Re: Digraphic letters (was: Dutch "ij")

On Thursday, July 18, 2002, at 05:43 , Morgan Palaeo Associates wrote:

> Ray Brown wrote:
>
>> Welsh also treats "ch" and "ll" as single letters.
> [...]
>> Welsh also counts the following as single letters:
>> dd
>> ff
>> ng /N/ [placed between {g} and {h}
>> ph
>> rh
>> th
>
> I think it's worth remembering that the English word "letter" can only
> be literally translated into languages where one letter = one character.
So letter is a synonym for grapheme or character?

> The words for letter in languages without this equivalence are not
> truly equivalent to the English word.
It's not my terminology - you'd better address these observations to those
who write grammars for Welsh, Spanish and any other langs which reckon
certain digraphs as 'letters'.

In the meantime what should we call "an item in the alphabet"?  Since in
the
languages concerned these digraphs have a single name and their own
individual
place in their arrangement of the alphabet.

For example {ch} in Welsh is called /eX/ and in Spanish /tSe/.  In both
languages it is placed after {c} and before {d}.    Also in Welsh, {ng} is
called
/EN/ and placed between {g} and {h}.  So, for such languages, what is the
general
term for each item in their alphabets which includes both the monographic
&
digraphic (or, if you prefer, uniliteral and biliteral) items?

And how shall we persuade these grammarians that they have been
misusing the English word 'letter'?

Ray.