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Heptagraph
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A heptagraph (from Ancient Greek: ἑπτά, heptá 'seven' and γράφω, gráphō 'write') is a sequence of seven letters used to represent a single sound (phoneme), or a combination of sounds, that do not correspond to the individual values of the letters.
![]() | You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Polish. (September 2025) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
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Heptagraphs are extremely rare. Most other fixed sequences of seven letters are composed of shorter multigraphs with a predictable result. The seven-letter German sequence ⟨schtsch⟩, used to transliterate the Russian and Ukrainian letter ⟨щ⟩, as in ⟨Borschtsch⟩ [bɔʁʃtʃ] for Russian/Ukrainian ⟨борщ⟩ (Russian: [borɕː], Ukrainian: [bɔrʃtʃ]) "borscht", is a sequence of a trigraph ⟨sch⟩ [ʃ] and a tetragraph ⟨tsch⟩ [t͡ʃ]. Likewise, the Juu languages have been claimed to have a heptagraph ⟨dtsʼkxʼ⟩, but this is also a sequence, of ⟨dtsʼ⟩ and ⟨kxʼ⟩.
Another theoretical example of a heptagraph would be the traditional Irish spelling oidhche 'night' for modern oíche, but only for the pronunciation /iː/ as found in the Cois Fharraige dialect.
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