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Digraph (orthography)

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Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for a pronunciation key.

A digraph or bigraph is a pair of letters used to write one sound or a combination of sounds that does not correspond to the written letters combined. This is often, but not necessarily, a sound (or more precisely a phoneme) which cannot be expressed using a single letter in the alphabet used for writing.

Sometimes, when digraphs do not represent a new phoneme, they are a relic from an earlier period in the language's history when they did (or remain phonemic only in certain dialects, e.g. wh in English).

Some schemes of transliteration into the Roman alphabet make extensive use of digraphs (e.g. Cyrillic to Roman for English readers), while others rely solely on diacritics (e.g. Cyrillic to the modified Roman used for Turkish). To avoid ambiguity, transliteration based on diacritics is generally preferred in academic circles. Many languages, like Serbian and Turkish, have no digraphs, and so transliterations into these languages also cannot use digraphs.

Some alphabetic schemes count digraphs and trigraphs as distinct letters in themselves, even though they are composed of more than one letter, for example the Hungarian alphabet. Other languages that use them, such as English, make no such enumeration.

There are three kinds of digraphs: sequences, reversals (really a special kind of sequence) and doubled letters.

Contents

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Sequences

This is a group of two different letters in a specific order.

Examples from languages include:

See also French phonology
  • Modern Greek
    • αι (ai) represents /ɛ/
    • ει (ei) represents /i/
    • οι (oi) represents /i/
    • ου (ou) represents /u/
    • γκ (gk) represents /k/
    • μπ (mp) represents /b/
    • ντ (nt) represents /d/

Some of the above depend on context — see Greek alphabet.

  • Thai (transcription system)
    • kh represents /kʰ/
    • ph represents /pʰ/
    • th represents /tʰ/
    • ng represents /ŋ/
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Reversals

Reversals are sequences in which both possible orders of letters are common enough to be digraphs.

  • English
    • re corresponds to /ər/
    • le corresponds to /əl/
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Doubled letters

These have both letters the same. In some languages these indicate length, a stressed syllable or a new sound, and in some cases they are just part of the spelling convention. Ll is the most common in English, though it does not represent a different sound, but that is not the case in other languages; Welsh's ll is a voiceless lateral, and in Spanish it is a palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/ or else a palatal fricative. Ee and oo are common examples from English. Rr in Spanish and Italian indicates a trill, and forms a minimal pair with the single r. Italian's zz represents the affricate /ʦ/.

In Czech (and analogically in other Slavic languages) doubled letters occur in word-formation by prefixes and suffixes, and in composite words. Therefore, doubled letters are not considered as digraphs in Czech. Examples:

    • bezzubý (toothless)
    • cenný (valuable)
    • černooký (black-eyed)
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See also

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