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In English orthography, the letter k normally reflects the pronunciation of [] and the letter g normally is pronounced /ɡ/ or "hard" g , as in goose, gargoyle and game; /d͡ʒ/ or "soft" g , generally before i or e , as in giant, ginger and geology; or /ʒ/ in some words of French origin, such as rouge, beige and genre.
In an alphabetic writing system, a silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation. In linguistics, a silent letter is often symbolised with a null sign U+2205 ∅ EMPTY SET , which resembles the Scandinavian letter Ø .
The song "Counting Stars" by OneRepublic features the line "hope is our four-letter word". Hate: The band Shock Therapy sang a song "Hate Is a 4-Letter Word". Jazz: A photo-montage by partner-artists Privat & Primat is titled "Jazz and Love are 4-Letter Words". Nice: Good Omens's famous wall scene: Crowley's "I'm not nice; nice is a four-letter ...
The most common example is x , which normally represents the consonant cluster /ks/ (for example, in tax / t æ k s /). The same letter (or sequence of letters) may be pronounced differently when occurring in different positions within a word. For instance, gh represents /f/ at the end of some words (tough / t ʌ f /) but not in others (plough ...
The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet used to denote the sibilant sounds in these words are, respectively, [s] [z] [ʃ] [ʒ]. Sibilants have a characteristically intense sound, which accounts for their paralinguistic use in getting one's attention (e.g. calling someone using "psst!" or quieting someone using "shhhh!").
The following table shows the 24 consonant phonemes found in most dialects of English, plus /x/, whose distribution is more limited. Fortis consonants are always voiceless, aspirated in syllable onset (except in clusters beginning with /s/ or /ʃ/), and sometimes also glottalized to an extent in syllable coda (most likely to occur with /t/, see T-glottalization), while lenis consonants are ...
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Persian also does not allow clusters at the beginning of a word and typically uses /æ/ to break up such clusters in borrowings except between /s/ and /t/, when /o/ is added. [citation needed] Spanish does not allow clusters at the beginning of a word with an /s/ in them and adds e-to such words: Latin species > especie, English stress > estrés.