, and LJ.
⟨ll
Ll
Ll/ll is a digraph which occurs in several natural languages.-In English:In English, ll represents the same sound as single l:...
⟩ and ⟨l·l⟩ (see article)
⟨ḷḷ⟩ is used in Asturian
Asturian language
Asturian is a Romance language of the West Iberian group, Astur-Leonese Subgroup, spoken in the Spanish Region of Asturias by the Asturian people...
for a sound that was historically [ʎ] but which is now an affricate, [t͡s], [t͡ʃ], [d͡ʒ].
⟨lv⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
for doubly articulated
Double articulation
In linguistics, the term double articulation or duality of patterning refers to the way in which the stream of speech can be divided into meaningful signs, which can be further subdivided into meaningless elements...
/l͜β/.
⟨lw⟩ is used for /lʷ/ in Arrernte.
⟨lx⟩ in used in Nambikwara
Nambikwara language
The Nambikwara language is an indigenous language of Brazil, spoken by about 1200 Nambikwara people in the Mato Grosso state...
for a glottalized
Glottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
/ˀl/.
⟨ly
Hungarian ly
Ly is a digraph of the Latin alphabet, used in Hungarian.- Usage :Ly is the twentieth letter of the Hungarian alphabet. Its Hungarian name is ellipszilon or elly...
⟩ (see article)
M
⟨mb⟩, in many AfricaAfrica
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n languages, represents (IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
) /mb/ or /ᵐb/. It is used in Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
to indicate the eclipsis
Irish initial mutations
Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions...
of b and represents [mˠ]; for example ár mbád [ɑːɾˠ mˠɑːdˠ̪] "our boat" (cf. [bˠɑːd̪ˠ] "boat"). The Irish digraph is capitalized mB, for example i mBaile Átha Cliath "in Dublin". In English, mb represents /m/ when final, as in lamb.
⟨md⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
for doubly articulated
Double articulation
In linguistics, the term double articulation or duality of patterning refers to the way in which the stream of speech can be divided into meaningful signs, which can be further subdivided into meaningless elements...
and prenasalized /n͡mt͡p/.
⟨mg⟩ is used in Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
for /ŋɡ/ in languages such as Yi
Yi language
Nuosu , also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language and, as such, is the only one taught in school, both in its oral and written form...
. (The more common diacritic ng⟩ is restricted in Pinyin to the sound /ŋ/.) It is used in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
for doubly articulated
Double articulation
In linguistics, the term double articulation or duality of patterning refers to the way in which the stream of speech can be divided into meaningful signs, which can be further subdivided into meaningless elements...
and prenasalized /ŋ͡mk͡p/.
⟨mh⟩, in Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
, stands for the lenition
Irish initial mutations
Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions...
of m⟩ and represents [v] or [w]; for example mo mháthair [mə ˈwɑːhəɾʲ] or [mˠə ˈvˠɑːhəɾʲ] "my mother" (cf. máthair [ˈmˠɑːhəɾʲ] "mother"). In Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
it stands for the nasal mutation
Welsh morphology
The morphology of the Welsh language shows many characteristics perhaps unfamiliar to speakers of English or continental European languages like French or German, but has much in common with the other modern Insular Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Cornish, and Breton. Welsh is a...
of p⟩ and represents [m̥]; for example fy mhen [ə m̥ɛn] "my head" (cf. pen [pɛn] "head"). In both languages it is considered a sequence of the two letters m⟩ and h⟩ for purposes of alphabetization. It also occurs in Shona
Shona language
Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore...
. In the Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh , abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Y.R. Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself later published influential works in linguistics using GR...
romanization of Mandarin Chinese, initial mh- indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in /m/, which is otherwise spelled m-.
⟨ml⟩ is used in the Romanized Popular Alphabet
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet or Hmong RPA , is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has gone on to become the most widespread system for writing the Hmong language in the...
used to write Hmong
Hmong language
Hmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
, where it represents the sound /mˡ/.
⟨mm⟩ is used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for glottalized /ˀm/.
⟨mn⟩ is used in English to write the word-initial sound /n/ in a few words of Greek origin, such as mnemonic. When final, it represents /m/, as in damn, and between vowels it represents /mn/, as in damnation. In French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
it represents /n/, as in automne and condemner.
⟨mp⟩, in many Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n languages, represents (IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
) /mp/ or /ᵐp/. Modern Greek uses the equivalent digraph μ
Mu (letter)
Carlos Alberto Vives Restrepo is a Grammy Award and three-time Latin Grammy Award winning-Colombian singer, composer and actor.-Biography:...
π
Pi (letter)
Pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing . In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 80. Letters that arose from pi include Cyrillic Pe , Coptic pi , and Gothic pairthra .The upper-case letter Π is used as a symbol for:...
for /b/, as β
Beta (letter)
Beta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiodental fricative ....
is used for /v/.
⟨mt⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
for doubly articulated
Double articulation
In linguistics, the term double articulation or duality of patterning refers to the way in which the stream of speech can be divided into meaningful signs, which can be further subdivided into meaningless elements...
and prenasalized /n̪͡mt̪͡p/.
⟨mv⟩, in many Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n languages, represents (IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
) /mv/ or /ᵐv/.
⟨mw⟩ is used for /mʷ/ in Arrernte.
⟨mx⟩ in used in Nambikwara
Nambikwara language
The Nambikwara language is an indigenous language of Brazil, spoken by about 1200 Nambikwara people in the Mato Grosso state...
for a glottalized
Glottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
/ˀm/.
N
⟨n’⟩ is used in the XhosaXhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
and Shona language
Shona language
Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore...
s for /ŋ/. Since ⟨’⟩ is not a letter in either language, ⟨n’⟩ is not technically a digraph.
⟨nb⟩ is used in Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
for /mb/ in languages such as Yi
Yi language
Nuosu , also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language and, as such, is the only one taught in school, both in its oral and written form...
.
⟨nc⟩ is used in various scripts. In the Romanized Popular Alphabet
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet or Hmong RPA , is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has gone on to become the most widespread system for writing the Hmong language in the...
used to write Hmong
Hmong language
Hmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
, it represents the sound /ɲɟ/. In Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
and Zulu
Zulu language
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...
it represents the click /ᵑǀ/.
⟨nd⟩, in many Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n languages, represents /nd/ or /ⁿd/, and capitalized ⟨Nd⟩. It is used in Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
for the eclipsis
Irish initial mutations
Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions...
of ⟨d⟩, and represents /n/, for example in ár ndoras [ɑːɾˠ ˈnˠɔɾˠəsˠ] "our door" (cf. doras [ˈd̪ˠɔɾˠəsˠ] "door"). In this function it is capitalized ⟨nD⟩, e.g. i nDoire "in Derry".
⟨ng⟩, in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and several other Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an and derived orthographies, generally represents the velar nasal
Velar nasal
The velar nasal is the sound of ng in English sing. It is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is N....
[ŋ]. It is considered a single letter in many Austronesian languages
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
(Māori
Maori language
Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...
, Tagalog
Tagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
, Tongan
Tongan language
Tongan is an Austronesian language spoken in Tonga. It has around 200,000 speakers and is a national language of Tonga. It is a VSO language.-Related languages:...
, Kiribatian
Gilbertese language
-External links:**** with Gilbertese – English Translations from – The Rosetta Edition**...
, Tuvaluan
Tuvaluan language
Tuvaluan is a Polynesian language of or closely related to the Ellicean group spoken in Tuvalu. It is more or less distantly related to all other Polynesian languages, such as Hawaiian, Maori, Tahitian, Samoan, and Tongan, and most closely related to the languages spoken on the Polynesian Outliers...
, Indonesian
Indonesian language
Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
), the Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
language, and Rheinische Dokumenta
Rheinische Dokumenta
The Rheinische Dokumenta is a phonetic writing system developed in the early 1980s by a working group of academics, linguists, local language experts, and local language speakers of the Rhineland....
, for velar nasal
Velar nasal
The velar nasal is the sound of ng in English sing. It is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is N....
(IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
: /ŋ/); and in some African languages
African languages
There are over 2100 and by some counts over 3000 languages spoken natively in Africa in several major language families:*Afro-Asiatic spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel...
(Lingala
Lingala language
Lingala, or Ngala, is a Bantu language spoken throughout the northwestern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a large part of the Republic of the Congo , as well as to some degree in Angola and the Central African Republic. It has over 10 million speakers...
, Bambara
Bambara language
Bambara, more correctly known as Bamanankan , its designation in the language itself , is a language spoken in Mali by as many as six million people...
, Wolof
Wolof language
Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger–Congo language family...
) for prenasalized ɡ (/ⁿɡ/).
- The Finnish languageFinnish languageFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
uses the digraph 'ng' to denote the phonemically long velar nasalVelar nasalThe velar nasal is the sound of ng in English sing. It is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is N....
/ŋː/ in contrast to 'nk' /ŋk/, which is its "strong" form under consonant gradationConsonant gradationConsonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation, in which consonants alternate between various "grades". It is found in some Uralic languages such as Finnish, Estonian, Northern Sámi, and the Samoyed language Nganasan. In addition, it has been reconstructed for Proto-Germanic, the parent...
, a type of lenitionLenitionIn linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...
. Weakening /k/ produces an archiphonemic "velar fricative", which, as a velar fricative does not exist in Standard Finnish, is assimilated to the preceding /ŋ/, producing /ŋː/. (No /ɡ/ is involved at any point, despite the spelling 'ng'.) The digraph 'ng' is not an independent letter, but it is an exception to the phonemic principlePhonemic orthographyA phonemic orthography is a writing system where the written graphemes correspond to phonemes, the spoken sounds of the language. In terms of orthographic depth, these are termed shallow orthographies, contrasting with deep orthographies...
, one of the few in standard Finnish.
