Thelowercase version can be written in two forms: the single-storey (sometimes "opentail")g and the double-storey (sometimes "looptail")g. The former is commonly used in handwriting andtypefaces based on it, especially in texts intended to be read by children; it is the style used by mostsans-serif typefaces, such asHelvetica. The latter form is used by mostserif typefaces, such asTimes.
The evolution of the Latin alphabet's G can be traced back to the Latin alphabet's predecessor, theGreek alphabet. The voiced velar stop was represented by the third letter of the Greek alphabet,gamma (Γ), which was later adopted by theEtruscan language. Latin then borrowed this "rounded form" of gamma, C, to represent the same sound in words such asrecei, which was likely an early dative form ofrex, meaning "king", as found in an "early Latin inscription."[2] Over time, however, the letter C shifted to represent thevoiceless velar stop, leading to the displacement of the letter K. Scholars believe that this change can be attributed to the influence of the Etruscan language on Latin.[2]
Afterwards, the letter 'G' was introduced in theOld Latin period as a variant of 'C' to distinguish voiced/ɡ/ from voiceless/k/, and G was used to represent avoiced velar stop from this point on and C "stood for the unvoiced velar only".[2]
The recorded originator of 'G' isfreedmanSpurius Carvilius Ruga, who added letter G to the teaching of theRoman alphabet during the 3rd century BCE:[3] he was the first Roman to open a fee-paying school, around 230 BCE. At this time, 'K' had fallen out of favor, and 'C', which had formerly represented both/ɡ/ and/k/ before open vowels, had come to express/k/ in all environments.
Ruga's positioning of 'G' shows thatalphabetic order related to the letters' values asGreek numerals was a concern even in the 3rd century BCE. According to some records, the original seventh letter, 'Z', had been purged from the Latin alphabet somewhat earlier in the 3rd century BCE by theRoman censorAppius Claudius, who found it distasteful and foreign.[4] Sampson (1985) suggests that: "Evidently the order of the alphabet was felt to be such a concrete thing that a new letter could be added in the middle only if a 'space' was created by the dropping of an old letter."[5]
George Hempl proposed in 1899 that there never was such a "space" in the alphabet and that in fact 'G' was a direct descendant ofzeta. Zeta took shapes like ⊏ in some of theOld Italic scripts; the development of themonumental form 'G' from this shape would be exactly parallel to the development of 'C' fromgamma. He suggests that the pronunciation/k/ >/ɡ/ was due to contamination from the also similar-looking 'K'.[6]
The modernlowercaseg has two typographic variants: the single-storey (sometimes "opentail") and the double-storey (sometimes "looptail"). The single-storey form derives from the majuscule (uppercase) form by raising theserif that distinguishes it from 'c' to the top of the loop (thus closing the loop), and extending the vertical stroke downward and to the left. The double-storey form() had developed similarly, except that some ornate forms then extended the tail back to the right, and to the left again, forming a closedbowl or loop. In the double-storey version, a small top stroke in the upper-right, often terminating in an orb shape, is called an "ear". The loop-tail form is the original one, as seen in 9th centuryCarolingian script; evolving over centuries ofmonastic copying, the open-tail variant came to predominate and it was this thatGutenberg adopted when creating the firstBlackletter typefaces – until that in turn was replaced byHumanist minuscule, which reasserted the closed-tail form.[7]
Generally, the two forms are complementary and interchangeable; the form displayed is atypeface selection choice. InUnicode, the two appearances are generally treated as glyph variants with nosemantic difference. Mostserif typefaces use the looptail form (for example,g) and mostsans-serif typefaces use the opentail form (for example,g) but thecode point in both cases is U+0067. For applications where the single-storey variant must be distinguished (such as strictIPA in a typeface where the usual g character is double-storey), the characterU+0261ɡLATIN SMALL LETTER SCRIPT G is available, as well as an upper case version,U+A7ACꞬLATIN CAPITAL LETTER SCRIPT G.
Occasionally the difference has been exploited to provide contrast. In theInternational Phonetic Alphabet, opentail⟨⟩ has always represented avoiced velar plosive, while looptail⟨⟩ represented avoiced velar fricative from 1895 to 1900.[8][9] In 1948, the Council of theInternational Phonetic Association recognized ⟨ɡ⟩ and⟨⟩ as typographic equivalents,[10] and this decision was reaffirmed in 1993.[11] While the 1949Principles of the International Phonetic Association recommended the use of⟨⟩ for a velar plosive and ⟨ɡ⟩ for an advanced one for languages where it is preferable to distinguish the two, such as Russian,[12] this practice never caught on.[13] The 1999Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, the successor to thePrinciples, abandoned the recommendation and acknowledged both shapes as acceptable variants.[14]
In 2018, a study found that native English speakers have little conscious awareness of the looptail form(). The authors write: "Despite being questioned repeatedly, and despite being informed directly that G has two lowercase print forms, nearly half of the participants failed to reveal any knowledge of the looptail 'g', and only 1 of the 38 participants was able to write looptail 'g' correctly".[15][16]
⟨g⟩ is predominantly soft before⟨e⟩ (including the digraphs⟨ae⟩ and⟨oe⟩),⟨i⟩, or⟨y⟩, and hard otherwise. It is hard in those derivations fromγυνή (gynḗ) meaning woman where initial-worded as such. Soft⟨g⟩ is also used in many words that came into English from medieval church/academic use, French, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese – these tend to, in other ways in English, closely align to their Ancient Latin and Greek roots (such asfragile,logic ormagic).There remain widely used a few English words of non-Romance origin where⟨g⟩ is hard followed by⟨e⟩ or⟨i⟩ (get,give,gift,gig,girl,giggle), and very few in which⟨g⟩ is soft though followed by⟨a⟩ such asgaol, which since the 20th century is almost always written as "jail". The wordfungi, although from Romance origin, is pronounced with a hard⟨g⟩.
