The letter Ƣ (minuscule: ƣ) has been used in the Latin orthographies of various, mostly Turkic languages, such as Azeri or the Jaꞑalif orthography for Tatar.[1] It is also included in pinyin alphabets for Kazakh and Uyghur; and in the 1928 Soviet Kurdish Latin alphabet.[2] It usually represents a voiced velar fricative [ɣ] but is sometimes used for a voiced uvular fricative [ʁ]. All orthographies that used the letter have been phased out and so it is not well-supported in fonts. It can still be seen in pre-1983 books published in the People’s Republic of China.[citation needed]
Historically, it is derived from a handwritten form of the small Latin letter q around 1900. The majuscule is then based on the minuscule. Its use for [ɣ] stems from the linguistic tradition of representing such sounds (and similar ones) by q in Turkic languages and in transcriptions of Arabic or Persian (compare kaf and qaf).[3]
In alphabetical order, it comes between G and H.
Modern replacements
- Abaza: ГЪ, гъ
- Abkhaz: Ҕ, ҕ
- Avar: ГЪ, гъ
- Azerbaijani: Ğ, ğ
- Bashkir: Ғ, ғ
- Crimean Tatar: Ğ, ğ (Latin), ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic)
- Dargin (literary): ГЪ, гъ
- Kabardian: ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic), Ğ, ğ (Latin),
- Karachay-Balkar: ГЪ, гъ
- Karaim: ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic), G, g (Latin)
- Karakalpak: Ǵ, ǵ (Latin), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic)
- Kazakh: Ğ, ğ (Latin), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic), ع (Arabic)
- Khakas: Ғ, ғ
- Kumyk: ГЪ, гъ
- Kurdish: غ (Arabic), x/ẍ (Latin)
- Kyrgyz: Г, г (Cyrillic), ع (Arabic)
- Lak: ГЪ, гъ
- Laz: ღ (Georgian), Ğ, ğ (Latin)
- Lezgi: ГЪ, гъ
- Nogai: Г, г
- Yakut: Ҕ, ҕ
- Tajik: Ғ, ғ
- Talysh: Ğ, ğ (Latin), غ (Persian), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic)
- Tat: Ğ, ğ (Latin), ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic)
- Tatar: Г, г (Cyrillic), Ğ, ğ (Latin)
- Tsakhur: ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic), Ğ, ğ (Latin)
- Turkmen: G, g
- Tuvan: Г, г
- Udin: Ğ, ğ (Latin), ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic)
- Urum: Ґ, ґ; Ғ, ғ
- Uyghur: غ (Arabic), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic), Gh, gh (Latin)
- Uzbek: Gʻ, gʻ (Latin), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic)
Unicode
In Unicode, the majuscule Ƣ is encoded in the Latin Extended-B block at U+01A2 and the minuscule ƣ is encoded at U+01A3.[4] The assigned names, "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OI" and "LATIN SMALL LETTER OI" respectively, are acknowledged by the Unicode Consortium to be mistakes, as gha is unrelated to the letters O and I.[5] The Unicode Consortium therefore has provided the character name aliases "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER GHA" and "LATIN SMALL LETTER GHA".[4]
In popular culture
Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow features an episode purporting to be the story of a Soviet officer, Tchitcherine, dispatched to Kirghizstan to serve on a committee tasked with devising an alphabet for the Kirghiz language. Tchitcherine's particular contribution is the invention of the letter Ƣ, which is thus perhaps the only obsolete letter of a Central Asian language that may be familiar to the non-specialist, English-reading public through a widely circulated novel.
References
- ^ "Some examples of LATIN LETTER OI (gha) (U+01A2, U+01A3) in Tatar and Uighur printing, with remarks on the recommended glyphs" (PDF).
- ^ Культура и письменность Востока [Eastern Culture and Literature] (in Russian). Vol. 2. 1928.
- ^ "Unicode mailing list".
- ^ a b "Unicode chart" (PDF).
- ^ "Unicode Technical Note #27: Known Anomalies in Unicode Character Names".
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