- In IrishIrish languageIrish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
ng is used word-initially as the eclipsisIrish initial mutationsIrish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions...
of g and represents [ŋ], e.g. ár ngalar [ɑːɾˠ ˈŋɑɫəɾˠ] "our illness" (cf. [ˈɡɑɫəɾˠ]. In this function it is capitalized nG, e.g. i nGaillimh "in Galway".
- In Tagalog and other Philippine languagesPhilippine languagesThe Philippine languages are a 1991 proposal by Robert Blust that all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi—except Sama–Bajaw and a few languages of Palawan—form a subfamily of Austronesian languages...
, ng represented the prenasalized sequence [ŋɡ] during the Spanish era. The velar nasal, [ŋ], was written in a variety of ways, namely "", "ñg", "gñ" (as in SagñaySagñay, Camarines SurSagñay is a 4th class municipality in the province of Camarines Sur, Philippines. According to the 2007 census, it has a population of 29,082 people.-History:Sagñay is an old town established in the late 17th century by the Spanish friars...
), and—after a vowel—at times "". During the standardization of Tagalog in the early part of the 20th century, ng came for the velar nasal [ŋ], while prenasalized [ŋɡ] came to be written ngg. Furthermore, ng is also used for a common genitiveGenitive caseIn grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
particle pronounced [naŋ], to differentiate it from an adverbial particle nang.
⟨ńg⟩ is used in Central Alaskan Yup'ik
Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
Central Alaskan Yup'ik or just Yup'ik is a Yupik language of the Eskimo language family, in turn a member of the Eskimo–Aleut language group, spoken in western and southwestern Alaska. Both in ethnic population and in number of speakers, Central Alaskan Yup'ik is the largest of the languages...
to write the voiceless nasal sound /ŋ̊/.
⟨ñg⟩, or more precisely ⟨⟩, was a digraph in several Spanish-derived orthographies of the Pacific, such as that of Tagalog
Tagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
and Chamorro
Chamorro language
Chamorro is a Malayo-Polynesian language, spoken on the Mariana Islands by about 47,000 people Chamorro (Chamorro: Fino' Chamoru or simply Chamoru) is a Malayo-Polynesian (Austronesian) language, spoken on the Mariana Islands (Guam, Rota, Tinian, and Saipan) by about 47,000 people Chamorro...
, where it represented the sound /ŋ/, as opposed to ng, which originally represented /ŋɡ/. An example is Chamorro (modern agangñaihon) "to declare". Besides ñg, variants of include gñ (as in Sagñay
Sagñay, Camarines Sur
Sagñay is a 4th class municipality in the province of Camarines Sur, Philippines. According to the 2007 census, it has a population of 29,082 people.-History:Sagñay is an old town established in the late 17th century by the Spanish friars...
), , and a , that is preceded by a vowel (but not a consonant).
⟨ng’⟩ is used for /ŋ/ in Swahili and languages with Swahili-based orthographies. Since ⟨’⟩ is not a letter in Swahili, ⟨ng’⟩ is technically a digraph, not a trigraph
Trigraph (orthography)
A trigraph is a group of three letters used to represent a single sound or a combination of sounds that does not correspond to the written letters combined. For example, in the word schilling, the trigraph sch represents the voiceless postalveolar fricative , rather than the consonant cluster...
.
⟨nh
Nh (digraph)
Nh is a digraph of the Latin alphabet, a combination of N and H. Together with lh and the interpunct, it was a typical feature of Old Occitan, the language used by medieval troubadours.-African languages:...
⟩ (see article)
⟨nj⟩ is a letter present in the Latin orthographies of Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
. Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj was a Croatian linguist, politician, journalist and writer. He was one of the central figures of the Croatian national reformation, also known as the Illyrian Movement.-Origin:...
, a Croat, first used this digraph in 1830. It is also used in the Albanian alphabet
Albanian alphabet
The modern Albanian alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, and consists of 36 letters:Note: The vowels are shown in bold. to the pronunciation of the letters.-History:...
. In all of these languages, it represents the palatal nasal
Palatal nasal
The palatal nasal is a type of consonant, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase letter n with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bottom of the left stem of the letter. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J...
/ɲ/. For example, the Croatian and Serbian word konj (horse) is pronounced /koɲ/. The digraph was created in the 19th century by analogy with a digraph of the Cyrillic alphabet
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
, which developed into the ligature ⟨Њ
Nje
Nje is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet.It is a ligature of the Cyrillic letters En ⟨Н⟩ and Soft Sign ⟨Ь⟩. It was invented by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić. It corresponds to the digraph ⟨nj⟩ in the Serbian Latin and Croatian alphabets.It is used in Macedonian and Serbian, where it represents a...
⟩. There are dedicated glyphs in Unicode, NJ, Nj, nj.
- In FaroeseFaroese languageFaroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...
, it generally represents /ɲ/, although in some words it represent /nj/, like in banjo It is also used in some languages of AfricaLanguages of AfricaThere are over 2100 and by some counts over 3000 languages spoken natively in Africa in several major language families:*Afro-Asiatic spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel...
and OceaniaLanguages of OceaniaMany languages are indigenous to Oceania; they belong to several families. The Austronesian family is the most common, found throughout many Pacific Islands, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.Australia is home to many diverse families of indigenous languages:...
where it represents a prenazalizedPrenasalized consonantPrenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent that behave phonologically like single consonants. The reasons for considering these sequences to be single consonants is in their behavior, not in their actual composition...
voiced postalveolar affricateVoiced postalveolar affricateThe voiced palato-alveolar affricate, also described as voiced domed postalveolar affricate, is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨⟩ , and the equivalent X-SAMPA representation is ⟨dZ⟩...
or fricativeVoiced postalveolar fricativeThe voiced palato-alveolar fricative or voiced domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is Z. An alternative symbol used in some...
, /ⁿdʒ/ or /ⁿʒ/. In MalagasyMalagasy languageMalagasy is the national language of Madagascar, a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.-History:...
, it represents /ⁿdz/.
- Other letters and digraphs of the Latin alphabetLatin alphabetThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
used for spelling this sound are ⟨ńNN is the fourteenth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History of the forms :One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake, was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like English ⟨J⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet...
⟩ (in PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
), ⟨ňNN is the fourteenth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History of the forms :One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake, was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like English ⟨J⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet...
⟩ (in CzechCzech languageCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
and Slovakian), ⟨ñÑÑ is a letter of the modern Latin alphabet, formed by an N with a diacritical tilde. It is used in the Spanish alphabet, Galician alphabet, Asturian alphabet, Basque alphabet, Aragonese old alphabet , Filipino alphabet, Chamorro alphabet and the Guarani alphabet, where it represents...
⟩ (in SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
), ⟨nh⟩ (in PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
and Occitan), ⟨gn⟩ (in ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
and FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
), and ⟨ny⟩ (in HungarianHungarian languageHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
, among others).
⟨nk⟩ is used in the orthography of many Bantu languages
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...
like Lingala, Tshiluba, and Kikongo, for /ŋk/ or /ᵑk/. In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. The Latin alphabet of the colonizers was inevitably used for the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details of how the sounds were represented has...
such as Warlpiri
Warlpiri
The Warlpiri are a group of Indigenous Australians, many of whom speak the Warlpiri language. There are 5,000–6,000 Warlpiri, living mostly in a few towns and settlements scattered through their traditional land in Australia's Northern Territory, north and west of Alice Springs...
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara, it distinguishes a prenasalized velar stop, /ŋ͡k ~ ŋ͡ɡ/, from the nasal /ŋ/.
⟨nm⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
for doubly articulated
Double articulation
In linguistics, the term double articulation or duality of patterning refers to the way in which the stream of speech can be divided into meaningful signs, which can be further subdivided into meaningless elements...
/n͡m/.
⟨ńm⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
for doubly articulated
Double articulation
In linguistics, the term double articulation or duality of patterning refers to the way in which the stream of speech can be divided into meaningful signs, which can be further subdivided into meaningless elements...
/n̪͡m/.
⟨nn⟩ is used in Irish orthography
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for the Old Irish
Old Irish language
Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Goidelic languages for which extensive written texts are extant. It was used from the 6th to the 10th centuries, by which time it had developed into Middle Irish....
"fortis sonorants" /Nˠ/ ("broad", i.e. non-palatalized or velarized) and /Nʲ/ ("slender", i.e. palatalized) in non-initial position. In modern Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
, the "broad" sound is /n̪ˠ/, while the slender sound can be any of /nʲ/, /n̠ʲ/, or /ɲ/, depending on dialect and position in the word. In Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
historical nn⟩ has contracted to the ligature
Ligature
Ligature may refer to:* Ligature * Ligature , a characteristic notation style of the Medieval and Renaissance periods of music history* Ligature , a device used to attach a reed to the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument...
ñ
Ñ
Ñ is a letter of the modern Latin alphabet, formed by an N with a diacritical tilde. It is used in the Spanish alphabet, Galician alphabet, Asturian alphabet, Basque alphabet, Aragonese old alphabet , Filipino alphabet, Chamorro alphabet and the Guarani alphabet, where it represents...
⟩ and represents the sound /ɲ/. In the Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh , abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Y.R. Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself later published influential works in linguistics using GR...
romanization of Mandarin Chinese, final -nn indicates a falling tone on a syllable ending in /n/, which is otherwise spelled -n. It is used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for glottalized /ˀn/.
⟨np⟩ is used in the Romanized Popular Alphabet
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet or Hmong RPA , is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has gone on to become the most widespread system for writing the Hmong language in the...
used to write Hmong
Hmong language
Hmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
, where it represents the sound /mb/.
⟨nq⟩ is used in various scripts. In the Romanized Popular Alphabet
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet or Hmong RPA , is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has gone on to become the most widespread system for writing the Hmong language in the...
used to write Hmong
Hmong language
Hmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
, it represents the sound /ɴɢ/. In Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
and Zulu
Zulu language
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...
it represents the click /ᵑǃ/. In the Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh , abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Y.R. Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself later published influential works in linguistics using GR...
romanization of Mandarin Chinese, final -nq indicates a falling tone on a syllable ending in /ŋ/, which is otherwise spelled -ng.
