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Gh is a digraph
Digraph (orthography)

A digraph, bigraph , or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined....
 found in many languages.

a class="link1" onMouseover='showByLink("m7084194",this)' onMouseout='hide("m7084194")'href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/English_language">English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
, gh historically represented (the voiceless velar fricative
Voiceless velar fricative

The voiceless velar fricative, informally known as the hard ch, is a type of consonantal sound used in some Speech communication languages....
, as in the Scottish Gaelic word loch). In modern English, "gh" is almost always either silent or pronounced (see ough
Ough (combination)

Ough is a tetragraph often seen in words in the English language. In Middle English, where the spelling arose, it was probably pronounced with a back rounded vowel and a velar fricative, e.g., or ....
). It is thought that before disappearing, the sound became partially or completely voiced to or , which would explain the new spelling - Old English
Old English language

Old English is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century....
 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.






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Gh is a digraph
Digraph (orthography)

A digraph, bigraph , or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined....
 found in many languages.

In Latin-based orthographies


English

In English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
, gh historically represented (the voiceless velar fricative
Voiceless velar fricative

The voiceless velar fricative, informally known as the hard ch, is a type of consonantal sound used in some Speech communication languages....
, as in the Scottish Gaelic word loch). In modern English, "gh" is almost always either silent or pronounced (see ough
Ough (combination)

Ough is a tetragraph often seen in words in the English language. In Middle English, where the spelling arose, it was probably pronounced with a back rounded vowel and a velar fricative, e.g., or ....
). It is thought that before disappearing, the sound became partially or completely voiced to or , which would explain the new spelling - Old English
Old English language

Old English is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century....
 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 .

Irish

In Irish
Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic languages of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people....
, gh represents (the voiced velar fricative
Voiced velar fricative

The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in various Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , not to be confused with , the IPA symbol for a close-mid back unrounded vowel), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is G....
) and (the voiced palatal approximant
Palatal approximant

The 'palatal approximant' is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ....
). Word-initially it represents the lenition
Irish initial mutations

Irish language, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphology and syntax conditions....
 of g, for example mo ghiall "my jaw" (cf. giall "jaw").

Italian

In Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
 and Romanian
Romanian language

Romanian or Daco-Romanian ; self-designation: limba rom?na, ) is a Romance languages spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova....
, gh represents (the voiced velar plosive
Voiced velar plosive

The voiced velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is g....
) before -e and -i.

Maltese

The Maltese language
Maltese language

Maltese is the national language of Malta, and a co-official Languages of Malta alongside English language,while also serving as an Languages of the European Union European Union, the only Semitic languages so distinguished....
 has a related digraph, gh. It is considered a single letter, called ghajn (the same word for eye
Eye

Eyes are Organ that detect light, and send signals along the optic nerve to the visual system and other areas of the brain. Complex optical systems with resolving power have come in ten fundamentally different forms, and 96% of animal species possess a complex optical system....
 and spring
Spring (hydrosphere)

A spring is a point where groundwater flows out from the ground, and is thus where the aquifer surface meets the ground surface.Dependent upon the constancy of the water source , a spring may be ephemeral or Perennial stream ....
, named for the corresponding Arabic letter 'ayin
Ayin

' or ' is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic language, Hebrew language and Arabic alphabet ....
). 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 h
H

H is the eighth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in both British English and American English is aitch , though it is also pronounced haitch in some dialects ....
.

Tlingit

In Canadian Tlingit
Tlingit language

The Tlingit language is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada. It is a branch of the Na-Den? languages family. Tlingit is very endangered language, with fewer than 140 native speakers still living, all of whom are bilingual or near-bilingual in English....
 gh represents , which in Alaska is written g.

In romanization

In the romanization
Romanization

In linguistics, romanization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Latin alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system ....
 of various languages, gh usually represents the voiced velar fricative
Voiced velar fricative

The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in various Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , not to be confused with , the IPA symbol for a close-mid back unrounded vowel), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is G....
 (//). Like kh /x/, gh // may also be heard pharyngealized (like in several Caucasian
Languages of the Caucasus

The languages of the Caucasus are a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea....
 and Native American languages
Indigenous languages of the Americas

Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas....
). In transcriptions of Indo-Aryan languages
Indo-Aryan languages

The Indo-Aryan languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages family.SIL International in a 2005 estimate counted a total of 209 varieties, the largest in terms of native speakers being Hindustani language , Bangla language , Punjabi language , Marathi , Gujarati language , Nepali language , Oriya language , Sindhi language , Sinhal...
 such as Sanskrit
Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India....
 and Hindi
Hindi

Standard Hindi, also known as High Hindi, Nagari Hindi or Literary Hindi is a Standard language register of Hindi. It is one of the 22 official languages of India, and is used, along with English language, for administration of the central government....
, as well as their ancestor, Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, linguistic reconstruction common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans....
, gh represents a voiced velar aspirated plosive // (often referred to as a breathy murmurred voiced velar plosive)

See also

  • Phonological history of English consonants
    Phonological history of English consonants

    The phonological history of English consonants is part of the phonological history of the English language in terms of changes in the phonology of consonants....
  • Yogh
    Yogh

    The letter yogh was used in Middle English and Middle Scots, representing y and various velar consonant phonemes. Velars are sounds that are usually made when the back of the tongue is pressed against the soft palate....