Gaf

The Gaf of Pashto alphabet
One form of gaf

Gaf, or gāf, may be the name of four different Perso-Arabic letters, all representing /ɡ/. They are all forms of the letter kāf, with additional diacritics, such as dots and lines. There are three forms, each used in different places:

Gaf with line

گ‎ is based on kāf with an additional line. It is rarely used in Arabic itself, but may be used to represent the sound /ɡ/ when writing other languages. It is frequently used in Persian, Uyghur, Urdu and Kurdish and is one of four Perso-Arabic letters not found in Arabic.

ݣ‎ can also be used to represent /ɡ/ in Morocco, occidental Algeria and many Berber languages.

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form: گ‎ ـگ‎ ـگـ‎ گـ‎

Gaf with single dot

ݢ‎ is derived from a variant form (ک‎) of kāf with the addition of a dot. It is not used in the Arabic language itself, but is used in the Jawi script of Malay to represent a voiced velar stop /ɡ/. Unicode includes two forms on this letter: one based on the standard Arabic kāf, ك‎, and one based on the variant form ک‎. The latter is the preferred form.[1]

Appearance Code point Name
ڬ‎ U+06AC ARABIC LETTER KAF WITH DOT ABOVE
ݢ‎ U+0762 ARABIC LETTER KEHEH WITH DOT ABOVE
Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form: ڬ‎ ـڬ‎ ـڬـ‎ ڬـ‎
Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form: ݢ‎ ـݢ‎ ـݢـ‎ ݢـ‎

Gaf with line and two dots

ڳ‎ is derived from a variant form (ک‎) of kāf with the addition of a line and two dots. It is not used in the Arabic language itself, but is used in the Saraiki alphabet.

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form: ڳ‎ ـڳ‎ ـڳـ‎ ڳـ‎

Gaf with three dots

The Arabic signage for the Argana cafe in Marrakesh's Jemaa el-Fnaa features a prominent gaf with three dots.

ݣ‎ is based on a variant form (ک‎) of kāf with the addition of three dots. It is used in western Algerian Arabic (elsewhere in Algeria, ڨ is used), in Moroccan Arabic (though Persian گ can also be used) and in many Berber languages to represent /ɡ/. Examples of its use include city names (such as Agadir أݣادير‎, also written: أغادير‎) and family names (such as El Guerrouj الݣروج‎, also written: الكروج‎). In Morocco, western Algeria, and many Berber languages, the Persian letter گ‎ can also be used instead.

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form: ݣ‎ ـݣ‎ ـݣـ‎ ݣـ‎

Its initial and medial forms are identical to ڭ‎, which represents /ŋ/ in some languages. However, their isolated and final forms are different.

Gaf with ring

In Pashto:

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form: ګ‎ ـګ‎ ـګـ‎ ګـ‎

Gaf with inverted stroke

In Chechen on the Arabic character ࢰ‎ is used to write a Кӏ (Kh).

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form: ࢰ‎ ـࢰ‎ ـࢰـ‎ ࢰـ‎

Character encoding

Character گ ڳ ݢ ڴ ڰ ࢰ
Unicode name ARABIC LETTER GAF ARABIC LETTER GUEH ARABIC LETTER KEHEH
WITH DOT ABOVE 		ARABIC LETTER GAF
WITH THREE DOTS ABOVE 		ARABIC LETTER GAF
WITH RING 		ARABIC LETTER GAF
WITH INVERTED STROKE
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 1711 U+06AF 1715 U+06B3 1890 U+0762 1716 U+06B4 1712 U+06B0 2224 U+08B0
UTF-8 218 175 DA AF 218 179 DA B3 221 162 DD A2 218 180 DA B4 218 176 DA B0 224 162 176 E0 A2 B0
Numeric character reference گ گ ڳ ڳ ݢ ݢ ڴ ڴ ڰ ڰ ࢰ ࢰ

See also

References

  1. ↑ Jonatha Kew (2003). "Proposal to encode Jawi and Moroccan Arabic GAF characters" (PDF).
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