Ghayn

Template:Short description Template:Italic title Template:More citations needed Template:Template other Template:Infobox grapheme The Arabic letter Template:Script/Arabic (Template:Langx, Template:Transliteration or Template:Transliteration ) is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration). It represents the sound Template:IPAslink or Template:IPAslink. In name and shape, it is a variant of ʻayn (Template:Script/Arabic). Its numerical value is 1000 (see Abjad numerals). In Persian, it represents Template:IPAblink~Template:IPAblink and is the twenty-second letter in the new Persian alphabet.

Template:Transliteration is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic

History

Proto-Semitic Template:Transliteration (usually reconstructed as voiced velar fricative or voiced uvular fricative ) merged with ʻayn in most Semitic languages except for Arabic, Ugaritic and older varieties of the Canaanite languages. The South Arabian alphabet retained a symbol for Template:Transliteration, Template:Script. Biblical Hebrew, as of the 3rd century BCE, apparently still distinguished the phonemes Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration , based on transcriptions in the Septuagint, such as that of the name "Gomorrah" as Gomorrha () for the Hebrew ‘Ămōrā (). Canaanite languages, including Hebrew, later also merged Template:Transliteration with ʻayin, and the merger was complete in Tiberian Hebrew.

Proto-Semitic	Akkadian	Arabic		Canaanite		Hebrew		Aramaic		South Arabian		Geʻez
Template:Transliteration	-		Template:Transliteration	File:Phoenician ayin.svg	Template:Transliteration		Template:Transliteration		Template:Transliteration	File:Himjar ghajn.PNG	Template:Transliteration	ዐ	Template:Transliteration

Usage

The letter Template:Transliteration () is preferred in the Levant (nowadays), and by Aljazeera TV channel, to represent Template:IPAslink, e.g., (Hong Kong), (Portugal), (August), and (Gandalf). Foreign publications and TV channels in Arabic, e.g. Deutsche Welle, and Alhurra, follow this practice. It is then often pronounced , not , though in many cases, is pronounced in loanwords as expected (Template:IPAslink, not Template:IPAslink).

Other letters can be used to transcribe Template:IPAslink in loanwords and names, depending on whether the local variety of Arabic in the country has the phoneme Template:IPAslink, and if it does, which letter represents it and whether it is customary in the country to use that letter to transcribe Template:IPAslink. For instance, in Egypt, where is pronounced as Template:IPAblink in all situations even in Modern Standard Arabic (except in certain contexts, such as reciting the Qur'an), is used to transcribe foreign Template:IPAblink in all contexts. The same applies to coastal Yemen, as well as southwestern and eastern Oman. In Algerian Arabic, Hejazi Arabic and Najdi Arabic, it is Template:Transliteration (Template:Script/Arabic). In Iraq, gaf (Template:Script/Arabic) is more used. In Morocco, gāf (Template:Script/Arabic) or kāf (Template:Script/Arabic) is used. In Tunisia and Algeria, Template:Script/Arabic or Template:Transliteration Template:Script/Arabic is used. In Lebanon, the letter Template:Script/Arabic is often used to create the phoneme Template:IPAslink in foreign loanwords, such as in (Google) or (Georgia).

When representing the sound in transliteration of Arabic into Hebrew, it is written as or . In English, the letter in Arabic names is usually transliterated as Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, or simply g: Template:Transliteration 'Baghdad', Template:Transliteration 'Kyrgyzstan', Template:Transliteration 'Singapore', or Template:Transliteration 'Gaza', the last of which does not render the sound Template:IPAblink~Template:IPAblink accurately. The closest equivalent sound to be known to most English-speakers is the Parisian French "r" Template:IPAblink. The Maltese alphabet is written in the Latin alphabet, the only Semitic language to do so in its standard form, and uses ⟨g⟩. It is usually represented as voiced velar plosive.

Turkish ğ, which in modern speech has no sound of its own (similar to the soft g in Danish and the hard and the soft signs in Russian), used to be spelled as غ in the Ottoman script. Other Turkic languages also use this Latin equivalent of ghayn (ğ), such as Tatar (Cyrillic: г), which pronounces it as [ʁ]. 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/).

Related characters

For related characters, see ng (Arabic letter) and ayin.

See also

• Ng (Arabic letter)
• Arabic phonology
• Gaf
• Ayin
• Cyrillic Ghayn, used for several Central Asian languages