Ch (digraph)
It is treated as a letter of its own in the Chamorro, Old Spanish, Czech, Slovak, Igbo, Uzbek, Quechua, Ladino, Guarani, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Ukrainian Latynka, and Belarusian Łacinka alphabets.
In classical times, Greeks pronounced this as an aspirated voiceless velar plosive [kʰ].
In Czech, the letter ch is a digraph consisting of the sequence of Latin alphabet graphemes C and H, however it is a single phoneme (pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative [x]) and represents a single entity in Czech collation order, inserted between H and I.
and only fully capitalized CH is used when the letter is a part of an abbreviation (e.g. CHKO Beskydy) and in all-uppercase texts.
Only a few Slovak words treat CH as two separate letters, e.g., viachlasný (e.g. "multivocal" performance), from viac ("multi") and hlas ("voice").
Breton has evolved a modified form of this digraph, c'h for representing [x], as opposed to ch, which stands for [ʃ].
The Northern Mariana Islands' & Rotanese orthography enforces the standard capitalization rule (e.g.: Chamorro).
In some words of non-native origin, ch is pronounced as [ɕ] (northern dialects in the Netherlands) or [ʃ] (Flemish dialects in Belgium), e.g. cheque [ɕɛk~ʃɛk] (check, voucher), chips [ɕɪps~ʃips] (potato chips, crisps), China ['ɕi.na~'ʃi.na] (China).
In English, ch is most commonly pronounced as [tʃ], as in chalk, cheese, cherry, church, much, etc.
If a segment of a word originates from Greek or Italian, Ch can also be pronounced as [k], likely stemming from the letter chi.
This includes Greek-derivative words—like ache, choir, school, stomach, mechanics, chemistry and character— and Italian-derivative words—like chiaroscuro, scherzo and zucchini.
In some English words of French origin, "ch" represents [ʃ], as in charade, machine, chivalry and nonchalant.
Due to hypercorrection, this pronunciation also occurs in a few loanwords from other sources, like machete (from Spanish) and pistachio (from Italian).
In certain dialects of British English ch is often pronounced [dʒ] in two words: sandwich and spinach, and also in place names, such as Greenwich and Norwich.
The digraph ch is not considered part of the Hungarian alphabet, but it has historically been used for [tʃ], as in English and Spanish, and this use has been preserved in family names: Széchenyi, Madách.
In most words of Greek origin, it represents [k] as in archéologie, chœur, chirographier; but chimie, chirurgie, and chimère have [ʃ], as does anarchiste.
Ch is traditionally considered a distinct letter of the Spanish alphabet, called che.
[2] Until 1994 ch was treated as a single letter in Spanish collation order, inserted between C and D; in this way, mancha was after manco and before manda.
In Xhosa and Zulu, ch represents the voiceless aspirated velar dental click [kǀʰ].
In Mandarin Chinese ch is used in Pinyin to represent an aspirated voiceless retroflex affricate /tʂʰ/.
English literary braille also has a single cell dedicated to ⟨ch⟩ (dots 1–6), which stands for "child" in isolation, but this is considered a single-cell contraction rather than a separate letter.
In English Braille, the "ch" digraph, when pronounced as [tʃ], is represented by a single cell:
