Ġ

Ġ (minuscule: ġ) is a letter of the Latin script, formed from G with the addition of a dot above the letter.

G with dot above
Ġ ġ
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	Left-to-right
Sound values	[ɣ] [ʁ] [dʒ] [g~j] [ŋ]
In Unicode	U+0120, U+0121
Lexicographic position	8 (after G)
History
Development	(speculated origin) Γ γ G g Ġ ġ
Time period	c. 500-present
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Usage

Arabic

Ġ is used in some Arabic transliteration schemes, such as DIN 31635 and ISO 233, to represent the letter غ (ġayn). In the Standard Tunisian Alphabet ^[1] Ġ is used in Tunisian Arabic to represent the voiced pharyngeal fricative /ʕ/. Whereas it uses Ğ to represent the voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/.

Armenian

Ġ is used in the romanization of Classical or Eastern Armenian to represent the letter Ղ/ղ (ġat).

Chechen

Ġ is present in the Chechen Latin alphabet, created in the 1990s. The Cyrillic equivalent is гI, which represents the sound /ɣ/.^[2]

Iñupiaq

In some dialects of the Iñupiaq language, an Eskaleut language, Ġ is used to represent the voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/.^[3][4][5]

Irish

Ġ was formerly used in Irish to represent the lenited form of G. The digraph gh is now used.^[6]

Maltese

Ġ is the 7th letter of the Maltese alphabet, preceded by F and followed by G. Pronounced as the English "J" in Jam. It represents the voiced postalveolar affricate [dʒ].^[7]

Old Czech

⟨ġ⟩ is sometimes (about 16th century) used to represent real [g], to distinguish it from the letter ⟨g⟩, which represented the consonant [j].

Old English

⟨Ġ⟩ is sometimes used in modern scholarly transcripts of Old English to represent [j] or [dʒ] (after ⟨n⟩), to distinguish it from ⟨g⟩ pronounced as /ɣ/, which is otherwise spelled identically. The digraph ⟨cg⟩ was also used to represent [dʒ].^[8]

Ukrainian

⟨Ġ⟩ is used in some Ukrainian transliteration schemes, mainly ISO 9:1995, as the letter Ґ.

Phonetic transcription

⟨ġ⟩ is sometimes used as a phonetic symbol transcribing [ɣ] or [ŋ].

Georgian

Ġ is used in the transliteration of Georgian to represent the letter ღ.

Computer encoding

ISO 8859-3 (Latin-3) includes Ġ at D5 and ġ at F5 for use in Maltese, and ISO 8859-14 (Latin-8) includes Ġ at B2 and ġ at B3 for use in Irish.

Precomposed characters for Ġ and ġ have been present in Unicode since version 1.0. As part of WGL4, it can be expected to display correctly on most computer systems.

Appearance	Code points	Name
Ġ	U+0120 U+0047, U+0307	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G WITH DOT ABOVE LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G + COMBINING DOT ABOVE
ġ	U+0121 U+0067, U+0307	LATIN SMALL LETTER G WITH DOT ABOVE LATIN SMALL LETTER G + COMBINING DOT ABOVE

OpenAI's GPT-2 uses U+0120 (Ġ) as a substitute for the space character in its tokens.^[9]