Ğ

Letter "Ğ"

Ğ, or ğ, is a letter, known as g-breve in English, used in Turkish, Azerbaijani, Crimean Tatar, and Laz.

Turkish use

In Turkish, the ⟨ğ⟩ /ɰ/ is known as yumuşak ge [jumuʃak ɟe] (soft g) and is the ninth letter of the Turkish alphabet. It is very similar to the blødt g 'soft g' in Danish and comparable to the '-gh' sound in the Arabic letter ghayn. It lengthens the preceding vowel, which is normally short in Turkish without the ⟨ğ⟩. For example, dağ (mountain) is pronounced like [daː], and yağ (oil) is pronounced like [jaː]. The ⟨ğ⟩ must follow a vowel, and thus cannot be the initial letter of a word. Its exact function varies throughout Turkey and with regard to the particular vowel with which it is used: it adds a rising of the back of the tongue (as for /g/ or /k/) to /a/ and /ı/, a /j/ glide to /e/ or /i/, and a /β/ glide to the rounded vowels /o/, /u/, /ö/ and /ü/.

The letter provides a smooth transition between vowels since they do not occur consecutively in native Turkish words (in loanwords they are separated by a glottal stop). Sometimes ⟨g⟩ is used incorrectly instead of ⟨ğ⟩. In the case of Turkish words borrowed into other languages, the letter may become a [ɡ], as in yogurt (also spelled yoghurt; Turkish yoğurt). In rare cases, the phonetic /ɣ/ (gamma) or the Greek letter ⟨γ⟩ is used. Some webpages may also use ⟨Ð⟩ and ⟨ð⟩ because of improper encoding; see Turkish characters for the reasons of this.

Azerbaijani and Crimean Tatar use

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

Laz use

Laz is written using two alphabets: the Georgian script and an extended Turkish Latin alphabet. In the Latin alphabet, ğ represents /ɣ/, the voiced velar fricative, and corresponds to the Georgian letter Ghani.

Character encoding

Character Ğ ğ
Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G WITH BREVE LATIN SMALL LETTER G WITH BREVE
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 286 U+011E 287 U+011F
UTF-8 196 158 C4 9E 196 159 C4 9F
Numeric character reference Ğ Ğ ğ ğ
ISO 8859-3 171 AB 187 BB
ISO 8859-9 208 D0 240 F0

See also

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, April 18, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.