Digraphs ?

Question

Is the word 'near' a Vowel digraph or not?

Answer 1

Yes, because the two letter "e" and "a" together represent a single phoneme (sound, more or less - but I could get heavy here) usually represented phonetically as /i/.

Other digraphs in English include these:

ch usually corresponds to /tʃ/ (voiceless postalveolar affricate), less often to /ʃ/ (voiceless postalveolar fricative)
wh represents /ʍ/ (voiceless labial-velar fricative; see also hwair)
th usually corresponds to /θ/ (voiceless interdental fricative) or /ð/ (voiced interdental fricative)
sh represents /ʃ/, (voiceless postalveolar fricative)
ng represents /ŋ/ (velar nasal)
kn represents /n/ (alveolar nasal)
ph represents /f/ (voiceless labiodental fricative)
gh represents /f/ (voiceless labiodental fricative) or is silent
ck represents /k/ (voiceless velar plosive)