Sh

Sh is a sequence of letters used in many Latin-based alphabets to represent a single sound or phoneme in various languages. In phonology, the digraph "sh" commonly stands for the voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/, as in English ship and shine. In several orthographies, notably Albanian, "sh" is treated as a single letter representing that same /ʃ/ sound.

In transliteration and writing systems, "Sh" appears as a transliteration of the Cyrillic letter Ш, which in many Slavic languages represents /ʃ/. Transliteration schemes vary: some write "Sh" for Ш, others use "Š" or other conventions depending on the target script and the system in use.

Computing-wise, sh refers to the Bourne shell, a Unix command interpreter introduced by Stephen Bourne in 1979. It laid the groundwork for scripting on Unix-like systems and, in POSIX usage, serves as the standard shell for portable shell scripts via the /bin/sh interface. Modern systems often implement a link named /bin/sh that points to a compatible shell such as dash or bash. Typical syntax includes variables, control structures (if, case, for, while), and built-in commands.

Other uses of the term are generally context-specific, including linguistic references to the /ʃ/ sound across languages and, in some alphabets, to the letter-name conventions used in teaching and phonetics. The meaning of "Sh" thus depends on whether the discussion concerns language, writing systems, or computing.