Ğ

Ğ, or ğ, is a letter, known as g-breve in English, used in the Turkish, Azerbaijani, Berber, Crimean Tatar and Tatar languages. In Unicode they are U+011E Ğ latin capital letter g with breve (HTML: Ğ ) and U+011F ğ latin small letter g with breve (HTML: ğ ).

Turkish use

In Turkish, the ğ /ɰ/ is known as yumuşak ge [jumuʃak ɟe] 'soft g' and is the ninth letter of the Turkish alphabet. It is very similar to the blødt g 'soft g' in Danish and comparable to the '-gh' in English (in though). It lengthens the preceding vowel, which is normally short in Turkish without the ğ. For example, dağ (mountain) is pronounced like [daː], and yağ (oil) is pronounced like [jaː]. The ğ must be located after a vowel and thus cannot be the initial letter of a word. Its exact use varies throughout Turkey and with regard to the particular vowel with which it is used: it adds a rising of the back of the tongue (as for g or k) to a and ı, a /j/ glide to e or i, and a w glide to the rounded vowels: o, u, ö, and ü.

The letter provides a smooth transition between vowels since they do not occur consecutively in native Turkish words (in loanwords they are separated by a glottal stop). Sometimes g is used incorrectly instead of ğ. In the case of Turkish words borrowed into other languages, the letter may become a [ɡ], as in yogurt (also spelled yoghurt; Turkish yoğurt). In rare cases, the phonetic ɣ (gamma) or the Greek letter γ is used. Some webpages may also use Ð and ð because of improper encoding; see Turkish characters for the reasons of this.

Azeri use

In Azeri, the ğ represents /ɣ/, the voiced velar fricative.

Crimean Tatar and Tatar use

In Crimean Tatar and Tatar, ğ is pronounced [ʁ], a voiced uvular fricative. The Ğ is used as an initial letter in Crimean Tatar and Tatar only. For example, Ğabdulla is the Tatar way of writing the Arabic name ʿAbdullah. (In the Tatar language, the Arabic letters ʿayn (ع) and ghayn (غ) were both borrowed as ğ.)

See also

• Ǧ (g with caron)
• Ġayn
• Ghayn