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In the dominant dialects of modern English, gh is almost always either silent or pronounced /f/ (see Ough). It is thought that before disappearing, the sound became partially or completely voiced to [ɣx] or [ɣ] , which would explain the new spelling — Old English used a simple h — and the diphthongization of any preceding vowel.
The soft pronunciation of г occurs before any of the "softening" vowels е ё и ю я ь and the hard pronunciation occurs elsewhere. However, the letter ж functions as a "soft g" in the Romance sense, with alterations between г and ж common in the language (e.g. ложиться, "to lie (down)", past tense лёг; подруга ...
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 / p l aʊ /). At the beginning of syllables, gh is pronounced /ɡ/, as in ghost / ɡ oʊ s t /.
gh, pronounced / f / as in enough / ɪ ˈ n ʌ f / or tough / t ʌ f /; o, pronounced / ɪ / as in women / ˈ w ɪ m ɪ n /; ti, pronounced / ʃ / as in nation / ˈ n eɪ ʃ ən / or motion / ˈ m oʊ ʃ ən /. The key to the phenomenon is that the pronunciations of the constructed word's three parts are inconsistent with how they would ...
It is also occasionally pronounced [ə], such as in Edinburgh. When gh occurs at the beginning of a word, it is pronounced hard (/ɡ/) as in “ghost” and “ghetto". In a few words of Greek origin, the digraph gm is pronounced /m/, with the (g) being silent, such as in “phlegm”, “paradigm” and "diaphragm".
Note: Some of these pronouns may be pronounced differently based on their user. xe/xyr (commonly pronounced zee/zeer) I asked xyr to come to the movies. Xe said yes!
For example, both the k and the digraph gh of English knight were once pronounced (the latter is still pronounced in some Scots varieties), but after the loss of their sounds, they no longer represent the word's phonemic structure or its pronunciation. Spelling may represent the pronunciation of a different dialect from the one being considered.
The two occurrences of ough in the English place name Loughborough are pronounced differently, resulting in / ˈ l ʌ f b ə r ə /. [6] Additionally, three parishes of Milton Keynes—Woughton / ˈ w ʊ f t ən /, Loughton / ˈ l aʊ t ən / and Broughton / ˈ b r ɔː t ən / — have different pronunciations of the combination. [7] [8]