⟨nr⟩ is used in the Romanized Popular Alphabet
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet or Hmong RPA , is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has gone on to become the most widespread system for writing the Hmong language in the...
used to write Hmong
Hmong language
Hmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
, where it represents the sound /ɳɖ/.
⟨ns⟩, in many Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n languages, represents (IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
) /ns/ or /ⁿs/.
⟨nt⟩ is a letter present in many Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n languages where it represents(IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
) /nt/ or /ⁿt/ .
⟨nw⟩ is used in Igbo
Igbo language
Igbo , or Igbo proper, is a native language of the Igbo people, an ethnic group primarily located in southeastern Nigeria. There are approximately 20 million speakers that are mostly in Nigeria and are primarily of Igbo descent. Igbo is a national language of Nigeria. It is written in the Latin...
for /ŋʷ/, and in Arrernte for /nʷ/.
⟨nx⟩ is used for the click /ᵑǁ/ in scripts such as Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
and Zulu
Zulu language
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...
, and in Nambikwara
Nambikwara language
The Nambikwara language is an indigenous language of Brazil, spoken by about 1200 Nambikwara people in the Mato Grosso state...
for a glottalized
Glottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
/ˀn/.
⟨ny⟩ (see article)
⟨nz⟩, in many Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n languages, represents (IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
) /nz/ ~ /ⁿz/, /ndz/ ~ /ⁿdz/, /nʒ/ ~ /ⁿʒ/, or /ndʒ/ ~ /ⁿdʒ/.
O
⟨o′⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, represents the glottalizedGlottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
or creaky
Creaky voice
In linguistics, creaky voice , is a special kind of phonation in which the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together; as a result, the vocal folds are compressed rather tightly, becoming relatively slack and compact...
vowel /o̰/. It is also used for [o] and [ø] in Romanized Uzbek
Uzbek language
Uzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 25.5 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia...
(Cyrillic ⟨ў⟩). Technically it is not a digraph in Uzbek, since ⟨ʻ⟩ is not a letter of the Uzbek alphabet, but rather a typographic convention for a diacritic. In handwriting the letter is written ⟨ō⟩ or ⟨ŏ⟩.
⟨oa⟩ is used in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, where it commonly represents the /oʊ/ sound as in road, coal, boast, coaxing, etc.. In Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
, where the digraph originated, it represented /ɔː/, a pronunciation retained in the word broad and derivatives, and when the digraph is followed by an "r", as in soar and bezoar
Bezoar
A bezoar is a mass found trapped in the gastrointestinal system , though it can occur in other locations. A pseudobezoar is an indigestible object introduced intentionally into the digestive system....
. The letters also represent two vowels, as in koala /oʊ.ɑː/, boa
Boa
The Boidae are a family of nonvenomous snakes found in America, Africa, Europe, Asia and some Pacific Islands. Relatively primitive snakes, adults are medium to large in size, with females usually larger than the males. Two subfamilies comprising eight genera and 43 species are currently...
s /oʊ.ə/, coaxial
Coaxial
In geometry, coaxial means that two or more forms share a common axis; it is the three-dimensional linear analogue of concentric.Coaxial cable, as a common example, has a wire conductor in the centre a circumferential outer conductor and an insulating medium called the dielectric separating...
/oʊ.æ/, oasis /oʊ.eɪ/, and doable /uː.ə/.
In Malagasy
Malagasy language
Malagasy is the national language of Madagascar, a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.-History:...
, it is occasionally used for /o/.
⟨oe⟩ is found in many language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s. In English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, oe represents the /oʊ/ sound as in hoe and sometimes the /uː/ sound as in shoe. Afrikaans and Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
oe is [u], as in doen. In French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
it stands for the vowels [œ], as in œil [œj], and [e] as in oesophage [ezɔfaʒ ~ øzɔfaʒ], and in Cantonese Pinyin it represents the vowel [ɵ] ~ [œː]. It is an alternative way to write the letter ö in German when this character is unavailable.
⟨oê⟩ is used in French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
to write the vowel sound [wa] in a few words before what had historically been an s, as in poêle [pwal] "stove".
⟨õe⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for [õĩ̯]. It is used in plural forms of some words ended in ⟨ão⟩, such as anão–anões and campeão–campeões.
⟨oh⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, represents the breathy or murmured
Breathy voice
Breathy voice is a phonation in which the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal voicing, but are held further apart, so that a larger volume of air escapes between them. This produces an audible noise...
vowel /o̤/.
⟨oi⟩ is used in various language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s. In English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, oi represents the /oɪ̯/ sound as in coin and join. In French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, it represents /wa/, which was historically – and still is in some cases – written "oy." In Irish
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
it's used for /ɛ/, /ɔ/, /ɪ/, /əi̯/, /iː/, /oː/ between a broad and a slender consonant.
⟨oí⟩ is used in Irish
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for /iː/ between a broad and a slender consonant.
⟨oî⟩ is used in French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
to write /wa/ before what had historically been an s, as in boîtier or cloître.
⟨ói⟩ is used in Irish
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for /oː/ between a broad and a slender consonant.
⟨om⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for /õ/.
⟨ôm⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for /õ/ before a consonant.
⟨on⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for /õ/ before a consonant, and in French to write /ɔ̃/.
⟨ôn⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for /õ/ before a consonant.
⟨ön⟩ is used in Tibetan Pinyin
Tibetan Pinyin
The SASM/GNC/SRC romanization of Tibetan, commonly known as Tibetan pinyin, is the official transcription system for the Tibetan language in the People's Republic of China for personal name and place names. It is based on the Lhasa dialect of Standard Tibetan and reflects the pronunciation very...
for /ø̃/. It is alternately written oin.
⟨oo⟩ is used in many language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s. In English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, oo commonly represents two sounds: /uː/ as in "moon" and "food", and /ʊ/ as in "wood" and "foot". Historically, both derive from the sound [oː], which is also the digraph’s pronunciation in most other languages. In German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, the digraph represents [oː] in a few words such as Moor.
⟨oq⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, represents the pharyngealized vowel /oˤ/.
⟨or⟩, in Taiwanese
Daighi tongiong pingim
Daī-ghî tōng-iōng pīng-im is an orthography in the Latin alphabet for Taiwanese Hokkien based upon Tongyong Pinyin. Up to the present, DT is one kind of orthographies for the Taiwanese language in general...
, represents mid central vowel /ə/ or close-mid back rounded vowel /o/.
⟨ou⟩ is used in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
for the diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
/aʊ/, as in out /aʊt/. This spelling is generally used before consonants, with ⟨ow⟩ being used instead before vowels and at the ends of words. Occasionally ou may also represent other vowels – /ʌ/ as in trouble, /oʊ/ as in soul, /ʊ/ as in would, or /uː/ as in group. The ou in out originally represented [uː], as in French, but its pronunciation has changed as part of the Great Vowel Shift
Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in England between 1350 and 1500.The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen , a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term....
.
In Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
ou represents [ʌu] in the Netherlands or [oʊ] in Flanders. In French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, ou represents the vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
[u], as in vous [vu] "you", or the approximant consonant
Approximant consonant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...
[w], as in oui [wi] "yes".
This digraph stands for the close-mid back rounded vowel [o] or for the falling diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
[ou], according to dialect.
⟨oû⟩ is used in French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
to write the vowel sound /u/ before what had historically been an s, as in soûl /sul/ "drunk".
⟨ow⟩, in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, usually represents the /aʊ/ sound as in coward, sundowner, and now or the /oʊ/ sound, as in froward, landowner, and know. An exceptional pronunciation is /ɒ/ in knowledge and rowlock
Rowlock
A rowlock or oarlock is a brace that attaches an oar to a boat. When a boat is rowed, the rowlock acts as a fulcrum, and, in doing so, the propulsive force that the rower exerts on the water with the oar is transferred to the boat by the thrust force exerted on the rowlock.On ordinary rowing...
. There are many English heteronyms
Heteronym (linguistics)
In linguistics, heteronyms are words that are written identically but have different pronunciations and meanings. In other words, they are homographs that are not homophones. Thus, row and row are heteronyms, but mean and mean are not...
distinguished only by the pronunciation of this digraph, like: bow (front of ship or weapon), bower (a dwelling or string player), lower (to frown or drop), mow (to grimace or cut), row (a dispute or line-up), shower (rain or presenter), sow (a pig or to seed), tower (a building or towboat).
⟨oy⟩ is found in many language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s. In English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and Faroese
Faroese language
Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...
, oy represents the diphthong /ɔɪ/. Examples in English include toy and annoy.
⟨oŷ⟩ is an obsolete digraph once used in French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
.
⟨øy⟩ is used in Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
for /øʏ/.
P
⟨pf⟩ in GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
represents a labial affricate /pf/. It can be initial (Pferd, 'horse'), medial (Apfel, 'apple'), or final (Knopf, 'button').
Where it appears in English, usually in names or words recently derived from German, it is ordinarily simplified to ⟨f⟩.
⟨ph⟩, in the English Language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and many other languages, represents /f/. Ph in English generally occurs in words derived from Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, due to Latin transcription of Greek phi
Phi
Phi may refer to:In language:*Phi, the Greek letter Φ,φ, the symbol for voiceless bilabial fricativeIn mathematics:*The Golden ratio*Euler's totient function*A statistical measure of association reported with the chi-squared test...
(Φ φ) as ⟨ph⟩. In Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
, this letter originally represented /pʰ/ (an aspirated
Aspiration (phonetics)
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
voiceless bilabial plosive
Voiceless bilabial plosive
The voiceless bilabial plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is p...
). In some non-standard spellings of English, like leet
Leet
Leet , also known as eleet or leetspeak, is an alternative alphabet for the English language that is used primarily on the Internet. It uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters...
