 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Ghayn" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(October 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Ghayn | |
|---|---|
| Arabic | غ |
| Phonemic representation | ɣ,ʁ |
| Position in alphabet | 28 |
| Numerical value | 1000 |
| Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician | |
| ġaynغين | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| غ | |||
| Usage | |||
| Writing system | Arabic script | ||
| Type | Abjad | ||
| Language of origin | Arabic language | ||
| Sound values | ɣ,ʁ | ||
| Alphabetical position | 19 | ||
| History | |||
| Development |
| ||
| Other | |||
| Writing direction | Right-to-left | ||
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |||
| Arabic alphabet |
|---|
| ابتثجحخدذرزسشصضطظعغفقكلمنهوي |
Arabic script |
The Arabic letterغ (Arabic:غَيْنْ,ghayn orġayn,[ɣæjn])[a] is one of the six letters theArabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from thePhoenician alphabet (the others beingthāʼ,khāʼ,dhāl,ḍād,ẓāʼ). It represents the sound/ɣ/ or/ʁ/. In name and shape, it is a variant ofʻayn (ع). Its numerical value is 1000 (seeAbjad numerals). InPersian, it represents[ɣ]~[ɢ] and is the twenty-second letter in the newPersian alphabet.
Ghayn is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:
| Position in word: | Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glyph form: (Help) | غ | ـغ | ـغـ | غـ |
Proto-Semiticġ (usually reconstructed asvoiced velar fricative/ɣ/ orvoiced uvular fricative/ʁ/) merged withʻayn in mostSemitic languages except forArabic,Ugaritic and older varieties of theCanaanite languages. TheSouth Arabian alphabet retained a symbol forġ,𐩶.Biblical Hebrew, as of the 3rd century BCE, apparently still distinguished the phonemesġ andḫ/χ/, based on transcriptions in theSeptuagint, such as that of the name "Gomorrah" asGomorrha (Γόμορρᾰ) for the Hebrew‘Ămōrā (עֲמֹרָה). Canaanite languages, including Hebrew, later also mergedġ with ʻayin, and the merger was complete inTiberian Hebrew.
| Proto-Semitic | Akkadian | Arabic | Canaanite | Hebrew | Aramaic | South Arabian | Geʻez | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ġ | - | غ | gh |  | ġ, ʻ | ע | ʻ | ע | ʻ |  | ġ | ዐ | ʻ |
The letterghayn (غ) is preferred in theLevant (nowadays), and byAljazeera TV channel, to represent/ɡ/, e.g.,هونغ كونغ (Hong Kong),البرتغال (Portugal),أغسطس (August), andغاندالف (Gandalf). Foreign publications and TV channels in Arabic, e.g.Deutsche Welle,[1] andAlhurra,[2] follow this practice. It is then often pronounced/ɡ/, not/ɣ/, though in many cases,غ is pronounced in loanwords as expected (/ɣ/, not/ɡ/).
Other letters can be used to transcribe/ɡ/ in loanwords and names, depending on whether the localvariety of Arabic in the country has the phoneme/ɡ/, and if it does, which letter represents it and whether it is customary in the country to use that letter to transcribe/ɡ/. For instance, in Egypt, whereج is pronounced as[ɡ] in all situations even in Modern Standard Arabic[3] (except in certain contexts, such asreciting the Qur'an),ج is used to transcribe foreign[ɡ] in all contexts. The same applies to coastalYemen, as well asOman. InAlgeria andTunisia, it isqāf (ق) or a three-dottedqāf (ڨ); theArabian peninsula, it isqāf (ق). In Iraq,gaf (گ) orkaf (ك) is more used. In Morocco, a three-dottedkāf (ݣ) orkāf (ك) is used. InLebanon andIsrael, a three-dottedjīm (چ) is often used to create the phoneme/ɡ/ in names and foreign loanwords, such as inچامبيا (Gambia).
When representing the sound in transliteration of Arabic into Hebrew, it is written asע׳ orר׳. In English, the letterغ in Arabic names is usually transliterated asgh,ġ, or simplyg:بغدادBaghdād 'Baghdad',قرغيزستانQirghīzstān 'Kyrgyzstan',سنغافورةSinghafūra 'Singapore', orغزةGhazzah 'Gaza', the last of which does not render the sound[ɣ]~[ʁ] accurately. The closest equivalent sound to be known to mostEnglish-speakers is theParisianFrench "r"[ʁ]. TheMaltese alphabet is written in theLatin alphabet, the only Semitic language to do so in itsstandard form, and uses ⟨g⟩. It is usually represented asvoiced velar plosive.
Turkish ğ, which in modern speech has no sound of its own (similar to the softg inDanish and thehard and thesoft signs inRussian), used to be spelled as غ in theOttoman script and pronounced as[ɣ].[4] OtherTurkic languages also use this Latin equivalent of ghayn (ğ), such asTatar (Cyrillic: г), which pronounces it as [ʁ], andAzerbaijani (Cyrillic: ғ, Perso-Arabic: غ), which pronounces it as[ɣ]. In Arabic words and names where there is an ayin, Tatar adds the ghayn instead (عبد الله, ʻAbd Allāh, ’Abdullah; Tatar:Ğabdulla,Габдулла;Yaña imlâ: غابدوللا /ʁabdulla/).[5][6][7][8]
For related characters, seeng (Arabic letter) andayin.
| Preview | غ | ﻍ | ﻎ | ﻏ | ﻐ | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN ISOLATED FORM | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN FINAL FORM | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN INITIAL FORM | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN MEDIAL FORM | |||||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 1594 | U+063A | 65229 | U+FECD | 65230 | U+FECE | 65231 | U+FECF | 65232 | U+FED0 |
| UTF-8 | 216 186 | D8 BA | 239 187 141 | EF BB 8D | 239 187 142 | EF BB 8E | 239 187 143 | EF BB 8F | 239 187 144 | EF BB 90 |
| Numeric character reference | غ | غ | ﻍ | ﻍ | ﻎ | ﻎ | ﻏ | ﻏ | ﻐ | ﻐ |
| Preview | ڠ | ݝ | ࢳ | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | ARABIC LETTER AIN WITH THREE DOTS ABOVE | ARABIC LETTER AIN WITH TWO DOTS ABOVE | ARABIC LETTER AIN WITH THREE DOTS BELOW | |||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 1696 | U+06A0 | 1885 | U+075D | 2227 | U+08B3 |
| UTF-8 | 218 160 | DA A0 | 221 157 | DD 9D | 224 162 179 | E0 A2 B3 |
| Numeric character reference | ڠ | ڠ | ݝ | ݝ | ࢳ | ࢳ |
Arabic language | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overviews | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Scripts | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Letters | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Varieties |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Academic | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Linguistics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Calligraphy ·Script | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technical | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
