Digraph (orthography) facts for kids

A digraph is a special pair of letters that work together to make just one sound. Think of it like two friends teaming up to do one job! The word "digraph" comes from ancient Greek words meaning "double" and "write."

In English, we use digraphs because some sounds don't have their own single letter. For example, the sound you hear at the start of "ship" (sh) or "chair" (ch) or "think" (th) are all made by two letters working as one. Even though the sounds /f/ (like in "fun") and /w/ (like in "water") have their own letters (f and w), sometimes we use digraphs like ph (as in "phone") or wh (as in "whale"). These digraphs often show us where the word came from, like its original language.

A digraph is different from a trigraph. A digraph uses only two letters, while a trigraph uses three letters to make one sound.

Common English Digraphs

Digraphs are very common in the English language. They help us spell words correctly and understand how they should sound. Here are some of the most common ones you'll find:

"Ch" Digraph

The digraph ch usually makes the sound /tʃ/. You can hear this sound in words like:

• chair
• cheese
• teacher

"Sh" Digraph

The digraph sh makes the sound /ʃ/. This is the sound you hear in words such as:

• ship
• shoe
• fish

"Th" Digraph

The digraph th can make two different sounds: /θ/ and /ð/.

• The /θ/ sound is voiceless, like in think or three. Your voice box doesn't vibrate.
• The /ð/ sound is voiced, like in this or that. Your voice box vibrates when you say it.

"Ph" Digraph

The digraph ph often makes the /f/ sound. This is common in words that come from Greek. Examples include:

• phone
• graph
• elephant

"Wh" Digraph

The digraph wh usually makes the /w/ sound. You can hear this in words like:

• whale
• what
• why

Sometimes, especially in older or regional accents, the wh sound might be slightly different, like a breathy /hw/ sound.

Digraphs in Other Languages

Digraphs are not just found in English! Many other languages use them too. They help different languages represent sounds that might not have a single letter in their alphabet.

For example, in Spanish, the ll used to be considered a digraph making a "y" sound, like in "tortilla." In Welsh, the ll digraph makes a unique sound that isn't found in English.

Images for kids

• 

  In Welsh, the digraph ⟨Ll⟩, ⟨ll⟩ fused for a time into a ligature.

See also

In Spanish: Dígrafo para niños