, ph may be used as a replacement of all occurrences of f. Exceptionally, ⟨ph⟩ represents /v/ in the name Stephen
Stephen
Stephen or Steven is a masculine first name, derived from the Greek name Στέφανος meaning "crown, garland", in turn from the Greek word "στέφανος", meaning "wreath, crown, honour, reward", literally "that which surrounds or encompasses". In ancient Greece a wreath was given to the winner of a...
and some speakers' pronunciation of the word nephew
Nephew
Nephew is a son of one's sibling or sibling-in-law, and niece is a daughter of one's sibling or a sibling-in-law. Sons and daughters of siblings-in-law are also informally referred to as nephews and nieces respectively, even though there is no blood relation...
.
The French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
languages and the auxiliary languages Interlingua
Interlingua
Interlingua is an international auxiliary language , developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association...
and Occidental
Occidental language
The language Occidental, later Interlingue, is a planned language created by the Balto-German naval officer and teacher Edgar de Wahl and published in 1922....
also use the digraph for Greek loanwords. In German, ph can be replaced by f; the replacement is allowed in certain cases according to the German spelling reform of 1996
German spelling reform of 1996
The German orthography reform of 1996 was an attempt to simplify the spelling of the German language and thus to make it easier to learn, without substantially changing the rules familiar to all living users of the language....
. In most Romance (such as Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
) and Germanic languages, f is used in place of ph. Languages written in a Cyrillic script, such as Russian, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian, regularly use Ф ф – similar to the Greek Φ φ – where the Romance and Germanic languages use ph or f. In Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
, ph represents /f/ in native words, but only word-initially as the result of an initial consonant mutation
Consonant mutation
Consonant mutation is when a consonant in a word changes according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment.Mutation phenomena occur in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all modern Celtic languages...
of a word beginning with p. Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
uses f for words of Greek origin, while ph represents the lenited
Lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...
form of p, resulting in the sound /f/ as well. In Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
, ph is exclusively used because the letter f does not exist. In Old High German
Old High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
, ph stands for the affricate
Affricate consonant
Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
/pf/. In the romanizations of Indo-Aryan languages
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
and of Thai
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
, ph represents the aspirated sound
Aspiration (phonetics)
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
[pʰ]. In the Ossete Latin alphabet, it was used for [pʼ].
⟨pl⟩ is used in the Romanized Popular Alphabet
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet or Hmong RPA , is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has gone on to become the most widespread system for writing the Hmong language in the...
used to write Hmong
Hmong language
Hmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
, where it represents the sound [pˡ].
⟨pm⟩ is used for /ᵖm/ in Arrernte.
⟨pn⟩ is used in English for an initial sound /n/ in words of Greek origin such as pneumatic. When not initial, it represents the sequence /pn/, as in apnea.
⟨pp⟩ is used in romanized Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
for the fortis sound /p͈/.
⟨ps⟩ is used in English for an initial sound /s/ in words of Greek origin such as psyche. When not initial, it represents the sequence /ps/, as in ellipse. It is also used in the Shona language
Shona language
Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore...
to write a whistled sibilant cluster /ps͎/.
⟨pt⟩ is used in several languages for /t/ in words of Greek origin, where it was /pt/. An example in English is pterosaur
Pterosaur
Pterosaurs were flying reptiles of the clade or order Pterosauria. They existed from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous Period . Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight...
/ˈtɛrəsɔr/, and an exception is ptarmigan /ˈtɑrmɨɡən/, which is Gaelic, not Greek. When not initial, pt represents the sequence /pt/, as in apt.
⟨pw⟩ is used for /pʷ/ in Arrernte.
Q
⟨qg⟩ is used to write the click /ǃχ/ in NaroNaro language
Naro is a Khoe language spoken in the Ghanzi District of Botswana and in eastern Namibia, where it is sometimes called Nharo. There are about 14,000 speakers: 10,000 in Botswana and 4,000 in Namibia . This makes it probably the most-spoken of the Tshu–Khwe languages...
.
⟨qh⟩ is used in various scripts. In Quechua
Quechua languages
Quechua is a Native South American language family and dialect cluster spoken primarily in the Andes of South America, derived from an original common ancestor language, Proto-Quechua. It is the most widely spoken language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably...
and the Romanized Popular Alphabet
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet or Hmong RPA , is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has gone on to become the most widespread system for writing the Hmong language in the...
used to write Hmong
Hmong language
Hmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
, it represents the sound /qʰ/. In Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
, it represents the click /ǃʰ/.
⟨qq⟩ is used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for ejective /qʼ/. In Hadza
Hadza language
Hadza is a language isolate spoken by fewer than a thousand Hadza people along the shores of Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, the last full-time hunter-gatherers in Africa. Despite the small number of speakers, language use is vigorous, with most children learning it...
it is the glottalized click /ᵑǃˀ/.
⟨qu⟩ is used in Catalan
Catalan orthography
Like those of many other Romance languages, the Catalan alphabet derives from the Latin alphabet and is largely based on the language’s phonology. The Catalan alphabet consists of the twenty-six letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet:...
, French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
, Galician
Galician language
Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
, Occitan, Portuguese
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
and Spanish orthographies for /k/ before the vowel letters e, i, where the letter c represents the sound /θ/ (Castilian Spanish
Castilian Spanish
Castilian Spanish is a term related to the Spanish language, but its exact meaning can vary even in that language. In English Castilian Spanish usually refers to the variety of European Spanish spoken in north and central Spain or as the language standard for radio and TV speakers...
and most of Galicia
Galician language
Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
) or /s/ (Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Latin American Spanish. Occitan and Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
). In the Ossete Latin alphabet, it was used for /qʷ/.
⟨qw⟩ is used in some languages for the sound /qʷ/. In Mi'kmaq
Mi'kmaq language
The Mi'kmaq language is an Eastern Algonquian language spoken by nearly 9,100 Mi'kmaq in Canada and the United States out of a total ethnic Mi'kmaq population of roughly 20,000. The word Mi'kmaq is a plural word meaning 'my friends' ; the adjectival form is Míkmaw...
it is used for /xʷ/.
R
⟨rd⟩ is used in the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languagesTranscription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. The Latin alphabet of the colonizers was inevitably used for the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details of how the sounds were represented has...
such as Warlpiri
Warlpiri
The Warlpiri are a group of Indigenous Australians, many of whom speak the Warlpiri language. There are 5,000–6,000 Warlpiri, living mostly in a few towns and settlements scattered through their traditional land in Australia's Northern Territory, north and west of Alice Springs...
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara for a retroflex stop (IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
: /ʈ/).
⟨rh⟩ is found in English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
with words from the Greek language
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and transliterated
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
through the Latin language. Examples include "rhapsody", "rhetoric" and "rhythm". These were pronounced in Ancient Greek with a voiceless
Voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...
"r" sound, [r̥], as in Old English ⟨hr⟩. The digraph may also be found within words, but always at the start of a word component, e.g., "polyrhythmic". German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, and the auxiliary language Interlingua
Interlingua
Interlingua is an international auxiliary language , developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association...
use rh in the same way. ⟨Rh⟩ is also found in the Welsh language
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
where it represents a voiceless
Voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...
alveolar trill
Alveolar trill
The alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. It is commonly called the rolled R, rolling R, or trilled R...
(r̥), that is a voiceless "r" sound. It can be found anywhere; the most common occurrence in the English language from Welsh is in the slightly respelled given name "Rhonda". In Wade-Giles
Wade-Giles
Wade–Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade during the mid-19th century , and was given completed form with Herbert Giles' Chinese–English dictionary of 1892.Wade–Giles was the most...
transliteration, ⟨rh⟩ is used for the syllable-final rhotic of Mandarin Chinese. In the Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh , abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Y.R. Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself later published influential works in linguistics using GR...
romanization of Mandarin Chinese, initial rh- indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in /ʐ/, which is otherwise spelled r-.
⟨rl⟩ is used in the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. The Latin alphabet of the colonizers was inevitably used for the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details of how the sounds were represented has...
such as Warlpiri
Warlpiri
The Warlpiri are a group of Indigenous Australians, many of whom speak the Warlpiri language. There are 5,000–6,000 Warlpiri, living mostly in a few towns and settlements scattered through their traditional land in Australia's Northern Territory, north and west of Alice Springs...
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara for a retroflex lateral, written /ɭ/ in the IPA. In the Greenlandic language, it represents [ɬː] as the result of an assimilation of a consonant cluster with a uvular consonant as the first component.
⟨rm⟩ is used in Inuktitut
Inuktitut
Inuktitut or Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, Eastern Canadian Inuit language is the name of some of the Inuit languages spoken in Canada...
for [ɴm].
⟨rn⟩ represents the retroflex nasal /ɳ/ in Warlpiri
Warlpiri
The Warlpiri are a group of Indigenous Australians, many of whom speak the Warlpiri language. There are 5,000–6,000 Warlpiri, living mostly in a few towns and settlements scattered through their traditional land in Australia's Northern Territory, north and west of Alice Springs...
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara (see transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. The Latin alphabet of the colonizers was inevitably used for the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details of how the sounds were represented has...
). In the Greenlandic language, it represents /ɴ/. In Inuktitut
Inuktitut
Inuktitut or Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, Eastern Canadian Inuit language is the name of some of the Inuit languages spoken in Canada...
, it represents [ɴn].
⟨rp⟩ is used in the Greenlandic language for [pː] as the result of an assimilation of a consonant cluster with a uvular consonant as the first component.
⟨rr⟩ is used in English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
for ⟨r⟩, depending on etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
. It normally appears in words of Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
or Romance
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
origin, and "rrh" in words of ancient Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
origin. It is quite a common digraph, found in words as diverse as arrest, carry, and sorry. Some words with "rr" are relatively recent loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s from other languages; examples include burro
Burro
The burro is a small donkey used primarily as a pack animal. In addition, significant numbers of feral burros live in the Southwestern United States, where they are protected by law, and in Mexico...
from Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
. It is often used in impromptu pronunciation guides to denote either an alveolar tap
Alveolar tap
The alveolar flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar flaps is .-Definition:...
or an alveolar trill
Alveolar trill
The alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. It is commonly called the rolled R, rolling R, or trilled R...
