Ğ

Ğ (g with breve) is a Latin letter found in the Turkish and Azerbaijani alphabets as well as the Latin alphabets of Zazaki, Laz, Crimean Tatar, Tatar, and Kazakh. It traditionally represented the voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ or the voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/. However, in Turkish, the phoneme has in most cases been reduced to a silent letter, serving as a vowel-lengthener.

G with breve
Ğ ğ
ǧ, ĝ, , ġ, ǥ, ǵ, , ģ, ɠ
G with breve
Usage
Writing systemLatin script
TypeAlphabetic
Language of originTurkish language
Phonetic usage[]
[◌ː]
[ɣ]
[ʁ]
[ɰ]
[j]
Unicode codepointU+011E, U+011F
History
Development
Pictogram of a Camel (speculated origin)
Time period1928 to present
Descendants  Ǧ
  Ġ
SistersG
Г
Ґ
Ғ
Ҕ
Ӻ
چ
ج


ג
Ð
Transliteration equivalentsغ, Gh (digraph), Ғ
Variationsǧ, ĝ, , ġ, ǥ, ǵ, , ģ, ɠ
Other
Other letters commonly used withgh, ǧ, ĝ, , ġ, ǥ, ǵ, , ģ, ɠ
Writing directionLeft-to-Right

Turkish use

Current use

In Turkish, the ğ (sometimes represented with ɰ for convenience) is known as yumuşak ge (pronounced [jumuˈʃak ˈɟe]; '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. In modern Turkish, the letter has no sound of its own and serves as a transition between two vowels, since they do not occur consecutively in native Turkish words. (In loanwords they may sometimes be separated by a glottal stop, e.g. cemaat or cemaât, which may be pronounced as either [dʒeˈma.atʲ] or [dʒeˈmaʔatʲ].)

The realization of the phoneme depends on its location in a word and the surrounding vowels:[1]

[aː]
[ej]
[iː]
ığ [ɯː]
[oː]
[uː]
öğ [œː]
üğ [yː]
ağa [a.a]
ığı [ɯ.ɯ]
uğu [u.u]
eğe [e(j)e]
iği [i.i]
üğü [y(j)y]
ağu [a(w)u]
oğa [o(w)a]
oğu [o(w)u]
uğa [u(w)a]
öğe [œ.e]
öğü [œ.y]
üğe [y.e]
ağı [a.ɯ~aː~a]*
ığa [ɯ.a]
eği [eji~iː~e.i~æ]*
iğe [i.e~ije]
  • in word-final and syllable-final positions it lengthens the preceding vowel, for example: dağ(lar) [daː(laɾ)] ('mountain[s]'), sığ [sɯː] ('shallow'); when following a front vowel (e, i), it may sound /j/ instead: değnek [dejnek] ('cane');
  • between identical back vowels (a, ı, u) it is silent: sığınak [sɯːnak] ('shelter'), uğur [uːɾ] ('good luck');
  • between identical front vowels (e, i, ü) it is either silent: sevdiğim [sevdiːm] ('that I love'), or pronounced [j]: düğün [dyjyn] ('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 [so(w)uk] ('cold'), soğan [so(w)an] ('onion');
  • ağı may sound as two vowels or as long a: ağır [a.ɯɾ, aːɾ] ('heavy');
  • ığa is always two vowels: sığan [sɯ.an] ('which fits');
  • in eği and iğe it is either silent or pronounced [j] as if written y: değil [dejil] ('not'), diğer [dijeɾ] ('other'); in colloquial speech eği is long i: değil [diːl];
  • eği and ağı in the future suffix -(y)AcAK- are formally [e.i]/[a.ɯ] or colloquially [æ]/[a]: seveceğim [seveˈdʒe.im, seviˈdʒæm] ('I will love'); yazacağım [jazaˈdʒa.ɯm, jazɯˈdʒam] ('I will write').

Some webpages may use Ð (uppercase) and ð (lowercase) for Ğ because of improper encoding; see Turkish characters for the reasons of this.

Historical use

The letter, and its counterpart in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet, غ, were once pronounced as a consonant, /ɣ/, 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 is not yet complete 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 /ɡ/, the voiced velar stop, when it occurred intervocalically. The expected process of lenition (weakening and eventual loss of the intervocalic Proto-Turkic consonant *ɡ) is thus complete in Turkish and underway in many other Common Turkic languages.

Azerbaijani and Crimean Tatar use

In Azerbaijani and Crimean Tatar, ğ represents /ɣ/, the voiced velar fricative.

Tatar use

The Tatar language is mainly written in Cyrillic, but a Latin-based alphabet is also in use. In the Latin alphabet, ğ represents /ʁ/, the voiced uvular fricative.

Kazakh use

The current Kazakh Latin alphabet proposal, last updated in March 2021 and commissioned by Tokayev, uses ğ to replace the Kazakh Cyrillic Ғ to represent the IPA /ʁ/. 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, Ǧ/ǧ is often substituted with Ğ/ğ due to the former's lack of availability in fonts and input systems. This is because Ğ/ğ is in Latin Extended-A alongside Č/č and Š/š, the other caron bearing letters in the alphabet, whereas Ǧ/ǧ is in Latin Extended-B, which is available in fewer fonts and input systems.

Character encoding

Character information
PreviewĞğ
Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G WITH BREVE LATIN SMALL LETTER G WITH BREVE
Encodingsdecimalhexdechex
Unicode286U+011E287U+011F
UTF-8196 158C4 9E196 159C4 9F
Numeric character referenceĞĞğğ
Named character referenceĞğ
ISO 8859-3171AB187BB
ISO 8859-9208D0240F0

See also

References

  1. Göksel, Aslı; Kerslake, Celia (2005). Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar. Routledge. pp. 7–8. ISBN 9780415114943.
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