Digraphthat's when two letters make a single sound! Test the digraphs of these words: assair, bahuhthe, therroz, whaterotic.
Realize that when pronouncing ss in thessair, huh in bahuhO, rr in therroz and what in whaterido, do we emit only one phoneme?
So, when this happens, we call it a digraph, which comprises the following group of letters: lh, huh, tea, rr, ss, what and gu (followed by e or i), sc, sec, xc, xs.
Note the words: hot and following. The first has the digraph “qu”. However, the second does not understand a digraph, since the vowel “u” is pronounced.
The same happens with the duo “blindness” and “bear”. The “u” in the first term is not pronounced and, therefore, it is a digraph, unlike what happens in the second term.
So watch out for the digraphs “gu” and “qu” followed by e or i!
Let's look at some examples of words with digraphs:
garlic = lh
rain = tea
nest = nh
car = rr
watch = ss
eagle = gu
that = what
born = sc
down = sc
grow up = sec
exception = xc
reappear = xs
In addition to these, there are the so-called vowel digraphs, which are formed by nasal vowels followed by “m” or “n” (am, an, in, en, im, in, om, on, a and un): support, ancient, remember, find, import, indicate, shoulder, wave, navel, background.
Interesting: An observation that we can make is that every second letter of the digraph does not comprise a phoneme, but a diacritical letter, that is, it determines what kind of sound should be emitted. Remember also that the “h” is not a phoneme, but a letter, considered etymological, that is, it remains in our language for reasons of origin.
IMPORTANT: Never confuse consonant cluster with digraph, because in the first there is the meeting of two consonants with distinct sounds (cartela = rt) and in the second, as we have seen, there is the pronunciation of only one sound (mass).
By Sabrina Vilarinho
Graduated in Letters
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