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==Use in writing systems== {{See also|Hard and soft G}} {| class="wikitable mw-collapsible" |+ Pronunciation of {{angbr|g}} by language ! Orthography ! Phonemes ! Environment |- ! [[Afrikaans phonology|Afrikaans]] |{{IPAslink|x}} | |- ! [[Romanization of Arabic|Arabic romanization]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |A dialectal sound not found in Standard Arabic. However, the digraph [[gh (digraph)|gh]] is used to romanize the Standard Arabic sound {{IPAslink|ɣ}}. |- ! [[Azerbaijani language|Azeri]] |{{IPAslink|ɟ}} | |- ! rowspan="2" |[[Catalan orthography|Catalan]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Except before e, i |- |/(d)ʒ/ |Before e, i |- !{{nwr|[[Standard Chinese]]}} ([[Pinyin]]) |{{IPAslink|k}} | |- ! rowspan="2" |[[Danish orthography|Danish]] |{{IPAslink|k}} |Except word-initially |- |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Word-initially |- ! [[Dutch orthography|Dutch]] | {{IPAslink|ɣ}} or {{IPAslink|χ}} | |- ! rowspan="4" |[[English orthography|English]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Any |- |{{IPAslink|dʒ}} |Before e, i, y |- |{{IPAslink|ʒ}} |Before e, i in more recent loanwords from French |- |''silent'' |Some words, initial <gn>, and word-finally before a consonant |- ! [[Esperanto]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} | |- ! rowspan="6" | [[Faroese orthography|Faroese]] |{{IPAslink|j}} |soft, lenited; see [[Faroese phonology]] |- |{{IPAslink|k}} |hard |- |{{IPAslink|tʃ}} |soft |- |{{IPAslink|v}} |after a, æ, á, e, o, ø and before u |- |{{IPAslink|w}} |after ó, u, ú and before a, i, or u |- |''silent'' |after a, æ, á, e, o, ø and before a |- ! [[Fijian language|Fijian]] |{{IPAslink|ŋ}} | |- ! rowspan="2" |[[French orthography|French]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Except before e, i, y |- |{{IPAslink|ʒ}} |Before e, i, y |- ! rowspan="2" |[[Galician language|Galician]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} ~ {{IPAslink|ħ}} |Except before e, i, see ''[[Gheada]]'' for consonant variation |- |{{IPAslink|ʃ}} |Before e, i, obsolete, replaced by {{angbr|x}} |- ! rowspan="3" |[[Romanization of Greek|Greek romanization]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Ancient Greek |- |{{IPAslink|ɣ}} |Modern Greek except before ai, e, i, oi, y |- |{{IPAslink|ʝ}} |Modern Greek before ai, e, i, oi, y |- ! rowspan="4" |[[Icelandic orthography|Icelandic]] |{{IPAslink|c}} |soft |- |{{IPAslink|k}} |hard |- |{{IPAslink|ɣ}} |hard, lenited; see [[Icelandic phonology]] |- |{{IPAslink|j}} |soft, lenited |- ! rowspan="2" |[[Irish orthography|Irish]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Except after i or before e, i |- |{{IPAslink|ɟ}} |After i or before e, i |- ! rowspan="2" |[[Italian orthography|Italian]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Except before e, i |- |{{IPAslink|dʒ}} |Before e, i |- ! [[Malay orthography|Malay]] |{{IPAslink|g}} | |- ! rowspan="2" | [[Norman language|Norman]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Except before e, i |- |{{IPAslink|dʒ}} |Before e, i |- ! rowspan="2" |[[Norwegian orthography|Norwegian]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Except before ei, i, j, øy, y |- |{{IPAslink|j}} |Before ei, i, j, øy, y |- ! rowspan="2" |[[Portuguese orthography|Portuguese]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Except before e, i, y |- |{{IPAslink|ʒ}} |Before e, i, y |- ! rowspan="2" |[[Romanian orthography|Romanian]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Except before e, i |- |{{IPAslink|dʒ}} |Before e, i |- ! rowspan="2" |[[Romansh language|Romansh]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Except before e, i |- |{{IPAslink|dʑ}} |Before e, i |- ! [[Samoan