Continues Arabicع(ʕ) andغ(ḡ). The two phonemes were merged into/ʕ/ aroundValetta since at least the 18th century, but continued to be distinguished as/ʕ/ and/ɣ~ʁ/ elsewhere (in some rural dialects until the later 20th century). Both in merging and non-merging dialects,/ʕ/ was weakly articulated and eventually vowelised, though word-finally after stressed vowels it underwent devoicing to[ħ] instead.
The symbol <għ> was apparently first used in 1859 by the newspaperIl Habib tal Maltin (as an adaptation of earlier <gh>), though it was not popularised until the first half of the 20th century.[1]
- (letter name):
- (phoneme):
- IPA(key): /-/,/ː/,/ɛ/,/ɔ/,/j/,/w/,/ħ/
għ (upper caseGħ)
- The ninthletter of the Maltesealphabet, calledajn and written in theLatin script.
- In contemporary Maltese,għ remains a true consonant[ħ] in word-final position (maqtugħ[maʔˈtuːħ]) and in the cluster-għh-, which becomes[ħħ]. Otherwise it is silent or leaves at most a vocalic trace:
- Following and precedinga, e, o are lengthened if stressed:għodwa[ˈɔːdwa],nagħġa[ˈnaːdʒa].
- Followingi, u become diphthongs:għira[ˈɛjra],jistgħu[ˈjɪstɔw]. A partial exception to this is the sequence-egħi-, which has a number of possible realisations (cf.tqegħid).
- In intervocalic position it is a glide,[j] afteri, ie, and[w] afteru:qiegħed[ˈʔɪːjɛt],maqtugħa[maʔˈtuːwa].
- The (always stressed) sequence-iegħ- becomes[ɛː] when followed by a consonant:qiegħda[ˈʔɛːda].
- After unstresseda, word-finalgħ is most often lost and then represented by an apostrophe:jisma’[ˈjɪsma]. It resurfaces when an ending is added to the word:jisimgħu[jɪˈsɪmɔw]. Exceptions are the verb ending negative suffix-x, before which silentgħ is simply dropped in the spelling:jismax[jɪsˈmaːʃ], and when adding suffixes-t,-tu,-na where it changes to a more phonetically accuratej:smajtx[jɪsˈmaːʃ].
- Phonotactically, word-initialgħ now generally behaves like a vowel, allowing contractions such asm’għandix[manˈdiːʃ]. However, word-internalgħ still behaves like a (virtual) consonant. Compare the aforementionedjisimgħu, where the voweli has been added before them, as though the latter were followed by a consonant.
- ^Arnold Cassola (2013), “A note on the dating ofħ,għ andx in Maltese”, in Albert Borg, Sandro Caruana, Alexandra Vella, editors,Perspectives on Maltese Linguistics,Akademie Verlag,→DOI, page17,
- (Latin-script letters)ittra;A a,B b,Ċ ċ,D d,E e,F f,Ġ ġ,G g,Għ għ,H h,Ħ ħ,I i,Ie ie,J j,K k,L l,M m,N n,O o,P p,Q q,R r,S s,T t,U u,V v,W w,X x,Ż ż,Z z
