Gh (digraph)

Gh (digraph)

Gh is a digraph found in many languages.

In Latin-based orthographies

English

In English, gh historically represented IPA| [x] (the voiceless velar fricative, as in the Scottish Gaelic word "loch"). In modern English, "gh" is almost always either silent or pronounced IPA|/f/ (see ough). It is thought that before disappearing, the sound became partially or completely voiced to IPA| [ɣx] or IPA| [ɣ] , which would explain the new spelling - Old English used a simple "h" - and the diphthongization of any preceding vowel.

When gh occurs at the beginning of a word in English, it is pronounced /g/ as in "ghost", "ghastly", "ghoul", "ghetto", "ghee" etc. In this context, it does not derive from a former IPA|/x/.

Irish

In Irish, gh represents IPA|/ɣ/ (the voiced velar fricative) and IPA|/j/ (the voiced palatal approximant). Word-initially it represents the lenition of g, for example "mo ghiall" IPA| [mə jiəɫ] "my jaw" (cf. "giall" IPA| [gʲiəɫ] "jaw").

Italian

In Italian and Romanian, gh represents IPA|/g/ (the voiced velar plosive) before -e and -i.

Maltese

The Maltese language has a related digraph, għ. It is considered a single letter, called "għajn" (the same word for eye and spring, named for the corresponding Arabic letter 'ayin). It is usually silent, but it is necessary to be included because it changes the pronunciation of neighbouring letters, usually lengthening the succeeding vowels. At the end of a word (when not substituted by an apostrophe), it is pronounced the same as ħ.

Tlingit

In Canadian Tlingit "gh" represents IPA|/q/, which in Alaska is written "ǥ".

In romanization

In the romanization of various languages, "gh" usually represents the voiced velar fricative (/IPA|ɣ/). Like "kh" /x/, "gh" /IPA|ɣ/ may also be heard pharyngealized (like in several Caucasian and Native American languages).In transcriptions of Indo-Aryan languages such as Sanskrit and Hindi, as well as their ancestor, Proto-Indo-European, "gh" represents a voiced velar aspirated plosive /IPA|gʰ/ (often referred to as a breathy murmurred voiced velar plosive)

ee also

* Phonological history of English consonants
* Yogh


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Digraph (Linguistik) — Digraph bezeichnet in der Graphematik zwei Buchstaben, die für eine Lautung stehen. Für mehr als zwei Buchstaben verwendet man griechische Zahlwörter als Präfixe, zum Beispiel Trigraph oder Tetragraph. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Begriffsbestimmung 2… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Digraph — steht für: Digraph (Linguistik), eine Kombination von zwei Buchstaben, die für ein Phonem, eine Silbe oder ein Morphem stehen Digraph (Informatik), eine Kombination aus zwei Zeichen für ein im verwendeten Zeichensatz nicht verfügbares… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Digraph — may refer to: Digraph (orthography), a pair of characters used together to represent a single sound, such as sh in English Typographical ligature, the joining of two letters as a single glyph, such as æ Digraph (computing), a two character… …   Wikipedia

  • Digraph — Di graph, n. [Gr. di = di s twice + ? a writing, ? to write.] Two signs or characters combined to express a single articulated sound; as ea in head, or th in bath. [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • digraph — 1788, in linguistics, from Gk. di twice (see DI (Cf. di ) (1)) + graphe writing (see GRAPHY (Cf. graphy)). In mathematics, from 1955, a contraction of directed graph …   Etymology dictionary

  • digraph — is a combination of two letters which together represent a single speech sound, e.g. dg in judge and ea in head. Certain digraphs are printed as ligatures, in which the two letters are joined, e.g. æ …   Modern English usage

  • digraph — ► NOUN ▪ a combination of two letters representing one sound, as in ph …   English terms dictionary

  • digraph — [dī′graf΄] n. [ DI 1 + GRAPH] a combination of two letters functioning as a unit to represent one sound (Ex.: r ea d, br ea d, ch in, gra ph ic) digraphic adj. digraphically adv …   English World dictionary

  • Digraph (orthography) — For other uses, see Digraph (disambiguation). In Welsh, the digraph ⟨Ll⟩, ⟨ll⟩ fused for a time into a ligature. Further information: list of Latin digraphs and list of Cyrillic digraphs A digraph or digram (from the Greek: δίς dís… …   Wikipedia

  • Digraph (mathematics) — A directed graph or digraph G is an ordered pair G := (V, A) with * V is a set, whose elements are called vertices or nodes, * A is a set of ordered pairs of vertices, called directed edges, arcs, or arrows.It differs from an ordinary, undirected …   Wikipedia

  • Digraph (Informatik) — Als Digraph bezeichnet man in der Informatik eine Kombination aus zwei Zeichen, welche als Ersatz für ein einzelnes Zeichen stehen, welches nicht im verwendeten Zeichensatz zur Verfügung steht. Verschiedene Programmiersprachen machen hiervon… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”