language|Samoan]] |{{IPAslink|ŋ}} | |- ! rowspan="2" |[[Scottish Gaelic]] |{{IPAslink|k}} |Except after i or before e, i |- |{{IPAslink|kʲ}} |After i or before e, i |- ! rowspan="2" |[[Spanish orthography|Spanish]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Except before e, i, y |- |{{IPAslink|x}} ~ {{IPAslink|h}} |Before e, i, y |- ! rowspan="2" |[[Swedish orthography|Swedish]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Except before ä, e, i, ö, y |- |{{IPAslink|j}} |Before ä, e, i, ö, y |- ! rowspan="2" |[[Turkish alphabet|Turkish]] |{{IPAslink|ɡ}} |Except before e, i, ö, ü |- |{{IPAslink|ɟ}} |Before e, i, ö, ü |- ! rowspan="2" |[[Vietnamese alphabet|Vietnamese]] |{{IPAslink|ɣ}} | |- |/[[Voiced alveolar fricative|z]]/ ~ /[[Voiced palatal approximant|j]]/ |Before i |} ===English=== In English, the letter appears either alone or in some [[Digraph (orthography)|digraphs]]. Alone, it represents * a [[voiced velar plosive]] ({{IPA|/ɡ/}} or "hard" {{angbr|g}}), as in ''goose'', ''gargoyle'', and ''game''; * a [[voiced palato-alveolar affricate]] ({{IPA|/d͡ʒ/}} or "soft" {{angbr|g}}), predominates before {{angbr|i}}, {{angbr|e}} or {{angbr|y}}, as in ''giant'', ''ginger'', and ''geology''; or * a [[voiced palato-alveolar sibilant]] ({{IPA|/ʒ/}}) in post-medieval loanwords from French, such as ''rouge'', ''beige'', ''genre'' (often), and ''[[margarine]]'' (rarely) {{angbr|g}} is predominantly soft before {{angbr|e}} (including the digraphs {{angbr|ae}} and {{angbr|oe}}), {{angbr|i}}, or {{angbr|y}}, and hard otherwise. It is hard in those derivations from ''[[wikt:γυνή|γυνή]] (gynḗ)'' meaning woman where initial-worded as such. Soft {{angbr|g}} is also used in many words that came into English from medieval church/academic use, French, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese – these tend to, in other ways in English, closely align to their Ancient Latin and Greek roots (such as ''[[wikt:fragile|fragile]]'', ''[[logic]]'' or ''[[Magic (supernatural)|magic]]''). There remain widely used a few English words of non-Romance origin where {{angbr|g}} is hard followed by {{angbr|e}} or {{angbr|i}} (''get'', ''give'', ''gift'', ''gig'', ''girl'', ''giggle''), and very few in which {{angbr|g}} is soft though followed by {{angbr|a}} such as ''[[gaol]]'', which since the 20th century is almost always written as "jail". The double consonant {{angbr|[[Dg (digraph)|gg]]}} has the value {{IPA|/ɡ/}} (hard {{angbr|g}}) as in ''nugget'', with very few exceptions: {{IPA|/d͡ʒ/}} in ''exaggerate'' and ''veggies'' and dialectally {{IPA|/ɡd͡ʒ/}} in ''suggest''. The digraph {{angbr|[[Dg (digraph)|dg]]}} has the value {{IPA|/d͡ʒ/}} (soft {{angbr|g}}), as in ''badger''. Non-digraph {{angbr|dg}} can also occur, in compounds like ''floodgate'' and ''headgear''. The digraph {{angbr|[[Ng (digraph)#N|ng]]}} may represent: * a [[velar nasal]] ({{IPAc-en|ŋ}}) as in ''length'', ''singer'' * the latter followed by hard {{angbr|g}} ({{IPA|/ŋɡ/}}) as in ''jungle'', ''finger'', ''longest'' Non-digraph {{angbr|ng}} also occurs, with possible values * {{IPA|/nɡ/}} as in ''engulf'', ''ungainly'' * {{IPA|/nd͡ʒ/}} as in ''sponge'', ''angel'' * {{IPA|/nʒ/}} as in ''melange'' The digraph {{angbr|[[Gh (digraph)|gh]]}} (in many cases a replacement for the obsolete letter [[yogh]], which took various values including {{IPA|/ɡ/}}, {{IPA|/ɣ/}}, {{IPA|/x/}} and {{IPA|/j/}}) may represent: * {{IPA|/ɡ/}} as in ''ghost'', ''aghast'', ''burgher'', ''spaghetti'' * {{IPA|/f/}} as in ''cough'', ''laugh'', ''roughage'' * ∅ (no sound) as in ''through'', ''neighbor'', ''night'' * {{IPA|/x/}} in ''ugh'' * (rarely) {{IPA|/p/}} in ''hiccough'' * (rarely) {{IPA|/k/}} in ''[[wikt:s'ghetti|s'ghetti]]'' Non-digraph {{angbr|gh}} also occurs, in compounds like ''foghorn'', ''pigheaded''. The digraph {{angbr|[[Dg (digraph)|gn]]}} may