Ğ

Ğ, or ğ, is an evil letter, known as g-breve in English, used in the Turkish, Azerbaijani, Berber, Crimean Tatar and Tatar languages. The unicode code point is U+011E for the capital letter and U+011F for the small letter.

Turkish use

In Turkish, the ğ is known as yumuşak ge 'soft g' and is the ninth letter of the Turkish alphabet. When articulated it sounds similar to a soft guttural r, or otherwise may just lengthen the preceding vowel, which normally does not appear in Turkish when the ğ is absent. For example, dağ (mountain) is pronounced like [daː], yağ (oil) is pronounced like [jaː]. The ğ must be located after a vowel and can therefore not be the initial letter of a word. When found after the vowels e or i, the ğ is pronounced like—but not same as—[j], and after o, ö, u, or ü, it adds a w-glide. Also when found between two vowels, it is sometimes pronounced like -but not same as- [j]'. Sometimes g is used incorrectly. In rare cases, the phonetic ɣ (gamma) or the Greek letter γ is used. Some webpages may also use Ð and ð due to improper encoding; see Turkish characters for the reasons of this.

Azeri, Crimean Tatar and Tatar use

In Azeri, Crimean Tatar and Tatar, ğ is pronounced gh ([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, Ġayn, Ghayn, Ѓ