The double consonant⟨gg⟩ has the value/ɡ/ (hard⟨g⟩) as innugget, with very few exceptions:/d͡ʒ/ inexaggerate andveggies and dialectally/ɡd͡ʒ/ insuggest.
The digraph⟨dg⟩ has the value/d͡ʒ/ (soft⟨g⟩), as inbadger. Non-digraph⟨dg⟩ can also occur, in compounds likefloodgate andheadgear.
MostRomance languages and someScandinavian languages also have two main pronunciations for⟨g⟩, hard and soft. While the soft value of⟨g⟩ varies in different Romance languages (/ʒ/ inFrench andPortuguese,[(d)ʒ] inCatalan,/d͡ʒ/ inItalian andRomanian, and/x/ in most dialects ofSpanish), in all except Romanian and Italian, soft⟨g⟩ has the same pronunciation as the⟨j⟩.
In Italian and Romanian,⟨gh⟩ is used to represent/ɡ/ before front vowels where⟨g⟩ would otherwise represent a soft value. In Italian and French,⟨gn⟩ is used to represent thepalatal nasal/ɲ/, a sound somewhat similar to the⟨ny⟩ in Englishcanyon. In Italian, thetrigraph⟨gli⟩, when appearing before a vowel or as the article and pronoungli, represents thepalatal lateral approximant/ʎ/. Other languages typically use⟨g⟩ to represent/ɡ/, regardless of position.
Amongst European languages,Czech,Dutch,Estonian andFinnish are exceptions, as they do not have/ɡ/ in their native words. InDutch,⟨g⟩ represents avoiced velar fricative/ɣ/ instead, a sound that does not occur in modern English, but there is a dialectal variation: many Netherlandic dialects use a voiceless fricative ([x] or[χ]) instead, and in southern dialects it may be palatal[ʝ]. Nevertheless, word-finally, it is always voiceless in all dialects, including the standard Dutch of Belgium and the Netherlands. On the other hand, some dialects (likeAmelands) may have a phonemic/ɡ/.
Faroese uses⟨g⟩ to represent/dʒ/, in addition to/ɡ/, and also uses it to indicate aglide.
InMāori,⟨g⟩ is used in the digraph⟨ng⟩ which represents thevelar nasal/ŋ/ and is pronounced like the⟨ng⟩ insinger.
TheSamoan andFijian languages use the letter⟨g⟩ by itself for/ŋ/.
In olderCzech andSlovak orthographies,⟨g⟩ was used to represent/j/, while/ɡ/ was written as⟨ǧ⟩ (⟨g⟩ withcaron).
TheAzerbaijani Latin alphabet uses⟨g⟩ exclusively for the "soft" sound, namely/ɟ/. The sound/ɡ/ is written as⟨q⟩. This leads to unusual spellings of loanwords:qram 'gram',qrup 'group',qaraj 'garage',qallium 'gallium'.
^Everson, Michael; Sigurðsson, Baldur; Málstöð, Íslensk."Sorting the letter ÞORN".Evertype. ISO CEN/TC304. Archived fromthe original on 2018-09-24. Retrieved2018-11-01.
^International Phonetic Association (1949).The Principles of the International Phonetic Association. Department of Phonetics,University College, London. Supplement toLe Maître Phonétique 91, January–June 1949.JSTORi40200179.
Reprinted inJournal of the International Phonetic Association 40 (3), December 2010, pp. 299–358,doi:10.1017/S0025100311000089.
^Wells, John C. (6 November 2006)."Scenes from IPA history".John Wells's phonetic blog. Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London.Archived from the original on 13 June 2018. Retrieved29 March 2018.
^International Phonetic Association (1999).Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. p. 19.ISBN0-521-63751-1.
^Wong, Kimberly; Wadee, Frempongma; Ellenblum, Gali; McCloskey, Michael (2 April 2018). "The Devil's in the g-tails: Deficient letter-shape knowledge and awareness despite massive visual experience".Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.44 (9):1324–1335.doi:10.1037/xhp0000532.PMID29608074.S2CID4571477.
