Concept in Definition ABC

Certain letters combined form a single sound and when this occurs it is called a digraph. On Spanish There are five digraphs: ch, ll, gu, qu and rr. Words like chocolate, cry, guitar, maybe or road are formed with them.

Traditionally these combinations were considered letters of the alphabet, but in the latter normative 2001 spelling distinction is made between letters and digraphs. The RAE distinguishes between simple graphic signs (the 27 letters of the alphabet) and the five digraphs. This regulatory change has as purpose the matching with the Latin alphabet universal.

Examples in other languages

In Catalan there are seven digits and they are the following: ll, rr, ss, ny, qu, gu and ix. The pronunciation of these combinations presents some differences with respect to Spanish (for example, the double s is deaf, the ny It is equivalent to the ñ in Spanish and the digraph ix has a sound that does not exist properly in Spanish and is more like the pronunciation of sh on English).

In English there are also digraphs and they are especially important to pronounce words correctly. With the digraph ch the words chair or cheese are formed, with sh forms fish or dish, with ph you write phone or elephant and with th you write thread or thumb.

In French there are a total of eight digits: oi, au, eau, ai, ei, eu, oeu and ou (in this case the combination of three letters or trigraphs is also included). In Portuguese they are: gu, qu, nh, ss, rr, sc, sç, lh and xc.

Each language has its own phonetic rules

The digraphs in each language do not have any difficulty for native speakers, but they become a problem for those who learn a second idiom.

- English people have difficulty pronouncing the rr sound of Spanish.

- It is difficult for Spanish speakers to pronounce the ix or ny sounds of Catalan.

- Those who learn English as a second language come across the digraphs th, sk, sw or sp that are not easy to pronounce.

- The digraph ou in French is equivalent to the sound u in Spanish.

- The sound of the digraph lh in Portuguese is similar to ll in Spanish and nh is equivalent to ñ.

These examples remind us that each language has its own phonetic rules. Keep in mind that phonemes are the foundation of any language. Most languages ​​are made up of a similar number of phonemes, between 25 and 40. On the other hand, to emit speech sounds it is necessary to have a certain practice in phonation, that is, the muscular work related to sounds.

Photo: Fotolia - Drobot Dean