Ğ

Ğ, or ğ, is a letter, known as "g-breve" in English, used in the Turkish, Azerbaijani, Berber, Crimean Tatar and Tatar languages. The unicode code point is U+011E for the capital letter and U+011F for the small letter.

Turkish use

In Turkish, the ğ is known as "yumuşak ge" 'soft g' and is the ninth letter of the Turkish alphabet. When articulated it sounds similar to a soft Guttural R, or otherwise may just lengthen the preceding vowel, which normally does not appear in Turkish when the ğ is absent. For example, "dağ" (mountain) is pronounced like IPA| [da:] , "yağ" (oil) is pronounced like IPA| [ja:] . The ğ must be located after a vowel and can therefore not be the initial letter of a word. When found after the vowels e, i, ö or ü, the ğ is pronounced like—but not same as—IPA| [j] . Also when found between two vowels, it is sometimes pronounced like -but not same as- IPA| [j] '. Sometimes g is used incorrectly. In rare cases, the phonetic unicode|ɣ (gamma) or the Greek letter γ is used. Some webpages may also use Ð and ð due to improper encoding; see for the reasons of this.

Azerbaijani, Crimean Tatar and Tatar use

In Azerbaijani, Crimean Tatar and Tatar, ğ is pronounced "gh" (IPA| [ʁ] ), a voiced uvular fricative. The Ğ is used as initial letter in Crimean Tatar and Tatar only. For example, Ğabdulla is the Tatar way of writing the name Arabic name Abdullah. (In the Tatar language the Arabic letters "`ayn" and "ghayn" were both borrowed as ğ.)

Ğ in names

* Oğuz Aral (Turkish comic artist)
* Oğuz Atay (Turkish writer)
* Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Turkish prime minister)
* Naim Süleymanoğlu (Turkish lifter)
* Mahir Çağrı (Turkish Internet celebrity)
* Toğay bey (Crimean Tatar)
* Ğabdulla Tuqay (Tatar)
* Mustafa Abdülcemil Qırımoğlu (Crimean Tatar)

ee also

*, Ġayn, Ghayn, Ѓ