. It is a letter in the Albanian alphabet.
In several European languages, such as Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
or Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
, "rr" represents the alveolar trill
Alveolar trill
The alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. It is commonly called the rolled R, rolling R, or trilled R...
/r/ and contrasts with the single "r", which represents the alveolar tap
Alveolar tap
The alveolar flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar flaps is .-Definition:...
/ɾ/ (in Catalan and Spanish a single "r" also represents the alveolar trill at the beginning of words or syllables). In Italian, "rr" is furthermore a geminate (long) consonant /rː/. In Central Alaskan Yup'ik
Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
Central Alaskan Yup'ik or just Yup'ik is a Yupik language of the Eskimo language family, in turn a member of the Eskimo–Aleut language group, spoken in western and southwestern Alaska. Both in ethnic population and in number of speakers, Central Alaskan Yup'ik is the largest of the languages...
it is used for /χ/.
⟨rs⟩ was equivalent to ⟨rz⟩ and stood for /r̝/ (modern ř) in medieval Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
. In the Greenlandic language, it represents [sː] as the result of an assimilation of a consonant cluster with a uvular consonant as the first component.
⟨rt⟩ is used for Australian Aboriginal languages such as Warlpiri
Warlpiri
The Warlpiri are a group of Indigenous Australians, many of whom speak the Warlpiri language. There are 5,000–6,000 Warlpiri, living mostly in a few towns and settlements scattered through their traditional land in Australia's Northern Territory, north and west of Alice Springs...
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara for a retroflex stop /ʈ/.
⟨rw⟩ is used for /ɻʷ/ in Arrernte.
⟨rz⟩ is used in Polish
Polish alphabet
The Polish alphabet is the script of the Polish language, the basis for the Polish system of orthography . It is based on the Latin alphabet, but includes certain letters with diacritics: the line or kreska, which is graphically similar to an acute accent ; the overdot or kropka ; the tail or...
and Kashubian
Kashubian alphabet
The Kashubian alphabet is the script of the Kashubian language, based on the Latin alphabet. The Kashubian alphabet consists of 34 letters:...
for a voiced retroflex fricative ʐ, similar to English "zh" as in Zhivago. Examples from Polish are "March" and "river". ⟨Rz⟩ represents the same sound as ⟨ż
Z
Z is the twenty-sixth and final letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Name and pronunciation:In most dialects of English, the letter's name is zed , reflecting its derivation from the Greek zeta but in American English, its name is zee , deriving from a late 17th century English dialectal...
⟩, the only difference being that ⟨ż⟩ evolved from a *g while ⟨rz⟩ is descended from a palatalized ar ( *rʲ ). ⟨Rz⟩ usually corresponds to Czech ⟨ř
R
R is the eighteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The original Semitic letter may have been inspired by an Egyptian hieroglyph for tp, "head". It was used for by Semites because in their language, the word for "head" was rêš . It developed into Greek Ρ and Latin R...
⟩, though the pronunciations are different. When preceded by a voiceless consonant (ch, k, p, t) or end of a word
Final obstruent devoicing
Final obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as German, Dutch, Polish, and Russian, among others...
, ⟨rz⟩ devoices to ⟨sz⟩, as in przed "before", pronounced ˈpʂɛt.
S
⟨sc⟩ is used in Italian for /ʃː/ before the front vowel letters e, i. It is used for /s/ in Catalan, French, English, Latin American Spanish, Occitan and Portuguese (e.g. French/English reminiscence, Latin American Spanish reminiscencia, Portuguese reminiscência, Catalan reminiscència, Occitan reminiscéncia).⟨sç⟩ is used in French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
for /s/ in a few verb forms such as simple past acquiesça /akjɛsa/.
⟨sh
Sh (digraph)
Sh is a digraph of the Latin alphabet, a combination of S and H.-English:In English, sh usually represents . The exception is in compound words, where the s and h are not a digraph, but pronounced separately, e.g. hogshead is hogs-head , not *hog-shead...
⟩ (see article; see also ſh⟩ below, which has the capitalized forms SH and ŞH)
⟨si⟩ is used in English for /ʒ/ in words such as fusion.
⟨sj⟩ is used Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
to write the sje sound
Voiceless palatal-velar fricative
In Swedish phonology, the sj-sound is a voiceless fricative phoneme found in most dialects. It has a variety of realisations, whose precise phonetic characterisation is a matter of debate...
/ɧ/ (see also ⟨sk⟩) and in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, Faroese
Faroese language
Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...
, Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
and Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
to write Voiceless postalveolar fricative
Voiceless postalveolar fricative
The voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or voiceless domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages, including English...
/ʃ/.
⟨sk⟩ is used in Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
to write the sje sound
Voiceless palatal-velar fricative
In Swedish phonology, the sj-sound is a voiceless fricative phoneme found in most dialects. It has a variety of realisations, whose precise phonetic characterisation is a matter of debate...
/ɧ/. It takes by rule this sound value before the front vowels (e, i, y, ä and ö) word or root initially (as in sked (spoon)), while normally representing [sk] in other positions. In Norwegian and Faroese, it is used to write voiceless postalveolar fricative
Voiceless postalveolar fricative
The voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or voiceless domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages, including English...
/ʃ/ (only in front of i, y, ei and øy/oy).
⟨sl⟩ is used in the Iraqw language
Iraqw language
Not to be confused with Iroquois language.Iraqw is a Cushitic language spoken in Tanzania in the Arusha and Manyara Regions. It is expanding in numbers, as the Iraqw people absorb neighboring ethnic groups. The language has a large number of Datooga loanwords, especially in poetic language...
to write the lateral fricative /ɬ/. (Sl is used in the French tradition to transcribe /ɬ/ in other languages as well.)
⟨sp⟩ is used in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
for /ʃp/ as in Spaß [ʃpaːs] instead of using schp (or chp).
⟨sr⟩ is used in Kosraean
Kosraean language
Kosraean, also sometimes called Kusaiean, is the language spoken on the islands of Kosrae , Caroline Islands, and Nauru. In 2001 there were approximately 8,000 speakers....
for /ʂ/.
⟨ss⟩ is used in Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
for /z/ in languages such as Yi
Yi language
Nuosu , also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language and, as such, is the only one taught in school, both in its oral and written form...
. In other languages, such as Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Occitan, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
and Central Alaskan Yup'ik
Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
Central Alaskan Yup'ik or just Yup'ik is a Yupik language of the Eskimo language family, in turn a member of the Eskimo–Aleut language group, spoken in western and southwestern Alaska. Both in ethnic population and in number of speakers, Central Alaskan Yup'ik is the largest of the languages...
, where s⟩ transcribes /z/ between vowels (and elsewhere in the case of Yup'ik), ⟨ss⟩ is used for /s/ in that position (/sː/ in Italian). In romanized Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, it represents the fortis sound /s͈/.
⟨st⟩ is used in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
for /ʃt/ as in Stadt [ʃtat] instead of using scht (or cht).
⟨sv⟩ is used in the Shona language
Shona language
Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore...
to write the whistled sibilant /s͎/. This was written ȿ from 1931 to 1955.
⟨sx⟩ in used in Nambikwara
Nambikwara language
The Nambikwara language is an indigenous language of Brazil, spoken by about 1200 Nambikwara people in the Mato Grosso state...
for a glottalized
Glottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
/sʔ/, and in Esperanto as an unofficial surrogate of ⟨ŝ
S
S is the nineteenth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.-History: Semitic Šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative . Greek did not have this sound, so the Greek sigma came to represent...
⟩.
⟨sy⟩ is used to write the sound /ʃ/ in Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
.
⟨sz⟩ (see article)
T
⟨tc⟩ is used for the palatal click /ǂ/ in the orthography of NaroNaro language
Naro is a Khoe language spoken in the Ghanzi District of Botswana and in eastern Namibia, where it is sometimes called Nharo. There are about 14,000 speakers: 10,000 in Botswana and 4,000 in Namibia . This makes it probably the most-spoken of the Tshu–Khwe languages...
, and to write the affricate /tʃ/ in Sandawe
Sandawe language
Sandawe or Sandawi is a tonal language spoken by about 40,000 Sandawe people in the Dodoma region of Tanzania. Language use is vigorous among both adults and children, with people in some areas monolingual. Sandawe had generally been classified as a member of the defunct Khoisan family since Albert...
and Hadza
Hadza language
Hadza is a language isolate spoken by fewer than a thousand Hadza people along the shores of Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, the last full-time hunter-gatherers in Africa. Despite the small number of speakers, language use is vigorous, with most children learning it...
.
⟨tg⟩ is used for /tχ/ in the orthography of Naro
Naro language
Naro is a Khoe language spoken in the Ghanzi District of Botswana and in eastern Namibia, where it is sometimes called Nharo. There are about 14,000 speakers: 10,000 in Botswana and 4,000 in Namibia . This makes it probably the most-spoken of the Tshu–Khwe languages...
. In the Catalan spelling
Catalan orthography
Like those of many other Romance languages, the Catalan alphabet derives from the Latin alphabet and is largely based on the language’s phonology. The Catalan alphabet consists of the twenty-six letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet:...
, it represents /d͡ʒ/.
⟨th
Th (digraph)
Th is a digraph in the Roman alphabet. It is the most common digraph in order of frequency in the English language.-Cluster /t.h/:The most literal use of ⟨th⟩ is to represent a consonant cluster of /t/ and /h/ as in English knighthood...
⟩ (see article)
⟨ti⟩, before a vowel, is usually pronounced /sj/ in French.
⟨tj⟩ is used in Norwegian and Faroese words like tjære/tjøra ('tar') for /ç/ (Norwegian) and /tʃ/ (Faroese). In the closely related Swedish alphabet
Swedish alphabet
Modern Swedish is written with a 29-letter Latin alphabet:Prior to the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens ordlista in 2006, the letters and were collated together....
