Why does ph sound like f

This has to do with traditional spelling that could mirror, or attempt to mirror, the spelling used by the language the word was borrowed from "ph" is, in the vast majority of cases, indicates Greek origin coupled with Latin abuse and, sometimes, the Norman French delivery service ;.

The hard "h" went to where the woodbine twines centuries ago, but the spelling persists, and we're reluctant to change it because it's dear to us. The explanations above are correct; however, I would like to add that some of the spellings such as the "gh" in words like "night" occur because of obsolete letters in English now.

If I recall, the letter yogh was used in this situation and others with "gh", but that letter is now obsolete. It did look like the letter "g" today, so when the printing press came out, they replaced it with "g". Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Why is a 'ph' or 'gh' used instead of an 'f' in commonly used English words like Elephant and Enough?

Ask Question. Asked 5 years, 11 months ago. Active 8 months ago. Why is the single Greek letter phi transliterated as TWO Roman letters, especially when a perfectly good equivalent, "f" already exists? I expect the answer lies somewhere with the ancient Romans particularly since the Germans actually do the logical thing with "elefant" and "fotograf". Was "ph" ever pronounced differently from "f"?

Submitted by Simon Beck London - England. Signature: Topic imported and archived. It was the combination used by the Romans to represent the Greek letter , or , named , Ph. This letter, cognate with Skr. As the Roman F was dentilabial, like mod. Could you provide the IPA symbols for the sounds?

This is what the references such as Wikipedia I've seen say; I'm not sure how scholars know this, since the earlier pronunciations died out centuries ago. Michael Lorton Michael Lorton Ok, yes, Romans Greeks phi.. It's also independently in Welsh and Irish — Colin Fine. Latin pedis did not become English foot. Rather, both pedis and foot are descendants of a common PIE root. Featured on Meta. Now live: A fully responsive profile. Linked Ah so the t-shirt came first. Very good. After further reading the spellings th and ch developed in basically the same way.

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