What Is a G-H in Modern English?

The word laugh was originally spelled H-L-A-E-H-A-N, and it was pronounced something like lachun. The H became G-H in middle English, as we've seen, so the modern spelling of R-O-U-G-H reflects that original pronunciation but the final consonant has shifted to an F sound. Words like cough, tough, and trough follow the same pattern. But there were several other old English sounds which didn't exist in Latin. Those were older Germanic sounds, and the early English scribes had to figure out what to do with them.