, it represents /ɕ/, as in tjära /ˈɕæːɾa/. It is, or was, also used for /tʃ/ in many Dutch-based orthographies in Indonesia and Surinam. In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. The Latin alphabet of the colonizers was inevitably used for the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details of how the sounds were represented has...
such as Warlpiri
Warlpiri
The Warlpiri are a group of Indigenous Australians, many of whom speak the Warlpiri language. There are 5,000–6,000 Warlpiri, living mostly in a few towns and settlements scattered through their traditional land in Australia's Northern Territory, north and west of Alice Springs...
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara, it represents a postalveolar stop, written /ṯ/ or /ḏ/. This sound is also written ⟨dj⟩, ⟨ty⟩, ⟨dy⟩, ⟨c⟩, or ⟨j⟩. In Catalan spelling it represents /d͡ʒ/
⟨tl⟩ is used in various orthographies for the affricate /tɬ/.
⟨tł⟩ is used in the transcription of Athabascan languages for a lateral affricate /tɬ/ or /tɬʰ/.
⟨tm⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
for doubly articulated
Double articulation
In linguistics, the term double articulation or duality of patterning refers to the way in which the stream of speech can be divided into meaningful signs, which can be further subdivided into meaningless elements...
and nasally released
Nasal release
In phonetics, a nasal release is the release of a plosive consonant into a nasal stop. Such sounds are transcribed in the IPA with superscript nasal letters, for example as . In English words such as sudden in which historically the tongue made separate contacts with the alveolar ridge for the /d/...
/t̪͡pn̪͡m/.
⟨tn⟩ is used for a prestopped nasal /ᵗn/ in the orthography of Arrernte, and for the similar /t̪n̪/ in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
.
⟨tp⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
for doubly articulated
Double articulation
In linguistics, the term double articulation or duality of patterning refers to the way in which the stream of speech can be divided into meaningful signs, which can be further subdivided into meaningless elements...
/t̪͡p/.
⟨tr⟩ generally represents a sound like a retroflex
Retroflex consonant
A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...
version of English "ch" in areas of German influence, such as Truk lagoon
Truk Lagoon
Truk Lagoon, also known as Chuuk, is a sheltered body of water in the central Pacific. North of New Guinea, it is located mid-ocean at 7 degrees North latitude. The atoll consists of a protective reef, around, enclosing a natural harbour 79 by 50 kilometres , with an area of . It has a land...
, now spelled ⟨chuuk⟩. For instance, in the orthography of Malagasy
Malagasy language
Malagasy is the national language of Madagascar, a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.-History:...
it represents /tʂ/. In southern dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s of Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
, ⟨tr⟩ represents a voiceless retroflex affricate
Voiceless retroflex affricate
The voiceless retroflex affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound are , sometimes simplified to , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ts`....
/tʂ/. In the northern dialects, this sound is pronounced [tɕ], just like what ⟨ch⟩ represents. ⟨Tr⟩ was formerly considered a distinct letter of the Vietnamese alphabet
Vietnamese alphabet
The Vietnamese alphabet, called Chữ Quốc Ngữ , usually shortened to Quốc Ngữ , is the modern writing system for the Vietnamese language...
, but today is not.
⟨ts⟩ is used in the orthography of Basque
Basque alphabet
The Basque alphabet is a Latin-derived alphabet used to write the Basque language. It consists of 27 letters.- List of letters :The letters of the Basque alphabet are the 26 letters of the basic modern Latin alphabet plus the ñ .This is the whole list:-Digraphs:There are several digraphs The Basque...
, where it represents an apical
Apical consonant
An apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue . This contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue .This is not a very common distinction, and typically applied only to fricatives...
voiceless alveolar affricate
Voiceless alveolar affricate
The voiceless alveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨⟩ or ⟨⟩ . The voiceless alveolar affricate occurs in such languages as German, Cantonese, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Mandarin...
/t̺s̺/. It contrasts with ⟨tz⟩, which is laminal
Laminal consonant
A laminal consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, which is the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue on the top. This contrasts with apical consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the tongue apex only...
/t̻s̻/. In the orthography of Hausa
Hausa language
Hausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 25 million people, and as a second language by about 18 million more, an approximate total of 43 million people...
, ⟨ts⟩ represents an alveolar ejective fricative /sʼ/ or affricate /tsʼ/), depending on dialect. It is considered a distinct letter, and placed between ⟨t⟩ and ⟨u⟩ in alphabetical order. It is also used in the Catalan spelling
Catalan orthography
Like those of many other Romance languages, the Catalan alphabet derives from the Latin alphabet and is largely based on the language’s phonology. The Catalan alphabet consists of the twenty-six letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet:...
for /t͡s/
The Wade-Giles
Wade-Giles
Wade–Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade during the mid-19th century , and was given completed form with Herbert Giles' Chinese–English dictionary of 1892.Wade–Giles was the most...
and Yale
Yale Romanization
The Yale romanizations are four systems created at Yale University for romanizing the four East Asian languages of Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Japanese...
romanizations of Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
use ⟨ts⟩ for an unaspirated
Aspiration (phonetics)
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
voiceless alveolar affricate
Voiceless alveolar affricate
The voiceless alveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨⟩ or ⟨⟩ . The voiceless alveolar affricate occurs in such languages as German, Cantonese, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Mandarin...
/ts/). Wade-Giles also uses ⟨ts⟩ for the aspirated equivalent /tsʰ/). These are equivalent to Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
⟨z⟩ and ⟨c⟩, respectively. The Hepburn romanization
Hepburn romanization
The is named after James Curtis Hepburn, who used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet in the third edition of his Japanese–English dictionary, published in 1887. The system was originally proposed by the in 1885...
of Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
uses ⟨ts⟩ for a voiceless alveolar affricate
Voiceless alveolar affricate
The voiceless alveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨⟩ or ⟨⟩ . The voiceless alveolar affricate occurs in such languages as German, Cantonese, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Mandarin...
[ts]). In native Japanese words, this sound only occurs before ⟨u⟩, but it may occur before other vowels in loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s. Other romanization systems write [tsu] as ⟨tu⟩. ⟨Ts⟩ in the orthography of Tagalog
Tagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
is used for [tʃ]. The sequence ⟨ts⟩ occurs in English, but it has no special function and simply represents a sequence of ⟨t⟩ and ⟨s⟩. It occurs word-initially only in some loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s, such as tsunami
Tsunami
A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
and tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
. Most English-speakers do not pronounce a /t/ in such words and pronounce them as if they were spelled ⟨sunami⟩ and ⟨sar⟩, respectively.
⟨⟩ was used in the orthography of medieval Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
for a voiceless postalveolar affricate
Voiceless postalveolar affricate
The voiceless palato-alveolar affricate or domed postalveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨⟩ or ⟨⟩...
[t͡ʃ]; this is now represented by ⟨tx⟩.
⟨tt⟩ is used in the orthography of Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
for /c/, and in romanized Kabyle
Kabyle language
Kabyle or Kabylian is a Berber language spoken by the Kabyle people north and northeast of Algeria. Estimates about the number of speakers range from 5 million to about 7 million speakers worldwide, the majority in Algeria.-Classification:The classification of Kabyle is Afro-Asiatic, Berber and...
for [ts]. In romanized Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, it represents the fortis sound [t͈], and in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) it is ejective /tʼ/.
⟨tw⟩ is used for /tʷ/ in the orthography of Arrernte.
⟨tx⟩ is used in the orthographies of Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
, Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, as well as some indigenous languages of South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, for a voiceless postalveolar affricate
Voiceless postalveolar affricate
The voiceless palato-alveolar affricate or domed postalveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨⟩ or ⟨⟩...
[t͡ʃ]. In the orthography of Nambikwara
Nambikwara language
The Nambikwara language is an indigenous language of Brazil, spoken by about 1200 Nambikwara people in the Mato Grosso state...
it represents a glottalized
Glottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
/tʔ/.
⟨ty⟩ is used in the Hungarian alphabet
Hungarian alphabet
The Hungarian alphabet is an extension of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Hungarian language.One sometimes speaks of the smaller and greater Hungarian alphabets, depending on whether or not the letters Q, W, X, Y are listed, which can only be found in foreign words and traditional...
for /cç/, a voiceless palatal affricate
Voiceless palatal affricate
The voiceless palatal affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The voiceless palatal affricate occurs in such languages as Hungarian and Skolt Sami, amongst others. The consonant is...
; in Hungarian, digraphs are considered single letters, and acronyms keep them intact. In the orthography of Xhosa, ⟨ty⟩ represents [tʲʼ]. In that of Shona
Shona language
Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore...
, it represents [tʃk]. In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. The Latin alphabet of the colonizers was inevitably used for the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the details of how the sounds were represented has...
such as Warlpiri
Warlpiri
The Warlpiri are a group of Indigenous Australians, many of whom speak the Warlpiri language. There are 5,000–6,000 Warlpiri, living mostly in a few towns and settlements scattered through their traditional land in Australia's Northern Territory, north and west of Alice Springs...
, Arrernte, and Pitjantjatjara, it represents a postalveolar stop, either voiceless [ṯ] or voiced [ḏ]. (This sound is also written ⟨tj⟩, ⟨dj⟩, ⟨dy⟩, ⟨c⟩, and ⟨j⟩).
⟨tz⟩ is used in the orthographies of Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
for the voiceless alveolar affricate
Voiceless alveolar affricate
The voiceless alveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨⟩ or ⟨⟩ . The voiceless alveolar affricate occurs in such languages as German, Cantonese, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Mandarin...
[t͡s]). In Basque, this sound is laminal and contrasts with the apical
Apical consonant
An apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue . This contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue .This is not a very common distinction, and typically applied only to fricatives...
affricate represented by ⟨ts⟩. It is also used in Catalan to represent the voiced alveolar affricate /d͡z/.
