Editing G (section)

==History==
{{For|earlier history|C#History}}
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Egyptian
! Phoenician <br />[[gimel|gaml]]
! Western Greek<br />[[Gamma]]
! Etruscan<br />C
! Old Latin<br />C
! Latin <br />G
|- style="background:white;background:light-dark(white,black); text-align:center;"
| {{align|center|<hiero>T14</hiero>}}
|[[File:Phoenician gimel.svg|class=skin-invert-image|30px|Phoenician gimel]]
|[[File:Greek Gamma archaic 1.svg|class=skin-invert-image|55px|Greek Gamma]]
|[[File:EtruscanC-01.svg|class=skin-invert-image|30px|Etruscan C]]
|[[File:Old Latin G.svg|class=skin-invert-image|20px|Old Latin]]
|[[File:Capitalis monumentalis G.svg|class=skin-invert-image|x30px|Latin G]]
|}
The evolution of the Latin alphabet's G can be traced back to the Latin alphabet's predecessor, the [[Greek alphabet]]. The voiced velar stop was represented by the third letter of the Greek alphabet, [[Gamma|gamma (Γ)]], which was later adopted by the [[Etruscan language]]. Latin then borrowed this "rounded form" of gamma, C, to represent the same sound in words such as ''recei'', which was likely an early dative form of ''[[Rex (title)|rex]]'', meaning "king", as found in an "early Latin inscription."<ref name="Ray-Britannica">{{Cite web |last1=Ray |first1=Michael |last2=Gaur |first2=Aakanksha |date=2022-04-27 |title=G |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/G-letter |access-date=2023-05-08 |publisher=[[Encyclopedia Britannica]] |language=en}}</ref> Over time, however, the letter C shifted to represent the [[voiceless velar stop]], leading to the displacement of the letter K. Scholars believe that this change can be attributed to the influence of the Etruscan language on Latin.<ref name="Ray-Britannica" /> 

Afterwards, the letter 'G' was introduced in the [[History of the Latin alphabet#Old Latin period|Old Latin period]] as a variant of '[[C]]' to distinguish voiced {{IPA|/ɡ/}} from voiceless {{IPA|/k/}}, and G was used to represent a [[voiced velar stop]] from this point on and C "stood for the unvoiced velar only".<ref name="Ray-Britannica" />

The recorded originator of 'G' is [[freedman]] [[Spurius Carvilius Ruga]], who added letter G to the teaching of the [[Roman alphabet]] during the 3rd century BCE:<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nlEPhP900-UC&q=Boustrophedon|title=The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet|last=Gnanadesikan|first=Amalia E.|date=2011-09-13|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=9781444359855|language=en}}</ref> he was the first Roman to open a fee-paying school, around 230 BCE. At this time, '[[K]]' had fallen out of favor, and 'C', which had formerly represented both {{IPA|/ɡ/}} and {{IPA|/k/}} before open vowels, had come to express {{IPA|/k/}} in all environments.

Ruga's positioning of 'G' shows that [[alphabetic order]] related to the letters' values as [[Greek numerals]] was a concern even in the 3rd century BCE. According to some records, the original seventh letter, 'Z', had been purged from the Latin alphabet somewhat earlier in the 3rd century BCE by the [[Roman censor]] [[Appius Claudius Caecus|Appius Claudius]], who found it distasteful and foreign.<ref>[http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/miscellanea/zed.html Encyclopaedia Romana]</ref> Sampson (1985) suggests 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."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.evertype.com/standards/wynnyogh/thorn.html|title=Sorting the letter ÞORN|last1=Everson|first1=Michael|last2=Sigurðsson|first2=Baldur|website=Evertype|publisher=ISO CEN/TC304|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180924083021/http://www.evertype.com/standards/wynnyogh/thorn.html|archive-date=2018-09-24|url-status=dead|access-date=2018-11-01|last3=Málstöð|first3=Íslensk}}</ref>  

