Ğ (g with breve; Letter case: ğ) is a Latin script letter found in the Turkish alphabet and Azerbaijani alphabets as well as the Latin alphabets of Zaza language, Laz language, Crimean Tatar, Tatar language, and Kazakh. It traditionally represented the voiced velar fricative or the voiced uvular fricative . However, in Turkish language, the phoneme has in most cases been elision a silent letter, serving as a Vowel length. But for Crimean Tatar spelling in Romania it represents the voiced palato-alveolar affricate .
Turkish use
Current use
In
Turkish language, the is known as yumuşak ge (; 'soft g') and is the ninth letter of the
Turkish alphabet. It always follows a vowel, and can be compared to the blødt g ('soft g') in
Danish language.
Similarly to Azerbaijani, Crimean Tatar and other Turkic languages, Turkish used to have a /ɣ/ phoneme which could occur in all positions. However, the phoneme was gradually lost as it Fortition to a /g/ if not preceded by a vowel and eroded away elsewhere. The fortified form is now written with a ⟨g⟩, while the eroded form is shown with a ⟨ğ⟩; showing that in native Turkish words which have vowels in contact with each other, there used to be a consonant separating them (in fact Turkish language resources will still insist native words do not have consecutive vowels). In loanwords, consecutive vowels are not separated with a ğ, but in speech they may be separated by a glottal stop, e.g. cemaat or cemaât, which may be pronounced as either or .) (To point it out cemaat is an arabic word not with turkish origin.)
The realization of the phoneme depends on its location in a word and the surrounding vowels:
-
in word-final and syllable-final positions it lengthens the preceding vowel, for example: dağ(lar) ('mountains'), sığ ('shallow'); when following a front vowel ( e, i), it may sound instead: değnek ('cane');
-
between identical back vowels ( a, ı, u) it is silent: sığınak ('shelter'), uğur ('good luck');
-
between identical front vowels ( e, i, ü) it is either silent: sevdiğim ('that I love'), or pronounced : düğün ('wedding');
-
between different rounded vowels ( o, u, ö, ü), or between rounded ( o, u, ö, ü) and unrounded ( a, e) vowels it is mostly silent, but may be a bilabial glide: soğuk ('cold'), soğan ('onion');
-
ağı may sound as two vowels or as long a: ağır ('heavy');
-
ığa is always two vowels: sığan ('which fits');
-
in eği and iğe it is either silent or pronounced as if written y: değil ('not'), diğer ('other'); in colloquial speech eği is long i: değil ;
-
eği and ağı in the future suffix - (y)AcAK- are formally / or colloquially /: seveceğim ('I will love'); yazacağım ('I will write').
Some webpages may use (uppercase) and (lowercase) for because of improper encoding; see for the reasons of this.
Historical use
The letter, and its counterpart in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet,
, were once pronounced as a consonant, , the voiced velar fricative, until very recently in the history of Turkish, but it has undergone a
sound change by which the consonant was completely lost and compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel occurred, hence its function today. The sound change has not completely eliminated the sound in some
Turkish dialects. The previous consonantal nature of the sound is evinced by earlier English loanwords from Turkish, such as
yogurt/
yoghurt (modern Turkish yoğurt) and
agha (modern Turkish ağa), and the corresponding velar fricative found in cognate words in the closely related Azerbaijani language and the Turkish-influenced Crimean Tatar language. In Old Turkic (as well as earlier during
Proto-Turkic times), this voiced velar fricative originated as an
allophone of , the voiced velar stop, when it occurred intervocalically. The expected process of
lenition (weakening and eventual loss of the intervocalic Proto-Turkic consonant *) is thus complete in Turkish and underway in many other Common Turkic languages.
Azerbaijani use
In Azerbaijani represents , the voiced velar fricative. In Azerbaijani, ğ never occurs at the beginning of a word.
Crimean Tatar use
In Crimean Tatar, represents the voiced velar fricative.
Dobruja Tatar use
For Crimean Tatar spelling used in
Romania, also known as
Dobrujan Tatar it represents the voiced palato-alveolar affricate .
Tatar use
The Turkic
Tatar language is written mostly in
Cyrillic script, but a Latin-based alphabet is also in use. In the Latin alphabet, ğ represents , the voiced uvular fricative.
In Cyrillic, Tatar uses
г for both g and ğ without distinction.
Tatar ğ / г is the Arabic Ghayn. In Arabic words and names where there’s an Ayin, Tatar adds the ghayn instead (عبد الله, ʻ Abd Allāh, ’Abdullah; Tatar: Ğabdulla , Габдулла; Yaña imlâ: غابدوللا / ʁabdulla/).
In the Mishar Tatar Dialect, ğ is not pronounced, and thus, a word like şiğır (شعر, шигыр, "poem") is şigır or şiyır for Mishar Tatars (who Finnish Tatars use the Latin alphabet).[ Jazyki Rossijskoi Federatsii i sosednih gosudarstv. Tom 3, pp. 67–68. Moskva: Nauka, 2005. ISBN 5-02-011237-2. (In Russian)]
Kazakh use
The current Kazakh Latin alphabet proposal, last updated in March 2021 and commissioned by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, uses ğ to replace the Kazakh Cyrillic Ғ to represent the IPA . The earlier 2020 proposal listed Ǵ instead, but was replaced after public criticism.
Friulian use
The Faggin–Nazzi alphabet for Friulian language uses the caron, owing to its Slavic influence. However, / is often substituted with / due to the former's lack of availability in fonts and input systems. This is because / is in
Latin Extended-A alongside / and /, the other caron bearing letters in the alphabet, whereas / is in
Latin Extended-B, which is available in fewer fonts and input systems.
Character encoding
See also