U
⟨u′⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, represents the glottalizedGlottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
or creaky
Creaky voice
In linguistics, creaky voice , is a special kind of phonation in which the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together; as a result, the vocal folds are compressed rather tightly, becoming relatively slack and compact...
vowel /ṵ/.
⟨uc⟩ is used in Nahuatl for /kʷ/ before a consonant. Before a vowel, ⟨cu⟩ is used.
⟨ue⟩ is found in many language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s. In English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, ⟨ue⟩ represents /ju/ or /u/ as in cue or true, respectively. In German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, it is equivalent to Ü
Ü
Ü, or ü, is a character which can be either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter U with an umlaut or a diaeresis...
, and as such may appear in proper names of people, representing [ʏ] or [yː].
⟨ug⟩ is used in Central Alaskan Yup'ik
Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
Central Alaskan Yup'ik or just Yup'ik is a Yupik language of the Eskimo language family, in turn a member of the Eskimo–Aleut language group, spoken in western and southwestern Alaska. Both in ethnic population and in number of speakers, Central Alaskan Yup'ik is the largest of the languages...
for /ɣʷ/.
⟨uh⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, represents the breathy or murmured
Breathy voice
Breathy voice is a phonation in which the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal voicing, but are held further apart, so that a larger volume of air escapes between them. This produces an audible noise...
vowel /ṳ/. In Nahuatl, it's used for /w/ before a consonant. Before a vowel, ⟨hu⟩ is used.
⟨ui⟩, in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, it stands for the diphthong [œy]. In Irish
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
and Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic language
Scottish Gaelic is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish....
, it's [ɪ] after a velarized
Velarization
Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of three diacritics:...
(broad) consonant, and in Irish, it is used for /ɪ/ /ʊ/ /iː/ /uː/ between a broad and a slender consonant. In German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, it represents the diphthong [ʊɪ̯], which appears only in interjection
Interjection
In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...
s such as "pfui!". In English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, it represents the sound [uː] in fruit, juice, suit and pursuit. However, in many English words, this does not hold. For example, it fails in words where the u in ui functions as a modifier of a preceding g (forcing g to remain [ɡ] rather than shifting to [dʒ] in guild, guilt, guilty, sanguine, Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...
, etc.), doing the same with c (in words like circuit and biscuit), or in cases of unusual etymological spelling or syllable separation (e.g. build, suite, and intuition). In Mandarin pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
, it is /wei̯/ after a consonant. (In initial position, this is spelled wei.) In French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, it is not a digraph, but a predictable sequence [ɥi], as in huit "eight".
⟨uí⟩ is used in Irish
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for /iː/ between a broad and a slender consonant.
⟨úi⟩ is used in Irish
Irish orthography
Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 6th century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham...
for /uː/ between a broad and a slender consonant.
⟨um⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for /ũ/, and in French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
to write /œ̃/ (/œm/ before a vowel).
⟨úm⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for /ũ/ before a consonant.
⟨un⟩ is used in many languages to write a nasal vowel
Nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...
. In Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
before a consonant, and in many West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
n languages, it is /ũ/, while in French it is /œ̃/, or among the younger generation /ɛ̃/. In pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
, /u̯ən/ is spelled un after a consonant, wen initially.
⟨ún⟩ is used in Portuguese orthography
Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
for /ũ/ before a consonant.
⟨ün⟩ is used in Tibetan Pinyin
Tibetan Pinyin
The SASM/GNC/SRC romanization of Tibetan, commonly known as Tibetan pinyin, is the official transcription system for the Tibetan language in the People's Republic of China for personal name and place names. It is based on the Lhasa dialect of Standard Tibetan and reflects the pronunciation very...
for /ỹ/.
⟨uŋ⟩ is used in Lakhota for the nasal vowel [ũ].
⟨uo⟩ is used in Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
to write the vowel /o/ in languages such as Yi
Yi language
Nuosu , also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language and, as such, is the only one taught in school, both in its oral and written form...
, where o stands for /ɔ/.
⟨uq⟩, in the practical orthography of the Taa language, represents the pharyngealized vowel /uˤ/.
⟨ur⟩ is used in Central Alaskan Yup'ik
Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
Central Alaskan Yup'ik or just Yup'ik is a Yupik language of the Eskimo language family, in turn a member of the Eskimo–Aleut language group, spoken in western and southwestern Alaska. Both in ethnic population and in number of speakers, Central Alaskan Yup'ik is the largest of the languages...
for /ʁʷ/, and in Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
to write the trill
Trill
Trill may refer to:* Trill , a type of musical ornament* Trill consonant, a type of sound used in some languages*Trill, a type of bird food-Fiction:* Trill , two symbiotic races of aliens in the fictional Star Trek universe...
ed vowel /ʙ̝/ in languages such as Yi
Yi language
Nuosu , also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language and, as such, is the only one taught in school, both in its oral and written form...
.
⟨uu⟩ is used in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
for /y/. In languages with phonemic long vowels, it may be used to write /uː/.
⟨uw⟩ occurs in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, as in ⟨uw⟩ (yours), duwen (to push)
⟨ux⟩ is used in Esperanto as an unofficial surrogate of ⟨ŭ
U
U is the twenty-first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter U ultimately comes from the Semitic letter Waw by way of the letter Y. See the letter Y for details....
⟩.
V
⟨vh⟩ represents [v] in the Shona languageShona language
Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore...
.
⟨vv⟩ is used in Central Alaskan Yup'ik
Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
Central Alaskan Yup'ik or just Yup'ik is a Yupik language of the Eskimo language family, in turn a member of the Eskimo–Aleut language group, spoken in western and southwestern Alaska. Both in ethnic population and in number of speakers, Central Alaskan Yup'ik is the largest of the languages...
for [f].
W
⟨wh⟩ is used in English languageEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
for /hw/, the continuation of the PIE
Pie
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....
labiovelar formerly spelled hw. Most English interrogative word
Interrogative word
In linguistics, an interrogative word is a function word used for the item interrupted in an information statement. Interrogative words are sometimes called wh-words because most of English interrogative words start with wh-...
s begin with this phoneme, whence their name wh-words. However, this digraph has usually come for /h/ when followed by the letter 'o', as in "who" or "whole". /hw/ has merged with /w/ in most varieties of English in the wine–whine merger
Phonological history of wh
The pronunciation of the digraph ‹wh› in English has varied with time, and can still vary today between different regions. According to the historical period and the accent of the speaker, it is most commonly realised as the consonant cluster or as...
. In the Māori language
Maori language
Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...
, ⟨wh⟩ represents [ɸ] or more commonly [f], with some regional variations approaching [h] or [hw]. In the Taranaki region, for some speakers, this represents a glottalized [wʼ]. In Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
, it represents [w̤], a murmured variant of [w] found in loan words.
⟨wr⟩ is now used by most English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
dialects for /r/. It once was not a digraph but represented the predictable sequence /wr/, a value it retains in a few dialects documented in the twentieth century.
⟨wu⟩ is used in Mandarin pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
to write the vowel /u/ in initial position, as in the name Wuhan
Wuhan
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, People's Republic of China, and is the most populous city in Central China. It lies at the east of the Jianghan Plain, and the intersection of the middle reaches of the Yangtze and Han rivers...
. It is sometimes found with this value in Romanized Korean as well, as in hanwu.
⟨ww⟩ in used in Haida (Bringhurst orthography) for glottalized /ˀw/.
⟨wx⟩ in used in Nambikwara
Nambikwara language
The Nambikwara language is an indigenous language of Brazil, spoken by about 1200 Nambikwara people in the Mato Grosso state...
for a glottalized
Glottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
/ˀw/.
X
⟨xg⟩ is used to write the click /ǁχ/ in NaroNaro language
Naro is a Khoe language spoken in the Ghanzi District of Botswana and in eastern Namibia, where it is sometimes called Nharo. There are about 14,000 speakers: 10,000 in Botswana and 4,000 in Namibia . This makes it probably the most-spoken of the Tshu–Khwe languages...
.
⟨xh⟩, in Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
, represents the sound of the voiced postalveolar affricate
Voiced postalveolar affricate
The voiced palato-alveolar affricate, also described as voiced domed postalveolar affricate, is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨⟩ , and the equivalent X-SAMPA representation is ⟨dZ⟩...
consonant /dʒ/, as in the surname Hoxha /ˈhɔdʒa/. In Pashto
Pashto language
Pashto , known as Afghani in Persian and Pathani in Punjabi , is the native language of the indigenous Pashtun people or Afghan people who are found primarily between an area south of the Amu Darya in Afghanistan and...
too it represents /dʒ/. In Zulu
Zulu language
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...
and Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
it represents the voiceless aspirated
Aspiration (phonetics)
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
alveolar lateral click [kǁʰ], for example in the name of the language Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
[ˈkǁʰoːsa]. In Walloon
Walloon language
Walloon is a Romance language which was spoken as a primary language in large portions of the Walloon Region of Belgium and some villages of Northern France until the middle of the 20th century. It belongs to the langue d'oïl language family, whose most prominent member is the French language...
to write a sound that is variously /h/ or /ʃ/, depending on the dialect. In Canadian Tlingit
Tlingit language
The Tlingit language ) is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada. It is a branch of the Na-Dené language family. Tlingit is very endangered, with fewer than 140 native speakers still living, all of whom are bilingual or near-bilingual in English...
it represents /χ/, which in Alaska is written x̱.
⟨xi⟩ is used in English for /kʃ/ in words such as flexion. (It is equivalent to ⟨c⟩ plus the digraph ⟨ti⟩, as in action.)
⟨xu⟩ was used in the Ossete Latin alphabet for /χʷ/.
⟨xw⟩ is used in the Tlingit language
Tlingit language
The Tlingit language ) is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada. It is a branch of the Na-Dené language family. Tlingit is very endangered, with fewer than 140 native speakers still living, all of whom are bilingual or near-bilingual in English...
for /xʷ/.
