Ge with upturn

Cyrillic letter Ge with upturn
Unicode (hex)
majuscule: U+0490
minuscule: U+0491
Cyrillic script Slavic letters
А	Б	В	Г	Ґ	Д	Ђ
Ѓ	Е	Ѐ	Ё	Є	Ж	З
Ѕ	И	Ѝ	І	Ї	Й	Ј
К	Л	Љ	М	Н	Њ	О
П	Р	С	Т	Ћ	Ќ	У
Ў	Ф	Х	Ц	Ч	Џ	Ш
Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ь	Э	Ю	Я
Non-Slavic letters
Ӑ	Ӓ	Ә	Ӛ	Ӕ	Ғ	Ҕ
Ӻ	Ӷ	Ԁ	Ԃ	Ꚉ	Ӗ	Ӂ
Җ	Ӝ	Ԅ	Ҙ	Ӟ	Ԑ	Ӡ
Ԇ	Ӣ	Ҋ	Ӥ	Қ	Ӄ	Ҡ
Ҟ	Ҝ	Ԟ	Ԛ	Ӆ	Ԓ	Ԡ
Ԉ	Ԕ	Ӎ	Ӊ	Ң	Ӈ	Ҥ
Ԣ	Ԋ	Ӧ	Ө	Ӫ	Ҩ	Ԥ
Ҧ	Ҏ	Ԗ	Ҫ	Ԍ	Ҭ	Ԏ
Ӯ	Ӱ	Ӳ	Ү	Ұ	Ҳ	Ӽ
Ӿ	Һ	Ԧ	Ҵ	Ҷ	Ӵ	Ӌ
Ҹ	Ꚇ	Ҽ	Ҿ	Ӹ	Ҍ	Ӭ
Ԙ	Ԝ	Ӏ
Archaic letters
Ҁ	Ѻ	Ѹ	Ѡ	Ѿ	Ѣ	Ꙓ
Ꙗ	Ѥ	Ѧ	Ѫ	Ѩ	Ѭ	Ѯ
Ѱ	Ѳ	Ѵ	Ѷ	Ꙟ
List of Cyrillic letters
Cyrillic digraphs

Ge with upturn (Ґ ґ; italics: Ґ ґ ) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. In Ukrainian, Urum and Rusyn, this letter is called "Ge", and the letter ⟨Г⟩ is called "He". In Unicode this letter is called "Ghe with upturn".^[1]

The letterform of Ge with upturn is based on the Cyrillic letter Ge (Г г), but its handwritten and italic lowercase forms do not follow the italic modification of Ge (г).

It represents the voiced velar plosive /ɡ/, like the pronunciation of ⟨g⟩ in "go".

Ge with upturn is romanized using the Latin letter G.

Contents 1 History 2 Related letters and other similar characters 3 Computing codes 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links

History

The common Slavic voiced velar plosive [ɡ] is represented in most Cyrillic orthographies by the letter ⟨Г⟩, called ге ge in most languages. In Ukrainian, however, sometime around the early thirteenth century, this sound lenited to the voiced velar fricative [ɣ] (except in the cluster *zg),^[2] and around the sixteenth century debuccalized to the voiced glottal fricative [ɦ]^[3] (like the pronunciation of ⟨h⟩ in "behind"). The phoneme continued to be represented by ⟨Г⟩, called ге he in Ukrainian.

Within a century after this sound change began, [ɡ] was reintroduced from Western European loanwords. Since then, it has been represented by several different notations in writing.

In early Belarusian and Ukrainian orthographies, Latin ⟨g⟩ or the Cyrillic digraph ⟨кг⟩ (kh) were sometimes used to denote the sound of Latin ⟨g⟩ in assimilated words. Later the practice of distinguishing this sound and using the digraph disappeared from Belarusian orthography.

The letter ⟨ґ⟩ was first introduced into the Slavic alphabet in 1619 by Meletius Smotrytsky in his "Slavic Grammar" (Грамматіки славєнскиѧ правилноє Сѵнтаґма).^[4] Later it, serving an identical purpose, was saved in the new orthography of the Ukrainian language.

The letter ⟨ґ⟩ was eliminated from the Ukrainian alphabet in the Soviet orthographic reforms of 1933, its function subsumed into that of the letter ⟨г⟩, pronounced [ɦ] in Ukrainian. However, ⟨ґ⟩ continued to be used by Ukrainians in Galicia (under Poland until 1939) and in the Ukrainian diaspora worldwide. It was reintroduced to Soviet Ukraine in a 1990 orthographic reform under Glasnost.

During the twentieth century, some Belarusian linguists, notably Yan Stankyevich, promoted both the reintroduction of the practice of pronouncing Latin ⟨g⟩ in, at least, newly assimilated words, and the adoption of letter ⟨ґ⟩ to represent it. However, consensus on this has never been reached, and this letter has never been part of standard Belarusian alphabet, seeing only sporadic periods of use. For example, a code of alternative Belarusian orthography rules, based on the proposal of V. Vyachorka and published in 2005, has the optional letter ⟨ґ⟩ included in the alphabet, but its use is not obligatory and in any case it can be replaced by ⟨г⟩.

Related letters and other similar characters

• Г г : Cyrillic letter Ge
• G g : Latin letter G

Computing codes

character	Ґ		ґ
Unicode name	CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER GHE WITH UPTURN		CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER GHE WITH UPTURN
character encoding	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	1168	0490	1169	0491
UTF-8	210 144	D2 90	210 145	D2 91
Numeric character reference	Ґ	Ґ	ґ	ґ
KOI8-U	189	BD	173	AD
Windows-1251	165	A5	180	B4
Macintosh Cyrillic	162	A2	182	B6

References

Further reading

• George Y. Shevelov (1977). “On the Chronology of H and the New G in Ukrainian”, in Harvard Ukrainian Studies, vol 1, no 2 (June 1977), pp 137–52. Cambridge: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.
• Да рэформы беларускай азбукі. // Пасяджэньні Беларускае Акадэмічнае Конфэрэнцыі па рэформе правапісу і азбукі. - Мн.: [б. м.], [1927?].
• Ян Станкевіч. Гук «ґ» у беларускай мове // Ян Станкевіч. Збор твораў у двух тамах. Т. 2. - Мн.: Энцыклапедыкс, 2002. ISBN 985-6599-46-6

External links

• The Wiktionary entry for Ґ
• The Wiktionary entry for ґ