għ / ie

Reading Maltese Digraphs

Level 1

għ and ie are digraphs: two characters forming one alphabet unit. ie is a vowel.

How It Works

Retain both characters of each digraph. In ordinary contemporary pronunciations of għasel “honey” and għada “tomorrow”, initial għ has no separately pronounced consonant. Pronunciation-only transcriptions are /ˈaːsɛl/ and /ˈaːda/.

In tieqa “window”, ie represents the long vowel illustrated by /ˈtɪːʔa/. It is not two separate English vowel names.

Pronunciation can vary with the word, region and style. These examples show ordinary contemporary pronunciations of these particular words.

Examples (3)

  1. għasel

    honey

    Vocabulary fragment with ordinarily silent initial għ.

  2. għada

    tomorrow

    Time-word fragment with ordinarily silent initial għ.

  3. tieqa

    window

    Vocabulary fragment containing vowel digraph ie.

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għ / ieLevel 1Reading Maltese Digraphs

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