Ghayn

This article is about the Arabic letter. For the Cyrillic letter, see Ghayn (Cyrillic).

The Arabic letter غ‎ (Arabic: غَيْنْ, ghayn or ġayn /ɣajn/) is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being thāʼ, khāʼ, dhāl, ḍād, ẓāʼ). It represents the sound /ɣ/ or /ʁ/. In name and shape, it is a variant of ʻayn (ع‎). Its numerical value is 1000 (see Abjad numerals). In Persian, it represents [ɣ]~[ɢ] and is the twenty-second letter in the new Persian alphabet.

← Ẓāʾ Ghayn
Arabic	غ‎
Phonemic representation	ɣ, ʁ
Position in alphabet	28
Numerical value	1000
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician

ġayn غين
غ
Usage
Writing system	Arabic script
Type	Abjad
Language of origin	Arabic language
Sound values	ɣ, ʁ
Alphabetical position	19
History
Development	ع غ
Other
Writing direction	Right-to-left
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.

Ghayn is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	غ‎	ـغ‎	ـغـ‎	غـ‎

History

Proto-Semitic ġ (usually reconstructed as voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ or voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/) merged with ʻayn in most Semitic languages except for Arabic, Ugaritic and older varieties of the Canaanite languages. The South Arabian alphabet retained a symbol for ġ, 𐩶. Biblical Hebrew, as of the 3rd century BCE, apparently still distinguished the phonemes ġ and ḫ /χ/, based on transcriptions in the Septuagint, such as that of the name "Gomorrah" as Gomorrha (Γόμορρᾰ) for the Hebrew ‘Ămōrā (עֲמֹרָה). Canaanite languages, including Hebrew, later also merged ġ with ʻayin, and the merger was complete in Tiberian Hebrew.

Proto-Semitic	Akkadian	Arabic		Canaanite		Hebrew		Aramaic		South Arabian		Geʻez
ġ	-	غ	gh		ġ, ʻ	ע	ʻ	ע	ʻ		ġ	ዐ	ʻ

Usage

The letter ghayn (غ) is preferred in the Levant (nowadays), and by Aljazeera TV channel, to represent /ɡ/, e.g., هونغ كونغ (Hong Kong), البرتغال (Portugal), أغسطس (August), and غاندالف (Gandalf). Foreign publications and TV channels in Arabic, e.g. Deutsche Welle,^[1] and Alhurra,^[2] follow this practice. It is then often pronounced /ɡ/, not /ɣ/, though in many cases, غ is pronounced in loanwords as expected (/ɣ/, not /ɡ/).

Other letters can be used to transcribe /ɡ/ in loanwords and names, depending on whether the local variety of Arabic in the country has the phoneme /ɡ/, and if it does, which letter represents it and whether it is customary in the country to use that letter to transcribe /ɡ/. For instance, in Egypt, where ج is pronounced as [ɡ] in all situations even in Modern Standard Arabic^[3] (except in certain contexts, such as reciting the Qur'an), ج is used to transcribe foreign [ɡ] in all contexts. The same applies to coastal Yemen, as well as southwestern and eastern Oman. In Algerian Arabic, Hejazi Arabic and Najdi Arabic, it is qāf (ق‎). In Iraq, gaf (گ‎) is more used. In Morocco, gāf (ݣ‎) or kāf (ك‎) is used. In Tunisia and Algeria, ڨ‎ or qāf ق‎ is used. In Lebanon, the letter چ‎‎‎ is often used to create the phoneme /ɡ/ in foreign loanwords, such as in چوچل (Google) or چورچيا (Georgia).

When representing the sound in transliteration of Arabic into Hebrew, it is written as ע׳ or ר׳‎. In English, the letter غ in Arabic names is usually transliterated as gh, ġ, or simply g: بغداد Baghdād 'Baghdad', قرغيزستان Qirghizstan 'Kyrgyzstan', سنغافورة Singhafura 'Singapore', or غزة Ghazzah 'Gaza', the last of which does not render the sound [ɣ]~[ʁ] accurately. The closest equivalent sound to be known to most English-speakers is the Parisian French "r" [ʁ]. The Maltese alphabet is written in the Latin alphabet, the only Semitic language to do so in its standard form, and uses ⟨g⟩. It is usually represented as voiced velar plosive.

Turkish ğ, which in modern speech has no sound of its own (similar to the soft g in Danish and the hard and the soft signs in Russian), used to be spelled as غ in the Ottoman script.^[4] Other Turkic languages also use this Latin equivalent of ghayn (ğ), such as Tatar (Cyrillic: г), which pronounces it as [ʁ]. In Arabic words and names where there is an ayin, Tatar adds the ghayn instead (عبد الله, ʻAbd Allāh, ’Abdullah; Tatar: Ğabdulla, Габдулла; Yaña imlâ: غابدوللا /ʁabdulla/).^[5][6][7][8]

Related characters

For related characters, see ng (Arabic letter) and ayin.

Character encodings

Character information

Preview	غ		ﻍ		ﻎ		ﻏ		ﻐ
Unicode name	ARABIC LETTER GHAIN		ARABIC LETTER GHAIN ISOLATED FORM		ARABIC LETTER GHAIN FINAL FORM		ARABIC LETTER GHAIN INITIAL FORM		ARABIC LETTER GHAIN MEDIAL FORM
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	1594	U+063A	65229	U+FECD	65230	U+FECE	65231	U+FECF	65232	U+FED0
UTF-8	216 186	D8 BA	239 187 141	EF BB 8D	239 187 142	EF BB 8E	239 187 143	EF BB 8F	239 187 144	EF BB 90
Numeric character reference	غ	غ	ﻍ	ﻍ	ﻎ	ﻎ	ﻏ	ﻏ	ﻐ	ﻐ

Character information

Preview	ڠ		ݝ		ࢳ
Unicode name	ARABIC LETTER AIN WITH THREE DOTS ABOVE		ARABIC LETTER AIN WITH TWO DOTS ABOVE		ARABIC LETTER AIN WITH THREE DOTS BELOW
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	1696	U+06A0	1885	U+075D	2227	U+08B3
UTF-8	218 160	DA A0	221 157	DD 9D	224 162 179	E0 A2 B3
Numeric character reference	ڠ	ڠ	ݝ	ݝ	ࢳ	ࢳ

See also

• Ng (Arabic letter)
• Arabic phonology
• Gaf
• Ayin
• Cyrillic Ghayn, used for several Central Asian languages