Ge (Cyrillic)

File:Azbuka Benois - Г.jpg

Ge, from Alexandre Benois' 1904 alphabet book

Ge, ghe, or he (Г г; italics: Г г or Г г; italics: Г г) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. Most commonly, it represents the voiced velar plosive Template:IPAslink, like the Template:Angbr in "gift", or the voiced glottal fricative Template:IPAblink, like the Template:Angbr in "heft". It is generally romanized using the Latin letter g or h, depending on the source language.

History

The Cyrillic letter ge was derived directly from the Greek letter Gamma (Γ) in uncial script.

In the Early Cyrillic alphabet, its name was глаголь (glagol' ), meaning "speak".

In the Cyrillic numeral system, it had a numerical value of 3.

Usage

Slavic languages

File:Cyrillic G with oblique forms.png

Г in:
Russian/Serbian normal font;
Bulgarian Cyrillic;
Russian/Bulgarian italic;
Serbian italic

Belarusian, Rusyn, and Ukrainian

From these three languages, the letter is romanized with h. Its name is he in Belarusian and Ukrainian, and hy in Rusyn.

In Belarusian (like in Southern Russian), the letter corresponds to the velar fricative Template:IPAslink and its soft counterpart .

In Ukrainian and Rusyn, it represents a voiced glottal fricative Template:IPAblink, a breathy voiced counterpart of the English Template:IPAblink.

In Ukrainian and Rusyn, a voiced velar plosive Template:IPAslink is written with the Cyrillic letter ghe with upturn (Ґ ґ). In Belarusian, the official orthography uses г for both Template:IPAslink and Template:IPAslink (which is rare), although in Taraškievica ghe with upturn is optionally used for Template:IPAslink. Ґ is transliterated with G.

In all three languages' historical ancestor Ruthenian, the sound Template:IPAslink was also represented by the digraph кг.

Russian

In standard Russian, ghe represents the voiced velar plosive Template:IPAslink but is devoiced to Template:IPAblink word-finally or before a voiceless consonant. It represents before a palatalizing vowel. In the Southern Russian dialect, the sound becomes the velar fricative Template:IPAslink. Sometimes, the sound is the glottal fricative Template:IPAslink in the regions bordering Belarus and Ukraine.

It is acceptable, for some people, to pronounce certain Russian words with Template:IPAblink (sometimes referred to as Ukrainian Ge): (Bog, bogatyj, blago, Gospod’). The sound is normally considered nonstandard or dialectal in Russian and is avoided by educated Russian speakers. (Bog, "God") is always pronounced in the nominative case.

In the Russian nominal genitive ending , ghe represents Template:IPAblink, including in the word ("today", from ).

It represents a voiceless Template:IPAblink (not Template:IPAblink) in front of ka in two Russian words, namely, and , and their derivatives.

The Latin letter h of words of Latin, Greek, English or German origin is usually transliterated into Russian with ghe rather than kha: hero → , hamburger → , Haydn → . That can occasionally cause ambiguity, as for example English Harry and Gary/Garry would be spelled the same in Russian, e.g. Гарри Поттер). The reasons for using ghe to write h include the fact that ghe is used for h in Ukrainian, Belarusian and some Russian dialects, along with the perception that kha sounds too harsh. Nevertheless, in newer loanwords (especially from English), kha is often used.

South Slavic

In standard Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Bulgarian and Macedonian the letter ghe represents a voiced velar plosive Template:IPAslink. In Bulgarian and Macedonian, it is also devoiced to Template:IPAblink word-finally or before a voiceless consonant.

Usage in non-Slavic languages

In many non-Slavic languages it can represent both and (the latter mostly in Turkic and some Finno-Ugric languages).

In Ossetian, an Indo-Iranian language spoken in the Caucasus, ⟨г⟩ represents the voiced velar stop . However, the digraph ⟨гъ⟩ represents the voiced uvular fricative .

Cultural references

In the Russian Empire, the name of the letter glagol' was an informal reference to the Γ-shaped gallows:

Кругом пустыня, дичь и голь,

А в стороне торчит глаголь,

И на глаголе том два тела

Висят. Закаркав, отлетела

Ватага чёрная ворон,...

[All around there is desert, wilderness and bareness... And a glagol' sticks out on the side, And on that glagol' two bodies hang. The gang of black crows croaked and flew off..]

Alexander Pushkin, 1836

Related letters and other similar characters

• Γ γ: Greek letter Gamma
• G g: Latin letter G
• H h: Latin letter H, romanized as in Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Rusyn
• Z z: Latin letter Z, alternative form of italicized Cyrillic Г (ge)
• Ґ ґ: Cyrillic letter ghe with upturn, the letter g, named ge in Ukrainian
• Ѓ ѓ: Cyrillic letter Gje
• Ғ ғ: Cyrillic letter Ghayn
• R r: Latin letter R (lowercase)
• ₴: Ukrainian hryvnia (Currency sign)
• Г̇ г̇: Ge with dot above, used by Nikolai Katanov to transliterate the Arabic letter ghayn (غ).

External links

• Template:Sister-inline
• Template:Sister-inline