Ghetto is Italian, and the gh is Italian spelling doing a specific job: in Italian, g before e or i would be soft, so an h is inserted to keep it hard. The same device gives English spaghetti and Alghero. When you see gh in the middle of a word where English would not otherwise need it, Italian is a good first guess.
The origin of the Italian word is genuinely unknown, and the competing theories are unusually varied: Yiddish get, "deed of separation"; Venetian getto, "foundry," because there was one near the site of Venice's ghetto in 1516; a clipped form of Egitto, "Egypt," in memory of the exile; or borghetto, "small section of a town." English took it in the 1610s for the part of a city where Jews were compelled to live, and extended it to the crowded quarters of other minorities by 1899.
ghetto (n.) 1610s, "part of a city in which Jews are compelled to live," especially in Italy, from Italian ghetto "part of a city to which Jews are restricted," of unknown origin. The various theories trace it to: Yiddish get "deed of separation;" a special use of Venetian getto "foundry" (there was one near the site of that city's ghetto in 1516); a clipped form of Egitto "Egypt," from Latin Aegyptus (presumably in memory of the exile); or Italian borghetto "small section of a town" (diminutive of borgo , which is of Germanic origin; see borough ). Extended by 1899 to crowded urban quarters of other minority groups (especially blacks in U.S. cities). As an adjective by 1903 (modern slang usage from 1999). Ghetto-blaster "large, portable stereo cassette-player" is from 1982. also from 1610s
ghetto came in through Later and wider borrowings, and its spelling follows that family's conventions.
How that family writes these sounds
| hard /g/ before e or i, in an Italian word | ghspaghetti, ghetto |
What gives it away on the page
| -o/-a/-i endings, gh for hard g, cc | Italian — music, food, and architecture.piano, opera, graffiti, spaghetti, ghetto, broccoli, balcony |
Placing it without the spelling
| music, food, and architecture from Italy | Italianpiano, opera, spaghetti, ghetto |
Later and wider borrowings in the spelling guide · guess another word's family