He (Cyrillic)
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Ge or Ghe (Г г; italics: ''Г'' ''г'') is a letter of the
Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...
. It is also known in some languages as He. It commonly represents the
voiced velar plosive The voiced velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. Some languages have the voiced pre-velar plosive, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototyp ...
, like in "gift". It is generally romanized using the Latin letter G, but to romanize Belarusian, Ukrainian and Rusyn, the Latin letter H is used.


History

The Cyrillic letter Ghe was derived directly from the Greek letter Gamma (Γ) in
uncial script Uncial is a majuscule Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall. (1996) ''Encyclopedia of the Book''. 2nd edn. New Castle, DE, and London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library, p. 494. script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th ...
. In the
Early Cyrillic alphabet The Early Cyrillic alphabet, also called classical Cyrillic or paleo-Cyrillic, is a writing system that was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the late 9th century on the basis of the Greek alphabet for the Slavic people living ...
, its name was (''glagoli''), meaning "speak". In the Cyrillic numeral system, it had a numerical value of 3.


Usage in Slavic languages


South Slavic

In standard Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Bulgarian and Macedonian the letter Ghe represents a
voiced velar plosive The voiced velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. Some languages have the voiced pre-velar plosive, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototyp ...
but is devoiced to word-finally or before a voiceless consonant.


Russian

In standard
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
, Ghe represents the
voiced velar plosive The voiced velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. Some languages have the voiced pre-velar plosive, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototyp ...
but is devoiced to word-finally or before a voiceless consonant. It represents before a palatalizing vowel. In the Southern Russian dialect, the sound becomes the
velar fricative A velar fricative is a fricative consonant produced at the velar place of articulation. It is possible to distinguish the following kinds of velar fricatives: *Voiced velar fricative, a consonant sound written as in the International Phonetic Alph ...
. Sometimes, the sound is the
glottal fricative Glottal consonants are consonants using the glottis as their primary articulation. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the glottal fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants ...
in the regions bordering Belarus and Ukraine. It is acceptable, for some people, to pronounce certain Russian words with (sometimes referred to as ''Ukrainian Ge''): (''Bog, bogatyj, blago, Gospod’''). The sound is normally considered nonstandard or dialectal in Russian and is avoided by educated Russian speakers. (''Bog'', "God") is always pronounced in the
nominative case In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
. In the Russian nominal genitive ending , Ghe represents , including in the word ("today", from ). It represents a voiceless (not ) in front of Ka in two Russian words, namely, and , and their derivatives. The Latin letter H of words of Latin, Greek, English or German origin is usually transliterated into Russian with Ghe rather than Kha: ''hero'' → , ''hamburger'' → , ''Haydn'' → . That can occasionally cause ambiguity, as for example English ''Harry'' and ''Gary''/''Garry'' would be spelled the same in Russian, eg. Гарри Поттер). The reasons for using Ghe to write ''h'' include the fact that Ghe is used for ''h'' in Ukrainian, Belarusian and some Russian dialects, along with the perception that Kha sounds too harsh. Nevertheless, in newer loanwords (especially from English), Kha is often used.


Belarusian, Ukrainian and Rusyn

In Ukrainian and Rusyn, it represents a
voiced glottal fricative The voiced glottal fricative, sometimes called breathy-voiced glottal transition, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages which patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant '' phonologically'', but often lacks the usual ''phoneti ...
, a
breathy voice Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...
d counterpart of the English . In Belarusian (like in Southern Russian), the letter corresponds to the
velar fricative A velar fricative is a fricative consonant produced at the velar place of articulation. It is possible to distinguish the following kinds of velar fricatives: *Voiced velar fricative, a consonant sound written as in the International Phonetic Alph ...
and its soft counterpart . In both languages, the letter is called ''He'' and transliterated with H rather than with G. In Ukrainian and Rusyn, a voiced velar plosive is written with the Cyrillic letter Ghe with upturn (Ґ ґ). In Belarusian, the digraph кг is used, although in Taraškievica Ґ is used. All are transliterated with G.


Usage in non-Slavic languages

In many non-Slavic languages it can represent both and (the latter mostly in Turkic and some
Finno-Ugric languages Finno-Ugric ( or ; ''Fenno-Ugric'') or Finno-Ugrian (''Fenno-Ugrian''), is a traditional grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except the Samoyedic languages. Its formerly commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is ...
). In Ossetian, an Indo-Iranian language spoken in the
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (country), Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range ...
, ⟨г⟩ represents the voiced velar stop . However, the digraph ⟨гъ⟩ represents the
voiced uvular fricative The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , an inverted small uppercase letter , or in broad transcription if rhot ...
.


Related letters and other similar characters

*Γ γ: Greek letter Gamma *G g: Latin letter G *H h: Latin letter H, romanized as in Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Rusyn *Z z: Latin letter Z, alternative form of italicized Cyrillic Г (ge) *Ґ ґ: Cyrillic letter Ghe with upturn, now just named ''ghe'' (or ''ge'') in Ukrainian *Ѓ ѓ: Cyrillic letter Gje *Ғ ғ: Cyrillic letter Ghayn * :
Ukrainian hryvnia The or ( ; uk, гривня , : ''hrn''; sign: ₴; code: UAH) has been the national currency of Ukraine since 2 September 1996. The hryvnia is divided into 100 . It is named after a measure of weight used in medieval Kievan Rus'. Name Et ...
(Currency sign)


Computing codes


References


External links

* * {{Authority control