George Hempl proposed in 1899 that there never was such a "space" in the alphabet and that in fact 'G' was a direct descendant of [[zeta]].  Zeta took shapes like ⊏ in some of the [[Old Italic script]]s; the development of the [[Roman square capitals|monumental]] form 'G' from this shape would be exactly parallel to the development of 'C' from [[gamma]]. He suggests that the pronunciation {{IPA|/k/}} &gt; {{IPA|/ɡ/}} was due to contamination from the also similar-looking 'K'.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Hempl|first=George|date=1899|title=The Origin of the Latin Letters G and Z|journal=[[Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association]]|volume=30|publisher=[[The Johns Hopkins University Press]]|pages=24–41|doi=10.2307/282560|jstor=282560}}</ref>

Eventually, both [[velar consonant]]s {{IPA|/k/}} and {{IPA|/ɡ/}} developed [[Palatalization (phonetics)|palatalized]] [[allophone]]s before front vowels; consequently in today's [[Romance languages]], {{vr|c}} and {{vr|g}} have different sound values depending on context (known as [[hard and soft C]] and [[hard and soft G]]). Because of [[French orthography|French]] influence, [[English orthography|English language orthography]] shares this feature.

===Typographic variants===
[[File:LowercaseG.svg|left|thumb|[[Allograph|Typographic variants]] include a double-storey and a single-storey '''g'''.|alt=Image shows the two forms of the letter g]]
The modern [[lowercase]] {{char|g}} has two typographic variants: the single-storey (sometimes "opentail") [[File:Opentail g.svg|class=skin-invert-image|8px|alt=a letter g shaped like a circle with a dangling hook]] and the double-storey (sometimes "looptail") [[File:Looptail g.svg|class=skin-invert-image|8px|alt=a letter g shaped like spectacles]]. The single-storey form derives from the majuscule (uppercase) form by raising the [[serif]] that distinguishes it from 'c' to the top of the loop (thus closing the loop), and extending the vertical stroke downward and to the left. The double-storey form {{nowrap|([[File:Looptail g.svg|class=skin-invert-image|8px]])}} had developed similarly, except that some ornate forms then extended the tail back to the right, and to the left again, forming a closed [[Bowl (typography)|bowl]] or loop. In the double-storey version, a small top stroke in the upper-right, often terminating in an orb shape, is called an "ear". The loop-tail form is the original one, as seen in 9th century [[Carolingian script]]; evolving over centuries of [[Scriptorium|monastic copying]], the open-tail variant came to predominate and it was this that [[Johannes Gutenberg|Gutenberg]] adopted when creating the first [[Blackletter]] typefaces{{snd}} until that in turn was replaced by [[Humanist minuscule]], which reasserted the closed-tail form.<ref>{{cite magazine |magazine=[[The Atlantic]] | first=Sarah |last=Zhang |title=The 'g' in Google's Old Logo Is Really Weird: a tale of two "g"s |date=April 9, 2018 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/lowercase-g/557504/ }}</ref>

Generally, the two forms are complementary and interchangeable; the form displayed is a [[typeface]] selection choice. In [[Unicode]], the two appearances are generally treated as glyph variants with no [[wikt:semantic|semantic]] difference. Most [[serif]] typefaces use the looptail form (for example, <span style=font-family:"Times New Roman", Times, serif>{{char|g}}</span>) and most [[sans-serif]] typefaces use the opentail form (for example, <span style=font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif>{{char|g}}</span>) but the [[code point]] in both cases is U+0067. For applications where the single-storey variant must be distinguished (such as strict [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]] in a typeface where the usual g character is double-storey), the character {{Unichar|0261|Latin small letter script g}} is available, as well as an upper case version, {{Unichar|A7AC|Latin capital letter script G}}. 

