GH: Difference between revisions
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'''GH, gh''' is a digraph (a two letters grapheme) used in various languages with different values, especially in [[English]], [[Irish Gaelic]], [[Scottish Gaelic]], [[Cornish]], [[Italian]], [[Romanian]], [[Friulian]] | '''GH, gh''' is a digraph (a two letters grapheme) used in various languages with different values, especially in [[English]], [[Irish Gaelic]], [[Scottish Gaelic]], [[Cornish]], [[Italian]], [[Romanian]], [[Friulian]] and [[Corsican]]. | ||
==Use in English== | ==Use in English== |
Revision as of 12:50, 25 December 2008
GH, gh is a digraph (a two letters grapheme) used in various languages with different values, especially in English, Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Italian, Romanian, Friulian and Corsican.
Use in English
GH is a notorious digraph in English in such words as nîght and cóugh (pronounced *nîte and *cóff: the accents show pronunciation: see English phonemes). It is the sorry relic of a sound (IPA χ) no longer pronounced except in exclamations of disgust, úgh! yeùgh!, the sound of Scottish ch in lóch (which in Ireland is indeed spelt lóugh) - or mutated into the sound of [f] and 'ph'.
It is pronounced [f] in: tróugh, cóugh, Góugh, enoúgh, toúgh, roúgh, sloúgh skin (cf. slòugh swamp, and the English town Slòugh, both *slòu).
More often it is silent as in slòugh swamp - with quite a variety of preceding vowel sounds and spellings: ŏught, sŏught, bŏught, cåught, nåughty, Våughan, Våughn, dôugh, èight, nèigh, wèigh, slèigh ride (= slây kill), wèight heavy (= wâit time), frèight, heîght, bòugh, throûgh, thôugh, Búrrôughs, sîght, nîght, nîgh, and ough is even sometimes a schwa [ə] as in BrE bòrough, Scàrborough and thòrough, which in AmE are bòrôugh, Scàrborôugh, and thòrôugh, rhyming with fúrrôw. British English pronounces fürlôugh this way too.
gh uniquely sounds like [p] in híccoúgh (a variant spelling of híccup). In other words the digraph merely represents a hard g, whether Germanic, as in ghôst, ghoûl, ghāstly, or Italian, as in spaghéttì; and h serves to distinguish dínghy boat (which can have hard g or silent g, but always the ng sound) from díngy dirty (soft g: *dínjy).