Editing Digraph (orthography) (section)

{{Short description|Pair of characters used to write one phoneme}}
{{distinguish|Digraphia|Directed graph}}
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[[File:Lldigraph.png|thumb|In [[Welsh orthography|Welsh]], the [[Ll|digraph {{vr|ll}}]] fused for a time into a [[Ligature (writing)|ligature]].]]

A '''digraph''' ({{etymology|grc|''{{Wikt-lang|grc|δίς}}'' ({{grc-transl|δίς}})|double||''{{Wikt-lang|grc|γράφω}}'' ({{grc-transl|γράφω}})|to write}}) or '''digram''' is a pair of [[character (symbol)|character]]s used in the [[orthography]] of a [[language]] to write either a single [[phoneme]] (distinct sound), or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined.

Some digraphs represent phonemes that cannot be represented with a single character in the writing system of a language, like {{vr|[[ch (digraph)|ch]]}} in Spanish ''chico'' and ''ocho''. Other digraphs represent phonemes that can also be represented by single characters. A digraph that shares its pronunciation with a single character may be a relic from an earlier period of the language when the digraph had a different pronunciation, or may represent a distinction that is made only in certain [[dialect]]s, like the English {{vr|[[English wh|wh]]}}. Some such digraphs are used for purely [[etymology|etymological]] reasons, like {{vr|[[ph (digraph)|ph]]}} in French.

In some orthographies, digraphs (and occasionally [[trigraph (orthography)|trigraph]]s) are considered individual [[letter (alphabet)|letter]]s, which means that they have their own place in the [[alphabet]] and cannot be separated into their constituent places [[grapheme]]s when [[collation|sorting]], [[abbreviation|abbreviating]], or [[hyphen]]ating words. Digraphs are used in some [[romanization]] schemes, e.g. {{vr|[[zh (digraph)|zh]]}} as a romanisation of [[Russian language|Russian]] {{vr|[[ж]]}}.

The [[Capitalization|capitalisation]] of digraphs can vary, e.g. {{vr|sz}} in Polish is capitalized {{vr|Sz}} and {{vr|kj}} in [[Norwegian orthography|Norwegian]] is capitalized {{vr|Kj}}, while {{vr|[[IJ (digraph)|ĳ]]}} in [[Dutch orthography|Dutch]] is capitalized {{vr|Ĳ}} and word initial {{vr|dt}} in [[Irish orthography|Irish]] is capitalized {{vr|dT}}.

Digraphs may develop into [[ligature (writing)|ligature]]s, but this is a distinct concept: a ligature involves the graphical fusion of two characters into one, e.g. when {{vr|o}} and {{vr|e}} become {{vr|œ}}, e.g. as in [[French orthography|French]] {{lang|fr|cœur}} "heart".