Occasionally the difference has been exploited to provide contrast. In the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]], opentail {{angbr|[[File:Opentail g.svg|class=skin-invert-image|8px]]}} has always represented a [[voiced velar plosive]], while looptail {{angbr|[[File:Looptail g.svg|class=skin-invert-image|8px]]}} represented a [[voiced velar fricative]] from 1895 to 1900.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Association phonétique internationale|date=January 1895|title=vɔt syr l alfabɛ|trans-title=Votes sur l'alphabet|journal=Le Maître Phonétique|volume=10|issue=1|pages=16–17|jstor=44707535}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Association phonétique internationale|date=February–March 1900|title=akt ɔfisjɛl|trans-title=Acte officiel|journal=Le Maître Phonétique|volume=15|issue=2/3|page=20|jstor=44701257}}</ref> In 1948, the Council of the [[International Phonetic Association]] recognized {{angbr IPA|ɡ}} and {{angbr|[[File:Looptail g.svg|class=skin-invert-image|8px]]}} as typographic equivalents,<ref>{{cite journal|last=Jones|first=Daniel|date=July–December 1948|title=desizjɔ̃ ofisjɛl|trans-title=Décisions officielles|journal=Le Maître Phonétique|volume=26 (63)|issue=90|pages=28–30|jstor=44705217}}</ref> and this decision was reaffirmed in 1993.<ref>{{cite journal|author=International Phonetic Association|year=1993|title=Council actions on revisions of the IPA|journal=[[Journal of the International Phonetic Association]]|volume=23|issue=1|pages=32–34|doi=10.1017/S002510030000476X|s2cid=249420050 }}</ref> While the 1949 ''Principles of the International Phonetic Association'' recommended the use of {{angbr|[[File:Looptail g.svg|class=skin-invert-image|8px]]}} for a velar plosive and {{angbr IPA|ɡ}} for an advanced one for languages where it is preferable to distinguish the two, such as Russian,<ref>{{cite book|author=International Phonetic Association|year=1949|title=The Principles of the International Phonetic Association|publisher=Department of Phonetics, [[University College, London]]|jstor=i40200179|at=Supplement to ''Le Maître Phonétique'' 91, January–June 1949}}
* Reprinted in ''Journal of the International Phonetic Association'' 40 (3), December 2010, pp.&nbsp;299–358, {{doi|10.1017/S0025100311000089}}.</ref> this practice never caught on.<ref>{{cite web|last=Wells|first=John C.|date=6 November 2006|url=https://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/blog0611a.htm|title=Scenes from IPA history|work=John Wells's phonetic blog|publisher=Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London|access-date=29 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180613022900/http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/blog0611a.htm|archive-date=13 June 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> The 1999 ''Handbook of the International Phonetic Association'', the successor to the ''Principles'', abandoned the recommendation and acknowledged both shapes as acceptable variants.<ref>{{cite book|author=International Phonetic Association|year=1999|title=Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet|location=Cambridge|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=0-521-63751-1|page=19}}</ref>

In 2018, a study found that native English speakers have little conscious awareness of the looptail form {{nowrap|([[File:Looptail g.svg|class=skin-invert-image|8px]]).}} The authors write: "Despite being questioned repeatedly, and despite being informed directly that G has two lowercase print forms, nearly half of the participants failed to reveal any knowledge of the looptail 'g', and only 1 of the 38 participants was able to write looptail 'g' correctly".<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Wong|first1=Kimberly|last2=Wadee|first2=Frempongma|last3=Ellenblum|first3=Gali|last4=McCloskey|first4=Michael|title=The Devil's in the g-tails: Deficient letter-shape knowledge and awareness despite massive visual experience.|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance|volume=44|issue=9|pages=1324–1335|date=2 April 2018|doi=10.1037/xhp0000532|pmid=29608074|s2cid=4571477}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Dean|first1=Signe|title=Most People Don't Know What Lowercase 'G' Looks Like And We're Not Even Kidding|date=4 April 2018|url=https://www.sciencealert.com/lowercase-g-two-print-forms-looptail-opentail-writing-reading-comprehension|website=Science Alert|access-date=7 April 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180408073304/https://www.sciencealert.com/lowercase-g-two-print-forms-looptail-opentail-writing-reading-comprehension|archive-date=8 April 2018|url-status=live}}</ref>

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