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For other uses, see Digraph.
A digraph, bigraph[citation needed], or digram (from the Greek: δίς, dís, "double" and γράφω, gráphō, "write") is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme (distinct sound) or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined. The sound is often, but not necessarily, one which cannot be expressed using a single character in the orthography used by the language. Usually, the term "digraph" is reserved for graphemes whose pronunciation is always or nearly always the same. When digraphs do not represent a special sound, they may be relics from an earlier period of the language when they did have a different pronunciation, or represent a distinction which is made only in certain dialects, like wh in English. They may also be used for purely etymological reasons, like rh in English. In some language orthographies, like that of Serbian (when written with the Latin alphabet) or Czech (ch), digraphs are considered individual letters, meaning that they have their own place in the alphabet, in the standard orthography, and cannot be separated into their constituent graphemes; e.g.: when sorting, abbreviating or hyphenating. In others, like English, this is not the case. Some schemes of Romanization make extensive use of digraphs (e.g. Cyrillic to Roman for English readers), while others rely solely on diacritics (e.g. Cyrillic to the modified Roman used for Turkish). To avoid ambiguity, transliteration based on diacritics is generally preferred in academic circles. Many languages, like Serbian (written in Cyrillic) and Turkish, have no digraphs, and so transliterations into these languages also cannot use digraphs.
[edit] Types of digraphsThere are two main kinds of digraphs, sequences and double letters. [edit] SequencesThis is a pair of different letters in a specific order. Examples in English are:
Digraphs may also be composed of vowels. Common examples in English are:
For further information on English, see English orthography. In Dutch, the digraph ij, which often resembles a y (or a ÿ) in handwriting, represents the diphthong /ɛɪ/. Opinions are divided on whether it should be considered part of the alphabet. [edit] Double lettersThese are pairs of identical letters that have a special pronunciation. In some languages they indicate consonant length or vowel length, a stressed syllable or a new sound, but in other cases they are just part of the spelling convention. Ll is the most common in English, though it does not represent a different sound from l, being essentially an etymological digraph. In Welsh, however, it stands for a voiceless lateral, and in Spanish it stands for a palatal consonant. Ee and oo are common English digraphs made up of vowels. Some more examples:
[edit] AmbiguitySome letter pairs should not be interpreted as digraphs, but appear due to compounding, like in hogshead and cooperate. This is often not marked in any way (it is an exception which must simply be memorized), but some authors indicate it either by breaking up the digraph with a hyphen, as in hogs-head, co-operate, or with a diaeresis mark, as in coöperate, though usage of a diaeresis is extremely rare in English. In Czech also (and analogically in other Slavic languages), double letters may appear in compound words, but they are not considered digraphs. Examples: bezzubý (bez + zubý, toothless), cenný (cen + ný, valuable), černooký (černo + oký, black-eyed). [edit] Discontinuous digraphsThe pair of letters making up a phoneme are not always adjacent. This is the case with English silent e. For example, the sequence a…e has the sound /eɪ/ in English cake. This is the result of historical sound changes: cake was originally /kakə/, the open syllable /ka/ came to be pronounced with a long vowel, and later the final schwa dropped off, leaving /kaːk/. Later still, the vowel /aː/ became /eɪ/. However, alphabets may also be designed with discontinuous digraphs. In the Tatar Cyrillic alphabet, for example, the letter ю is used to write both /ju/ and /jy/. Usually the difference is evident from the rest of the word, but when it is not, the sequence ю...ь is used for /jy/, as in юнь /jyn/ 'cheap'. The Indic alphabets are famous for their discontinuous vowels, such as Thai เ…อ /ɤː/ in เกอ /kɤː/. Technically, however, these are diacritics, not full letters; whether they are digraphs is thus a matter of definition. [edit] Digraphs versus lettersIn some languages, digraphs and trigraphs are counted as distinct letters in themselves, and assigned to a specific place in the alphabet, separate from that of the sequence of characters which composes them, in orthography or collation. Other languages, such as English, make no such convention, and split digraphs into their constituent letters for collation purposes. A few language alphabets that include digraphs are:
[edit] In non-Latin alphabetsDigraphs are found in alphabets other than the Latin alphabet. [edit] GreekModern Greek has the following digraphs:
These are called "diphthongs" in Greek; in Classical times they did represent diphthongs, and the name has stuck.
[edit] ArabicBecause vowels are not generally written, digraphs are rare in abjads like Arabic. For example, if sh were used for š, then the sequence sh could mean either ša or saha. However, digraphs are used for the aspirated and murmured consonants (those spelled with h-digraphs in Latin transcription) in languages of South Asia such as Urdu that are written in the Arabic script. This is accomplished with a special form of the letter h which is only used for aspiration digraphs, as seen with the following connecting (kh) and non-connecting (ḍh) consonants:
[edit] CyrillicModern Russian and other Slavic languages written in the Cyrillic alphabet makes little use of digraphs apart from <дж> for /dʐ/ (in loan words only in Russian, but used for native words in Bulgarian), <дз> for /dz/ (in loans), and <жж>, <сж>, or <зж> for the uncommon Russian phoneme /ʑː/. Since <дж> and <дз> have decomposable pronunciations, and <сж>, <зж> reflect a common phonological rule, only <жж> is a true digraph. Cyrillic only has large numbers of digraphs when used to write non-Slavic languages, especially Caucasian languages. [edit] GeorgianThe Georgian alphabet uses a few diacritics when writing other languages. For example, in Svan, /ø/ is ჳე "we", and /y/ is ჳი "wi". [edit] HangulAs was the case in Greek, Korean has vowels descended from diphthongs that are still written with two letters. These digraphs, ㅐ /ɛ/ and ㅔ /e/ (also ㅒ /jɛ/, ㅖ /je/), and in some dialects ㅚ /ø/ and ㅟ /y/, all end in historical ㅣ /i/. Hangul was designed with a great number of digraphs to represent Chinese. These became obsolete, but the doubled consonants were resurrected in the 19th century to write consonants which had not existed when hangul was devised: ㅃ /p͈/, ㄸ /t͈/, ㅉ /t͈ɕ/, ㄲ /k͈/, ㅆ /s͈/. [edit] ThaiIndic scripts do not use digraphs for consonants. However, most have compound vowel diacritics. Though perhaps not technically digraphs, since they are not full letters, a number of them have the appearance of full letters on the page. This can be illustrated with Thai:
[edit] YiddishThe Hebrew has no digraphs for writing Hebrew, except that תס and תש are sometimes found for צ /ts/. However, in Yiddish there are also דז /dz/, זש /ʒ/, תש /tʃ/, and דזש (literally dzš) for /dʒ/. [edit] See also
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