Pentagraph

Not to be confused with Pantograph.

A pentagraph (from the Greek: πέντε, pénte, "five" and γράφω, gráphō, "write") is a sequence of five letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds, that do not necessarily correspond to the individual values of the letters. In German, for example, the pentagraph tzsch represents the [tʃ] sound of the English digraph ch. Irish has a number of pentagraphs. English, like most languages, has none.

List of pentagraphs

Irish

Used between a velarized ("broad") and a platalized ("slender") consonant:

To write the sound /əu̯/ (in Donegal, /oː/):

⟨abhai⟩, ⟨amhai⟩, ⟨obhai⟩, ⟨odhai⟩, and ⟨oghai⟩

To write the sound /əi̯/ (in Donegal, /eː/):

⟨adhai⟩, ⟨aghai⟩

To write the sound /əi̯/:

⟨oidhi⟩ and ⟨oighi⟩

To write the sound /oː/:

⟨omhai⟩

Used between a slender and a broad consonant:

To write the sound /əu̯/ (in Donegal, /oː/):

⟨eabha⟩ and ⟨eamha⟩

To write the sound /əi̯/ (in Donegal, /eː/):

⟨eadha⟩

Used between two slender consonants:

To write the sound /əi̯/: ⟨eidhi⟩ and ⟨eighi⟩

German

⟨tzsch⟩ was once used in German to write the sound /tʃ/. It has largely been replaced by the tetragraph ⟨tsch⟩, but is still found in proper names such as Nietzsche.

Cyrillic

In the Cyrillic alphabet used for languages of the Caucasus, there are a couple five-letter sequences used for 'strong' (typically transcribed in the IPA as geminate, and doubled in Cyrillic) labialized consonants. Since both features are predictable from the orthography, their pentagraph status is dubious.

The pentagraph ⟨ххьӀв⟩ is used in Archi for [χːˤʷ]^[1]: a labialized ⟨ххьI⟩ [χːˤ], which is the 'strong' counterpart of the pharyngealized voiceless uvular fricative ([χˤ]), written using the trigraph ⟨хьI⟩, whose graph is in turn an unpredictable derivation of ⟨х⟩ ([χ]) and thus a true trigraph.

See also

• Digraph
• Trigraph
• Tetragraph
• Hexagraph
• List of Latin letters

References

1. ^ Archi Dictionary listing for ххьӀв