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In English, gh historically represented [x] (the voiceless velar fricative, as in the Scottish Gaelic word loch), and still does in lough and certain other Hiberno-English words, especially proper nouns. In the dominant dialects of modern English, gh is almost always either silent or pronounced /f/ (see Ough).
For example, the initial k is not silent in words such as German Knecht which is a cognate of knight, Knoten which is a cognate of knot, etc. Likewise, g was probably a voiced velar plosive and the initial g was not silent: for example, German Gnom , a cognate of gnome , Gneis , a cognate of gneiss , etc.
A silent u can indicate a hard pronunciation in words borrowed from French (as in analogue, league, guide) or words influenced by French spelling conventions (guess, guest); a silent h serves a similar purpose in Italian-derived words (ghetto, spaghetti). A silent e can occur at the end of a word – or at the end of a component root word that ...
The word is intended to be pronounced in the same way as fish (/ f ɪ ʃ /), using these sounds: gh, pronounced / f / as in enough / ɪ ˈ n ʌ f / or tough / t ʌ f /; o, pronounced / ɪ / as in women / ˈ w ɪ m ɪ n /; ti, pronounced / ʃ / as in nation / ˈ n eɪ ʃ ən / or motion / ˈ m oʊ ʃ ən /.
The English language is notorious for its use of silent letters. In fact, about 60 percent of English words contain a silent letter. In many cases, these silent letters actually were pronounced ...
Also note a combination digraph and cluster as seen in length with two digraphs ng , th representing a cluster of two consonants: /ŋθ/ (although it may be pronounced /ŋkθ/ instead, as ng followed by a voiceless consonant in the same syllable often does); lights with a silent digraph gh followed by a cluster t , s : /ts/; and compound words ...
Words where stress falls on another syllable are generally indicated by hyphens: these include certain adverbs such as an-diugh ('today') [əɲˈdʲu] and an-còmhnaidh ('always') [əŋˈgɔ̃ːnɪ]. In loanwords, a long vowel outside the first syllable is also indicative of stress shift, for example buntàta ('potato') [bən̪ˠˈt̪aːht̪ə] .
In English, the letter غ in Arabic names is usually transliterated as gh, ġ, or simply g: بغداد Baghdād 'Baghdad', قرغيزستان Qirghizstan 'Kyrgyzstan', سنغافورة Singhafura 'Singapore', or غزة Ghazzah 'Gaza', the latter of which does not render the sound ~ accurately.