In English, the letter represents a [[voiced postalveolar affricate]] {{IPA|/dʒ/}}) ("soft G"), as in: ''[[giant (disambiguation)|giant]]'', ''[[ginger]]'', and ''[[geology]]''; or a [[voiced velar plosive]] {{IPA|/g/}} ("hard G"), as in: ''goose'', ''gargoyle'', and ''game''. In some words of French origin, the "soft G" is pronounced as a fricative ({{IPA|/ʒ/}}), as in ''rouge'', ''beige'', and ''genre''. Generally, G is soft before E, I, and Y, and hard otherwise, but there are many English words of non-Romance origin where G is hard regardless of position, and three (''gaol,'' ''margarine,'' and the name ''[[Sacagawea]]'') in which it is soft even before an A.
In English, the letter represents a [[voiced postalveolar affricate]] {{IPA|/dʒ/}}) ("soft G"), as in: ''[[giant (disambiguation)|giant]]'', ''[[ginger]]'', and ''[[geology]]''; or a [[voiced velar plosive]] {{IPA|/g/}} ("hard G"), as in: ''goose'', ''gargoyle'', and ''game''. In some words of French origin, the "soft G" is pronounced as a fricative ({{IPA|/ʒ/}}), as in ''rouge'', ''beige'', and ''genre''. Generally, G is soft before E, I, and Y, and hard otherwise, but there are many English words of non-Romance origin where G is soft regardless of position, and three (''gaol,'' ''margarine,'' and the name ''[[Sacagawea]]'') in which it is soft even before an A.
Most non-Romance languages use G to represent {{IPA|/g/}} regardless of position (however the [[Dutch language]] does not have {{IPA|/g/}} in its native words, and instead G is pronounced as a [[voiced velar fricative]] {{IPA|/ɣ/}} (a sound that does not occur in English). While the soft value of G varies in different Romance languages ({{IPA|/ʒ/}} in French, Catalan, and Portuguese, {{IPA|/ʤ/}} in Italian and Romanian, and {{IPA|/x/}} in Castilian Spanish and {{IPA|/h/}} in other dialects of Spanish), in all except Romanian and Italian, soft G is pronounced the same as the J of the same language.
Most non-Romance languages use G to represent {{IPA|/g/}} regardless of position (however the [[Dutch language]] does not have {{IPA|/g/}} in its native words, and instead G is pronounced as a [[voiced velar fricative]] {{IPA|/ɣ/}} (a sound that does not occur in English). While the soft value of G varies in different Romance languages ({{IPA|/ʒ/}} in French, Catalan, and Portuguese, {{IPA|/ʤ/}} in Italian and Romanian, and {{IPA|/x/}} in Castilian Spanish and {{IPA|/h/}} in other dialects of Spanish), in all except Romanian and Italian, soft G is pronounced the same as the J of the same language.
Revision as of 01:17, 7 March 2007
Look up G or g in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
The letter G is the seventh letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is gee (jē, IPA: [dʒiː]).
History
The letter G was created by the Romans from C to distinguish voiced /g/ from voiceless /k/.
Hebrew gimel
Phoenician gimel
Classical Greek gamma
Early Latin
Late Latin
The recorded originator of the letter G is Spurius Carvilius Ruga, who taught around 230 BC:
The first derived letter of the Latin alphabet can be dated to the 3rd century BCE. Latin phonology was different again from Etruscan; while Q was used for the labiovelar /kw/, C continued to represent /k/ before /e/ and /i/ as well as in other environments (K had become unpopular and fallen out of general use in favour of C). Latin had a voiced velar /ɡ/, however, which also had to be represented by C. The first Roman to open a fee-paying school, a freedman named Spurius Carvilius Ruga, amended the Latin script by replacing the seventh letter, Z, which represented the unneeded Greek sound /dz/, with a new letter, LATIN LETTER C WITH STROKE, which we have come to know as G... Note that Ruga’s positioning of G shows that alphabetic order was a concern even in the 3rd century BCE. Sampson (1985) suggested that: “Evidently the order of the alphabet was felt to be such a concrete thing that a new letter could be added in the middle only if a ‘space’ was created by the dropping of an old letter.”[1]
Alphabet order was also connected with Greek numerals, which may have governed its importance. According to some records, the original seventh letter, Z, had been purged from the Latin alphabet somewhat earlier in the 3rd century BC by the Roman censor Appius Claudius, who found it distasteful and foreign.[2]
Eventually, both velar consonants /k/ and /g/ developed palatal and allophones before front vowels, which is why today, C and G have different sound values in the various Romance languages, as well as English (due to French influence).
