Gha
Letter in mostly Turkic-Latin script
The letter Ƣ (minuscule: ƣ), called gha, was used in the Latin orthographies of various, mostly Turkic languages, as part of the early Soviet Jaꞑalif orthographies. It was also later included in the Chinese pinyin-based alphabets for Kazakh and Uyghur until 1983. It usually represents a voiced velar fricative [ɣ] but is sometimes used for a voiced uvular fricative [ʁ]. All orthographies that used the letter have been phased out.
Historically, it is derived from a handwritten form of the small Latin letter ⟨q⟩ around 1900. The majuscule is then based on the minuscule. Its use for [ɣ] stems from the linguistic tradition of representing such sounds (and similar ones) by q in Turkic languages and in transcriptions of Arabic or Persian (compare kaf and qaf).
01Modern replacements
| Language | Letter |
|---|---|
| Abaza | ГЪ, гъ |
| Abkhaz | Ҕ, ҕ/Ӷ, ӷ |
| Avar | ГЪ, гъ |
| Azerbaijani | Ğ, ğ |
| Bashkir | Ғ, ғ |
| Crimean Tatar | Ğ, ğ (Latin), ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic) |
| Dargin (literary) | ГЪ, гъ |
| Dungan | Р, р |
| Kabardian | ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic), Ğ, ğ (Latin) |
| Karachay-Balkar | ГЪ, гъ |
| Karaim | ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic), G, g (Latin) |
| Karakalpak | Ǵ, ǵ (Latin), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic) |
| Kazakh | Ğ, ğ (Latin), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic), ع (Arabic) |
| Khakas | Ғ, ғ |
| Kumyk | ГЪ, гъ |
| Kurdish | غ (Arabic), x/ẍ (Latin) |
| Kyrgyz | Г, г (Cyrillic), ع (Arabic) |
| Lak | ГЪ, гъ |
| Laz | ღ (Georgian), Ğ, ğ (Latin) |
| Lezgi | ГЪ, гъ |
| Nogai | Г, г |
| Tajik | Ғ, ғ |
| Talysh | Ğ, ğ (Latin), غ (Persian), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic) |
| Tat | Ğ, ğ (Latin), ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic) |
| Tatar | Г, г (Cyrillic), Ğ, ğ (Latin) |
| Tsakhur | ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic), Ğ, ğ (Latin) |
| Turkmen | G, g |
| Tuvan | Г, г |
| Udin | Ğ, ğ (Latin), ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic) |
| Urum | Ґ, ґ; Ғ, ғ |
| Uyghur | غ (Arabic), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic), Gh, gh (Latin) |
| Uzbek | Gʻ, gʻ (Latin), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic) |
| Yakut | Ҕ, ҕ |
02Unicode
In Unicode, the majuscule Ƣ is encoded in the Latin Extended-B block at U+01A2 and the minuscule ƣ is encoded at U+01A3. The assigned names, "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OI" and "LATIN SMALL LETTER OI" respectively, are acknowledged by the Unicode Consortium to be mistakes, as gha is unrelated to the letters O and I. The Unicode Consortium therefore has provided the character name aliases "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER GHA" and "LATIN SMALL LETTER GHA".
03In popular culture
Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow features an episode purporting to be the story of a Soviet officer, Tchitcherine, dispatched to Kirghizstan to serve on a committee tasked with devising an alphabet for the Kyrgyz language. Tchitcherine's particular contribution is the invention of the letter Ƣ, which is thus perhaps the only obsolete letter of a Central Asian language that may be familiar to the non-specialist, English-reading public through a widely circulated novel.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Gha”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Sütterlin-Q.png by Stefan Knauf, Public domain
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