represent: * {{IPA|/n/}} as in ''gnostic'', ''deign'', ''foreigner'', ''signage'' * {{IPA|/nj/}} in loanwords like ''champignon'', ''lasagna'' Non-digraph {{angbr|gn}} also occurs, as in ''signature'', ''agnostic''. The trigraph {{angbr|ngh}} has the value {{IPA|/ŋ/}} as in ''gingham'' or ''dinghy''. Non-trigraph {{angbr|ngh}} also occurs, in compounds like ''stronghold'' and ''dunghill''. G is the [[Letter frequency|tenth least frequently used letter]] in the English language (after [[Y]], [[P]], [[B]], [[V]], [[K]], [[J]], [[X]], [[Q]], and [[Z]]), with a frequency of about 2.02% in words. ===Other languages=== Most [[Romance languages]] and some [[Scandinavian languages]] also have two main pronunciations for {{angbr|g}}, hard and soft. While the soft value of {{angbr|g}} varies in different Romance languages ({{IPA|/ʒ/}} in [[French language|French]] and [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], {{IPA|[(d)ʒ]}} in [[Catalan language|Catalan]], {{IPA|/d͡ʒ/}} in [[Italian language|Italian]] and [[Romanian language|Romanian]], and {{IPA|/x/}} in most dialects of [[Spanish language|Spanish]]), in all except Romanian and Italian, soft {{angbr|g}} has the same pronunciation as the {{angbr|j}}. In Italian and Romanian, {{angbr|gh}} is used to represent {{IPA|/ɡ/}} before front vowels where {{angbr|g}} would otherwise represent a soft value. In Italian and French, {{angbr|[[Gn (digraph)|gn]]}} is used to represent the [[palatal nasal]] {{IPA|/ɲ/}}, a sound somewhat similar to the {{angbr|ny}} in English ''canyon''. In Italian, the [[Trigraph (orthography)|trigraph]] {{angbr|gli}}, when appearing before a vowel or as the article and pronoun ''[[wikt:gli|gli]]'', represents the [[palatal lateral approximant]] {{IPA|/ʎ/}}. Other languages typically use {{angbr|g}} to represent {{IPA|/ɡ/}}, regardless of position. Amongst European languages, [[Czech language|Czech]], [[Dutch language|Dutch]], [[Estonian language|Estonian]] and [[Finnish language|Finnish]] are exceptions, as they do not have {{IPA|/ɡ/}} in their native words. In [[Dutch language|Dutch]], {{angbr|g}} represents a [[voiced velar fricative]] {{IPA|/ɣ/}} instead, a sound that does not occur in modern English, but there is a dialectal variation: many Netherlandic dialects use a voiceless fricative ({{IPA|[x]}} or {{IPA|[χ]}}) instead, and in southern dialects it may be palatal {{IPA|[ʝ]}}. Nevertheless, word-finally, it is always voiceless in all dialects, including the standard Dutch of Belgium and the Netherlands. On the other hand, some dialects (like [[Amelands]]) may have a phonemic {{IPA|/ɡ/}}. [[Faroese language|Faroese]] uses {{angbr|g}} to represent {{IPA|/dʒ/}}, in addition to {{IPA|/ɡ/}}, and also uses it to indicate a [[semivowel|glide]]. In [[Māori language|Māori]], {{angbr|g}} is used in the digraph {{angbr|ng}} which represents the [[velar nasal]] {{IPA|/ŋ/}} and is pronounced like the {{angbr|ng}} in ''singer''. The [[Samoan language|Samoan]] and [[Fijian language|Fijian]] languages use the letter {{angbr|g}} by itself for {{IPA|/ŋ/}}. In older [[Czech language|Czech]] and [[Slovak language|Slovak]] orthographies, {{angbr|g}} was used to represent {{IPA|/j/}}, while {{IPA|/ɡ/}} was written as {{angbr|ǧ}} ({{angbr|g}} with [[caron]]). The [[Azerbaijani language|Azerbaijani]] Latin alphabet uses {{angbr|g}} exclusively for the "soft" sound, namely {{IPA|/ɟ/}}. The sound {{IPA|/ɡ/}} is written as {{angbr|q}}. This leads to unusual spellings of loanwords: ''qram'' 'gram', ''qrup'' 'group', ''qaraj'' 'garage', ''qallium'' 'gallium'. ===Other systems=== In the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]], {{angbr|ɡ}} represents the [[voiced velar plosive]]. The [[small caps]] {{angbr|ɢ}} represents the [[voiced uvular plosive]].
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