The modern minuscule (lower-case) G has two basic shapes: the "opentail G" and the "looptail G" . The opentail version derives from the majuscule (capital) form by raising the serif that distinguishes it from a C to the top of the loop, thereby closing the loop, and extending the vertical stroke downward and to the left. The looptail form developed similarly, except that some ornate forms then extended the tail back to the right, and to the left again, forming a loop. The initial extension to the left was absorbed into the upper loop. The looptail version became popular when printing switched to "Roman type" because the tail was effectively shorter, making it possible to put more lines on a page. In the looptail version, there is a tiny flick at the upper right which in typography is called its "ear".
Generally, the two minuscule forms are interchangeable, but occasionally the difference has been exploited to make a contrast. The 1949 Principles of the International Phonetic Association recommends using for advanced voiced velar plosives and for regular ones where the two are contrasted, but this suggestion was never accepted by phoneticians in general, and today is the symbol used in the International Phonetic Alphabet, with acknowledged as an acceptable variant.
Usage
In English, the letter represents a voiced postalveolar affricate/dʒ/) ("soft G"), as in: giant, ginger, and geology; or a voiced velar plosive/g/ ("hard G"), as in: goose, gargoyle, and game. In some words of French origin, the "soft G" is pronounced as a fricative (/ʒ/), as in rouge, beige, and genre. Generally, G is soft before E, I, and Y, and hard otherwise, but there are many English words of non-Romance origin where G is soft regardless of position, and three (gaol,margarine, and the name Sacagawea) in which it is soft even before an A.
Most non-Romance languages use G to represent /g/ regardless of position (however the Dutch language does not have /g/ in its native words, and instead G is pronounced as a voiced velar fricative/ɣ/ (a sound that does not occur in English). While the soft value of G varies in different Romance languages (/ʒ/ in French, Catalan, and Portuguese, /ʤ/ in Italian and Romanian, and /x/ in Castilian Spanish and /h/ in other dialects of Spanish), in all except Romanian and Italian, soft G is pronounced the same as the J of the same language.
Several digraphs are common in English. GH originally represented the letter yogh which English adopted from Old Irish, and took various values including /g/, /ɣ/, /x/, and /j/. It now has a great variety of values, including /f/ in enough, /g/ in loan words like spaghetti, and as an indicator of a letter's "long" pronunciation in words like eight and night. GN, with value /n/, is also common, as in sign.
In Italian and Romanian, GH is used to represent a /g/ value before front vowels where G would otherwise represent a soft value. In Italian and French, GN is used to represent the palatal nasal/ɲ/, a sound similar to the NY in canyon).
In Spanish
to simplify the Spanish spelling by using just the versions with j. The rest of Spanish speakers did not follow him, but his works, and the translations of Rabindranath Tagore made by Jiménez's wife Zenobia Camprubí, are published in his spelling. [citation needed]
G is used an average amount in the English language. While not one of the letters that appears rarely it is also not one of the most commonly used consonants.
Codes for computing
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In Unicode the capital G is codepoint U+0047 and the lowercase g is U+0067.
The ASCII code for capital G is 71 and for lowercase g is 103; or in binary 01000111 and 01100111, correspondingly.
The EBCDIC code for capital G is 199 and for lowercase g is 135.
G stands for a yellowish class of stars in the Morgan-Keenan system
G is a provisional designation prefix for any comet, asteroid, or minor planet discovered between April 1 and 15 of a year.
In aviation, "g's" are the colloquial term for the perceived factor of increase in the force of gravity on the aircraft or pilot due to acceleration during maneuvers. See also "g" in physics below.
The spoken "g" is a common way to refer to a gram of a substance in the illegal drug trade; although this is derived from the SI symbol for gram, it would be unusual to say "g" rather than "gram" in any other context in speech.
In Freemasonry, The Masonic Square and Compasses the letter G is often found in the Masonic Square and Compasses symbol. Its meaning is sometimes attributed, without authority, to the word "God" or the word "geometry".
In geneticsG is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup & G is also a Y-chromosomal DNA (Y-DNA) haplogroup.
and the "looptail G" 
. The opentail version derives from the majuscule (capital) form by raising the serif that distinguishes it from a C to the top of the loop, thereby closing the loop, and extending the vertical stroke downward and to the left. The looptail form developed similarly, except that some ornate forms then extended the tail back to the right, and to the left again, forming a loop. The initial extension to the left was absorbed into the upper loop. The looptail version became popular when printing switched to "Roman type" because the tail was effectively shorter, making it possible to put more lines on a page. In the looptail version, there is a tiny flick at the upper right which in typography is called its "ear".
