The Romans used "ch" to transliterate the sound of the Greek letter chi in words borrowed from that language. In classical times, this was pronounced as an aspiratedvoiceless velar stop[kʰ]. In post-classical times this sound developed into a fricative (see below).
The letter ch is a digraph consisting of the sequence of LatinalphabetgraphemesC and H; however, it represents a single phoneme (pronounced as a voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate[ʨ] in Castilian, a voiceless postalveolar affricate[ʧ] in Latin American, or a voiceless postalveolar fricative[ʃ] in Andalusian). It has its own name (che) and was traditionally considered a distinct letter of the alphabet and treated as a single entity in Spanish collation order, inserted between C and D, until April of 1994, when a votation in the X Congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies ruled the adoption of the standard Latin alphabet collation rules, so that for purposes of collation the digraph ch is now considered a sequence of two distinct characters and dictionaries now place words starting with ch- between those starting with ce- and ci-.[2] In capitalized form, Ch is used at the beginning of a sentence (Chiste, English: joke), while CH or Ch can be used for a standalone letter in lists, etc.
Usage
The letter Ch was equal to other letters of the traditional Spanish alphabet (as was Ll). It came between C and D. Thus, the word "cacho" (English: piece) came after "caco" (English: thief) in an alphabetical list. Names beginning with Ch were listed in the same way in a phonebook, dictionary or encyclopedia. In a crossword, instead, it spent two squares (following the rule to be "one letter, two characters").
Miscellanea
Each board member of the Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy) has traditionally been assigned a seat at the board that is identified by an uppercase or lowercase letter of the Spanish alphabet. Thus, given that traditionally the digraphs ch and ll were considered single letters in the Spanish alphabet (with their own names che and elle), the Academy has four of its seats labelled CH, ch, LL and ll. This practice has been maintained even after the Association of Spanish Language Academies ruled in 1994 that, in order to facilitate international compatibility, these two digraphs be no longer collated as separate letters.
Voiceless velar plosive
In Italian, "ch" represents the voiceless velar plosive[k] before -e and -i. It also happens in English, regardless of position, coming mostly from Greekchi. In Interlingua, "ch" also represents the sound [k] in any position. In German, it represents [k] before -s, and an initial Ch (which only appears in loanwords) may also be pronounced [k] in southern varieties.
Breton has evolved a modified form of this digraph, "c'h" for representing [x], as opposed to "ch", which stands for [ʃ]. In Manx, "ch" stands for [x], while [tʃ] is represented by "çh".
Ch in Czech
Structure
The letter ch is a digraph consisting of the sequence of LatinalphabetgraphemesC and H, however it is a single phoneme (pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative; IPA: [x]) and represents a single entity in Czech collation order, inserted between H and I. In capitalized form, Ch is used at the beginning of a sentence (Chechtal se. "He giggled."), while CH or Ch can be used for standalone letter in lists etc.
Usage
The letter Ch is equal to other letters of the Czech alphabet. It comes between H and I. Thus, the word "chemie" (English: chemistry) comes after "fyzika" (English: physics) in an alphabetical list. Names beginning with Ch are listed in the same way in a phonebook. In a crossword it takes only one square.
In the Czech extension to Braille the letter Ch is represented as the dot pattern ⠻.
In computing, Ch is represented as a sequence of C and H, not as a single character; only the historical KOI-8 ČS2 encoding contained Ch as a single character.
All principal characters created by Roberto Gómez Bolaños for his TV shows have names starting with Ch, including Chompiras, Dr. Chapatín, and perhaps most famously El Chapulín Colorado, a superhero whose costume has a "CH" inscribed by a heart (analogous to the way Superman's costume has an S inscribed on a diamond). Bolaños' artistic name was Chespirito, also with a Ch (Chespir would be a Spanish substandard pronunciation of Shakespeare; suffix -ito means "little").
References
^ Since 1994, ch and ll are now listed under c and l in dictionaries: "No obstante, en el X Congreso de la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, celebrado en 1994, se acordó adoptar para los diccionarios académicos, a petición de varios organismos internacionales, el orden alfabético latino universal, en el que la ch y la ll no se consideran letras independientes. En consecuencia, estas dos letras pasan a alfabetizarse en los lugares que les corresponden dentro de la C (entre -cg- y -ci-) y dentro de la L (entre -lk- y -lm-), respectivamente."Real Academia Española. Explanation at http://www.spanishpronto.com/ (in Spanish and English)
