Talk:Trigraph (orthography)

Diphthongs
It seems debatable if a diphthong is one sound. By IPA rules they are indicated by two symbols. So the mentioned trigraph "igh" is not a good example. It does not use three letters to represent one sound&minus;Woodstone 18:07, 2005 Mar 28 (UTC)


 * It is one sound phonologically, just as an affricate is. It's arguable whether ay for /ai/ or tš for /tʃ/ are digraphs (I don't know whether they technically count or not), but ie for /ai/ and ch for /tʃ/ do count. The same thing applies for trigraphs. You might want to argue that igh is the vowel i followed by a silent gh, but since night is not pronounced nit, I don't know if this is viable. kwami (talk) 23:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Scr, Tch
Is 'scratch' a trigraph? The 'scr' being the possible trigraph. What about the 'tch' at the end is that one too?

"Scr" is one sound but 3 phonemes, so I don't THINK that would work, but I'm no linguist. I do think the "tch" would work.
 * —Cameron Nedland


 * Agreed. A trigraph is not analyzable. scr /skr/ = s /s/ + c /k/ + r /r/. But you can't analyze tch as t + c + h or even t + ch. kwami (talk) 23:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Why can't you can analyze "tch" as "t + ch"? 71.174.188.111 (talk) 00:32, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Quadragraph
If no one objects, I'm thinking about making a Quadragrph article.Cameron Nedland 02:23, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Tetragraphs??
Digraphs and trigraphs are quite common, but do you know of any tetragraphs in any languages?? Georgia guy 01:24, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


 * In French there are lots of tetragraphs, caused by verb endings. In ils disent (they say) the ent is silent, forming a tretragraph sent representing [z]. In the past tense this becomes ils disaient where the pentagraph aient is pronounced . &minus;Woodstone 10:09, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that's better analyzed as a series of silent letters. You don't spell /zut/ "sentout". There are so few tetragraphs and pentagraphs, however, that it may be best to cover them here. kwami (talk) 23:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Swahili ng'
Swahili ng' is considered a digraph or a trigraph? Why it isn't neither in digraph nor in trigraph articles? --81.38.182.40 (talk) 22:25, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I've added it to the template under trigraph. However, please correct me if I'm wrong: since the apostrophe is not a letter in Swahili (unlike, say, Hawaiian), I don't think ng’ is technically a trigraph. But I'm not going to worry about it for now. kwami (talk) 23:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

sch
is also Swedish, same value as in German. 92.224.97.92 (talk) 16:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC) Note: German is pronounced /ʃ/ while Swedish is pronounced /ɧ/. — Knyȝt (talk) 22:26, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

to do
Juǀʼhoansi


 * ds’ ts’ dšh tšh dš’ tš’ kx’ tx’
 * was used in the 1975 orthography of Juǀʼhoansi for.


 * ’gh ds’ ts’ djh tjh dj’ tj’ tg’ tsg djg tjg dch c’h nch dcg cg’ dqh q’h nqh dqg cq’ dçh ç’h nçh dçg çg’ x’h nxh dxg cx’
 * was used in the 1987 orthography of Juǀʼhoansi for.


 * dsh tsh dch tch dzx tsx djx tcx aqn oqn
 * (1994)

— kwami (talk) 12:31, 5 January 2012 (UTC)