Ai (digraph)
ai is a digraph used in many languages. Typically it represents the diphthong /ai/ or some variant thereof. In English, as a result of the Great Vowel Shift, ai has shifted from this value to represent the sound /eɪ/ as in pain and rain; while in French, a different change, monophthongization, has occurred, resulting in the digraph being pronounced /ɛ/. A similar change has also occurred during the development of Greek, resulting in the digraph αι and the letter ε both also having the same sound; originally /ɛ/, later /e/. In German, it represents [aɪ] as in Kaiser. However, most German words use the digraph "ei" to represent [aɪ] instead.
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