Trigraph (orthography)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A trigraph (from the Greek words treis = three and graphein = write) 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 sound of "sh". In the word "night", "igh" represents the vowel (IPA: /aɪ/) (a diphthong). Other examples are "beautiful" (eau), "adieu" (ieu).
Languages other than English also use trigraphs. Some languages use trigraphs to represent their native triphthongs when using plain Latin alphabet without diacritics.
An example of a trigraph is the Hungarian letter dzs. Even though composed of three characters, it is only one letter. It is prononounced like an English "j".
For more explanations on trigraphs, see the digraph article.
Longer "multigraphs" are also known. It is quite possible that the longest one is an "octagraph" schtschj used in German language to represent a Russian language palatalized phoneme щь (which is represented by a digraph in Russian). According to the Peterburg phonetics school, this is not a regular phoneme of the Russian language, so the record may as well be attributed to the "heptagraph" schtsch for the phoneme щ.[1]
The only trigraph in German is "sch", which is equivalent to the English "sh".
[edit] References
[edit] See also
| Digraphs |
Aa aa Ae ae Ai ai Au au Aw aw Ay ay Bh bh Ch ch C̱h c̱h Ck ck CÖ cö Cs cs Cu cu Dd dd Dh dh Dj dj Dx dx Dz dz Dž dž Ea ea Ee ee Ei ei Eu eu Ew ew Ey ey Ff ff Fh fh Gb gb Gh gh Għ għ Gi gi Gj gj Gn gn Gy gy Hs hs Hu hu Ie ie IJ ij Jö jö Kh kh Kp kp Ku ku Lh lh Lj lj Ll ll Ly ly Mb mb Mh mh Mp mp Nd nd Ng ng Nh nh Nj nj Nk nk Ns ns Nt nt Ny ny Nz nz Oa oa Oe oe Oi oi Oo oo Ou ou Ow ow Oy oy Ph ph Qu qu Rd rd Rh rh Rl rl Rn rn Rr rr Rt rt Rz rz Sh sh Sv sv Sy sy Sz sz Th th Tj tj Tr tr Ts ts Tx tx Ty ty Tz tz Ue ue Ui ui Wh wh Xh xh Xö xö Yh yh Yk yk Zh zh Zs zs Zv zv |
|---|---|
| Trigraphs |
Dzs dzs Ngb ngb Ngh ngh Ngk ngk Nkp nkp Nth nth Nyk nyk Rnd rnd Sch sch |
| Tetragraphs |
 |
This linguistics article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
