Nh (digraph)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

Nh is a digraph of the Latin alphabet, a combination of N and H.

Contents

[edit] African languages

In some African languages, nh is be used to represent a dental nasal (IPA: /n̪/).

In the pre-1984 orthography of Guinea for its languages, nh represented the velar nasal, (IPA: /ŋ/), which is currently written ŋ.

[edit] Asian languages

[edit] Japanese

Early romanizations of Japanese sometimes used nh to represent a prepalatal nasal (IPA: [ɲ̟]). Today, this is usually written ny.

[edit] Vietnamese

In Vietnamese, nh represents a palatal nasal (IPA: /ɲ/) word-initially. It was formerly considered a distinct letter, but is no longer. When this digraph occurs word-finally, its phonetic value varies between dialects:

  • In the northern dialect, it represents a velar nasal (ŋ), just as ng does; however, its presence may alter the pronunciation of the preceding vowel. For example, banh is pronounced /baɪŋ/, as opposed to /baŋ/ (bang).
  • In the southern dialect, it represents an alveolar nasal (n) and shortens the preceding vowel.

The Vietnamese alphabet inherited this digraph from the Portuguese alphabet.

[edit] Australian languages

In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, nh represents a dental nasal (IPA: /n̪/). Due to allophony, it may also represent a palatal nasal (IPA: [ɲ]).

[edit] European languages

[edit] Occitan

In Occitan, nh represents a palatal nasal (IPA: /ɲ/).

[edit] Portuguese

In Portuguese, nh represents a palatal nasal (IPA: /ɲ/). It is not considered a distinct letter. Portuguese borrowed this digraph from Occitan.[citation needed]

[edit] Galician

In Galician, nh represents a velar nasal (IPA: /ŋ/). It is not considered a distinct letter.

[edit] Welsh

In Welsh, nh is a voiceless "n".

[edit] External links

The Latin alphabet
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz
history • palaeography • derivations • diacritics • punctuation • numerals • Unicode • ISO 646 • list of letters
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../n/h/_/Nh_%28digraph%29.html"