⟨xy⟩ is used in the Romanized Popular Alphabet
Romanized Popular Alphabet
The Romanized Popular Alphabet or Hmong RPA , is a system of romanization for the various dialects of the Hmong language. Created in Laos between 1951 and 1953 by a group of missionaries and Hmong advisers, it has gone on to become the most widespread system for writing the Hmong language in the...
used to write Hmong
Hmong language
Hmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
, where it represents the sound /ç/.
⟨xö⟩ is used as a letter of the Seri
Seri language
Seri is a language isolate spoken by the Seri people by between 716 and 900 people in two villages on the coast of Sonora, Mexico.-Classification:...
alphabet, where it represents a labialized uvular fricative (IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
: /χʷ/). It is placed between X
X
X is the twenty-fourth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Uses:In mathematics, x is commonly used as the name for an independent variable or unknown value. The usage of x to represent an independent or unknown variable can be traced back to the Arabic word šay شيء = “thing,” used in Arabic...
and Y
Y
Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet and represents either a vowel or a consonant in English.-Name:In Latin, Y was named Y Graeca "Greek Y". This was pronounced as I Graeca "Greek I", since Latin speakers had trouble pronouncing , which was not a native sound...
in alphabetical order.
⟨⟩ is used in Alaskan Tlingit
Tlingit language
The Tlingit language ) is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada. It is a branch of the Na-Dené language family. Tlingit is very endangered, with fewer than 140 native speakers still living, all of whom are bilingual or near-bilingual in English...
for /χʷ/, which in Canada is written xhw.
⟨xx⟩ is used in Hadza
Hadza language
Hadza is a language isolate spoken by fewer than a thousand Hadza people along the shores of Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, the last full-time hunter-gatherers in Africa. Despite the small number of speakers, language use is vigorous, with most children learning it...
for the glottalized click /ᵑǁˀ/.
Y
⟨yh⟩ was used in the pre-1985 orthography of GuineaOrthography for languages of Guinea (pre-1985)
Following independence, the government of Guinea adopted rules of transcription for the languages of Guinea based on the 26-letter basic Latin alphabet...
, for the "ejective y" or palatalized
Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
glottal stop
Glottal stop
The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
(IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
: /ʔʲ/) in Pular
Pular language
Pular is a Fula language spoken primarily by Fula people in the Fouta Jalon area in Guinea. It is also spoken in parts of Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, and Senegal. There are a small number of speakers in Mali. Pular is spoken by 2.5 million Guineans, about 28% of the national population. This makes...
(a Fula language
Fula language
The Fula or Fulani language is a language of West Africa. It is spoken as a first language by the and related groups from Senegambia and Guinea to Cameroon and Sudan...
). In the current orthography it is now written . In Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
it is used for the sound / j̈ /. In a handful of Australian languages, it represents a "dental semivowel".
⟨yi⟩ is used in Mandarin pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
and Romanized Korean to write the vowel /i/ in initial position.
⟨yk⟩ is used in Yanyuwa
Yanyuwa language
The Yanyuwa language is spoken by the Yanyuwa people around the settlement of Borroloola in the Northern Territory, Australia....
for a pre-velar
Velar consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
stop, /ɡ̟ ~ k̟/.
⟨ym⟩ is used in French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
to write the vowel sound /ɛ̃/ (/im/ before another vowel), as in thym /tɛ̃/ "thyme".
⟨yn⟩ is used in French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
to write the vowel sound /ɛ̃/ in some words of Greek origin, such as syncope /sɛ̃kɔp/ "syncope".
⟨yr⟩ is used in Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
to write the trill
Trill
Trill may refer to:* Trill , a type of musical ornament* Trill consonant, a type of sound used in some languages*Trill, a type of bird food-Fiction:* Trill , two symbiotic races of aliens in the fictional Star Trek universe...
ed vowel /r̝/ in languages such as Yi
Yi language
Nuosu , also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language and, as such, is the only one taught in school, both in its oral and written form...
.
⟨yu⟩ is used in romanized Chinese to write the vowel /y/. In Mandarin pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
it is used for /y/ in initial position, whereas in Cantonese Jyutping
Jyutping
Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
it is used for /y/ in non-initial position. (See jyu.)
⟨yw⟩ is used for /jʷ/ in Arrernte and for doubly articulated
Double articulation
In linguistics, the term double articulation or duality of patterning refers to the way in which the stream of speech can be divided into meaningful signs, which can be further subdivided into meaningless elements...
/ɥ/ in Yélî Dnye
Yélî Dnye language
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
.
⟨yx⟩ in used in Nambikwara
Nambikwara language
The Nambikwara language is an indigenous language of Brazil, spoken by about 1200 Nambikwara people in the Mato Grosso state...
for a glottalized
Glottalization
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice...
/ˀj/.
⟨yy⟩ is used in some languages such as Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
to write the long vowel /yː/. In Haida (Bringhurst orthography) it's glottalized /ˀj/.
Z
⟨zh⟩ represents the voiced postalveolar fricativeVoiced postalveolar fricative
The voiced palato-alveolar fricative or voiced domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is Z. An alternative symbol used in some...
([ʒ]), like the ⟨s⟩ in pleasure, in Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
and in Native American orthographies such as Navajo
Navajo language
Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...
. It is used for the same sound in some English-language dictionaries, as well as to transliterate Cyrillic ⟨ж⟩ and Persian ⟨ژ⟩ , which also represent postalveolar fricatives. ⟨Zh⟩ as a digraph is rare in European languages using the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
; in addition to Albanian it is found in Breton
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
in words that are pronounced with /z/ in some dialects and /h/ in others. In Hanyu Pinyin, ⟨zh⟩ represents the voiceless retroflex affricate
Voiceless retroflex affricate
The voiceless retroflex affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound are , sometimes simplified to , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ts`....
/tʂ/. When the Tamil language
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
is transliterated into the roman script, ⟨zh⟩ represents a retroflex approximant.
⟨zs⟩ is the last (forty-fourth) letter of the Hungarian alphabet
Hungarian alphabet
The Hungarian alphabet is an extension of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Hungarian language.One sometimes speaks of the smaller and greater Hungarian alphabets, depending on whether or not the letters Q, W, X, Y are listed, which can only be found in foreign words and traditional...
. Its name is "zsé" and represents /ʒ/, a voiced postalveolar fricative
Voiced postalveolar fricative
The voiced palato-alveolar fricative or voiced domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is Z. An alternative symbol used in some...
, similar to J in Jacques and si in vision. A few examples are rózsa "rose" and zsír "fat".
⟨zv⟩ is used in the Shona language
Shona language
Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore...
to write the whistled sibilant /z͎/. This was written ɀ from 1931 to 1955.
⟨zz⟩ is used in Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
for /dz/ in languages such as Yi
Yi language
Nuosu , also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language and, as such, is the only one taught in school, both in its oral and written form...
. It is also used with that value in romanized Kabyle
Kabyle language
Kabyle or Kabylian is a Berber language spoken by the Kabyle people north and northeast of Algeria. Estimates about the number of speakers range from 5 million to about 7 million speakers worldwide, the majority in Algeria.-Classification:The classification of Kabyle is Afro-Asiatic, Berber and...
. In medieval Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
, it stood for /s/. In Hadza
Hadza language
Hadza is a language isolate spoken by fewer than a thousand Hadza people along the shores of Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, the last full-time hunter-gatherers in Africa. Despite the small number of speakers, language use is vigorous, with most children learning it...
it is ejective /tsʼ/.
Other letters
⟨⟩, capital ⟨⟩, is used in many West AfricaWest Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
n languages for the nasal vowel /ɛ̃/. Ɛ is an "open e
Open E
Open E, Open-E or open e may refer to:* Open E tuning for guitars* Open-E , a software development company* Latin epsilon, a letter of the extended Latin alphabet...
".
⟨⟩, capital ⟨⟩, is used in many West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
n languages for the nasal vowel /ɔ̃/. Ɔ is an "open o
Open O
Open o is a letter of the extended Latin alphabet. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, it represents the open-mid back rounded vowel...
".
⟨œu⟩, capitalized ⟨Œu⟩, is used in French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
for the vowels /œ/ and /ø/. The first element of the digraph, œ, is itself is a ligature of o and e, and ⟨œu⟩ may also be written as the trigraph
Trigraph (orthography)
A trigraph is a group of three letters used to represent a single sound or a combination of sounds that does not correspond to the written letters combined. For example, in the word schilling, the trigraph sch represents the voiceless postalveolar fricative , rather than the consonant cluster...
⟨oeu⟩.
⟨ſh⟩, capitalized ⟨SH⟩ or sometimes ⟨ŞH⟩, was a digraph used in the Slovene Bohorič alphabet
Bohoric alphabet
The Bohorič alphabet was an orthography used for the Slovene language between the 16th and 19th centuries. Its name is derived from Adam Bohorič, who codified the alphabet in his book Articae Horulae Succisivae, published in 1584....
for /ʃ/. The first element, ⟨ſ⟩, is an archaic non-final form of the letter ⟨s⟩.
See also
- TrigraphTrigraph (orthography)A trigraph is a group of three letters used to represent a single sound or a combination of sounds that does not correspond to the written letters combined. For example, in the word schilling, the trigraph sch represents the voiceless postalveolar fricative , rather than the consonant cluster...
- TetragraphTetragraphA tetragraph is a sequence of four letters used to represent a single sound , or a combination of sounds, that do not necessarily correspond to the individual values of the letters. In German, for example, the tetragraph tsch represents the sound of the English digraph ch...
- PentagraphPentagraphA pentagraph is a sequence of five letters used to represent a single sound , or a combination of sounds, that do not necessarily correspond to the individual values of the letters...
- HexagraphHexagraphA hexagraph is a sequence of six letters used to represent a single sound , or a combination of sounds that do not correspond to the individual values of the letters...
- List of Latin letters