sCH

Sch is a digraph found in several Germanic languages, most notably German, where it denotes the voiceless postalveolar fricative [ʃ], the sound usually written as "sh" in English. In German, Sch appears in numerous common words such as Schule (school), Schlaf (sleep), and Schnee (snow). The combination is treated as a single orthographic unit for purposes of spelling, pronunciation, and hyphenation, and it frequently appears at the beginnings of words or within compounds.

In Dutch, the sequence sch historically represents a sound that is closer to a voiceless velar or velar–alveolar fricative, often realized as [sx] in careful speech or [sχ] in some dialects. The digraph is also encountered in loanwords and proper names from German or other languages, where its pronunciation may align with the German value or reflect Dutch phonology.

Historically, Sch has also appeared as a ligature in older Germanic typography, especially in Fraktur and other blackletter styles, where the letters S and ch could be combined in a single mark. In modern typesetting, the two-letter spelling Sch is standard, though ligatures may still be used for stylistic or historical effect in specialized typesetting.

In addition, Sch can function as an abbreviation in various contexts, with the period indicating an acronym or shorthand whose exact meaning depends on the surrounding text.