Editing Ghe with upturn (section)

== History ==
The common Slavic [[voiced velar plosive]] {{IPA|[ɡ]}} is represented in most Cyrillic orthographies by ⟨[[Ge (Cyrillic)|Г]]⟩, called ге, ''ge'', in most languages. In Ukrainian, however, around the early 13th century, the sound [[lenition|lenited]] to the [[voiced velar fricative]] {{IPA|[ɣ]}} (except in the cluster *zg),<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Shevelov|1977|p=145}}</ref> and around the 16th century, [[debuccalization|debuccalized]] to the [[voiced glottal fricative]] {{IPA|[ɦ]}}.<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Shevelov|1977|p=148}}</ref> The [[phoneme]] continued to be represented by ⟨Г⟩, called ге, ''he'', in Ukrainian.

Within a century after this sound change began, {{IPA|[ɡ]}} was re-introduced from Western European loanwords. Since then, it has been represented by several different notations in writing.

In early Belarusian and Ukrainian orthographies, Latin ⟨g⟩ or the Cyrillic [[Digraph (orthography)|digraph]] ⟨кг⟩ (''kh'') were sometimes used for the sound of Latin ⟨g⟩ in assimilated words. The first text to consequently employ the letter ⟨ґ⟩ was the 16th-century [[Peresopnytsia Gospel]]. The use of the letter was not confined to the Old- and Middle-Ukrainian-speaking territory, and there was a fully-fledged use in the 16th-century printer [[Pyotr Mstislavets]]'s edition of ''The Four Gospels''. Later, distinguishing of the sound and using the digraph gradually disappeared from Belarusian orthography.

As far as linguistic studies are concerned, the letter ⟨ґ⟩ was first introduced into the Slavic alphabet in 1619 by [[Meletius Smotrytsky]] in his "Slavic Grammar" ''(Грамматіки славєнскиѧ правилноє Сѵнтаґма)''.<ref>[http://izbornyk.org.ua/smotrgram/sm07.htm Мелетій Смотрицький. Граматика слов'янська (1619). Підготовка факсимільного видання В. В. Німчука. Київ. «Наукова думка» (Пам'ятки української мови) 1979]</ref> Later, for an identical purpose, it was saved in the new orthography of Ukrainian.

The letter ⟨ґ⟩ was officially eliminated from the [[Ukrainian alphabet]] in the Soviet orthographic reforms of 1933, to bring the Ukrainian language closer to Russian, its function being subsumed into that of the letter ⟨г⟩, pronounced in Ukrainian as {{IPA|[ɦ]}}. However, ⟨ґ⟩ continued to be used by Ukrainians in [[Galicia (Central Europe)|Galicia]] (part of [[Poland]] until 1939) and in the Ukrainian [[diaspora]] worldwide, who all continued to follow the [[Ukrainian orthography of 1928|Kharkiv orthography of 1928]] (the so-called ''skrypnykivka'', after [[Mykola Skrypnyk]]). It was reintroduced to Soviet Ukraine in a 1990 orthographic reform under [[glasnost]],<ref>[http://izbornyk.org.ua/pravopys/rozdil1.htm#par15 Ukrainian Orthography (2012). — § 15. The letter ⟨ґ⟩.]</ref> just before [[Declaration of Independence of Ukraine|independence]] in 1991. A 2017 study of legal documents found that the letter had returned to active usage in Ukraine.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Goletiani |first=Liana |date=2017-11-03 |title=The Letter that was Missing: On the Return of the Letter Ґ to the Ukrainian Legal Language |url=https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/ss/article/view/2398 |journal=Studi Slavistici |language=en |pages=47–66 |doi=10.13128/STUDI_SLAVIS-21938}}</ref>

In Belarusian, the plosive realization of the Proto-Slavic voiced velar plosive has been preserved [[root (linguistics)|root]]-internally in the consonant clusters ⟨зг⟩, ⟨жг⟩, ⟨дзг⟩, and ⟨джг⟩  (in words such as ''мазгі'' {{IPA|[mazˈɡi]}}, ''вэдзгаць'' {{IPA|[ˈvɛdzɡatsʲ]}} or ''джгаць'' {{IPA|[ˈdʐɡatsʲ]}} but not on a morphological boundary, as in ''згадаць'' {{IPA|[zɣaˈdatsʲ]}}, in which {{IPA|/z/}} is a [[prefix]]). It is present in common loanwords such as ''ганак'' {{IPA|[ˈɡanak]}}, ''гузік'' {{IPA|[ˈɡuzʲik]}}, or ''гандаль'' {{IPA|[ˈɡandalʲ]}}. In the 20th century, some Belarusian linguists, notably [[Jan Stankievič]], promoted both the reintroduction of the practice of pronouncing Latin ⟨g⟩, at least in newly assimilated words, and the adoption of the letter ⟨ґ⟩ to represent it. However, consensus on this has never been reached, and the letter has never been part of the standard [[Belarusian alphabet]] and saw only sporadic periods of use. For example, a code of alternative Belarusian orthography rules, based on the proposal of [[Vincuk Viačorka]] and published in 2005, has the optional letter ⟨ґ⟩ included in the alphabet, but it can be replaced by ⟨г⟩.<ref name="bkl2005">Bušlakoŭ et al. (2005: 13)</ref>