Gha
The letter Ƣ (minuscule: ƣ) has been used in the Latin orthographies of various, mostly Turkic languages, such as Azeri or the Jaꞑalif orthography for Tatar.[1] It usually represents a voiced velar fricative [ɣ] but is sometimes used for a voiced uvular fricative [ʁ]. All orthographies using it have been phased out, so the letter is not well-supported in fonts. It can still be seen in pre-1983 books published by the People’s Republic of China.
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 similars) by q in Turkic languages and in transcriptions of Arabic or Persian (compare kaf and qaf).[2]
In alphabetical order, it comes between G and H.
Unrelated letters transcribed gh, typically representing a voiced aspirated stop /gʱ/ rather than a fricative, occur in scripts descended from Brāhmī script.
Modern replacements
- Azerbaijani: Ğ, ğ
- Tatar: Г, г (Cyrillic), Ğ, ğ (Latin)
- Bashkir: Ғ, ғ
- Kazakh: Ғ, ғ
- Uyghur: غ (Arabic), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic), Gh, gh (Latin)
- Yakut: Ҕ, ҕ
- Uzbek: Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic), Gʻ, gʻ (Latin)
- Tajik: Ғ, ғ
Unicode
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.[3] 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.[4]