Ge, ghe, or he (Г г; italics: ''Г'' ''г'') is a letter of the

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic, Uralic languages, Uralic, C ...

. Most commonly, it represents the

voiced velar plosive The voiced velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication, spoken languages. Some languages have the voiced pre-velar plosive, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulat ...

, like the in "gift", or the

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 ''phonet ...

, like the in "heft". It is generally romanized using the Latin letter '' g'' or '' h'', depending on the source language.

History

The Cyrillic letter ge was derived directly from the Greek letter

Gamma Gamma (; uppercase , lowercase ; ) is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. In Ancient Greek, the letter gamma represented a voiced velar stop . In Modern Greek, this letter normally repr ...

(Γ) in

uncial script Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for ...

. In the

Early Cyrillic alphabet The Early Cyrillic alphabet, also called classical Cyrillic or paleo-Cyrillic, is an alphabetic writing system that was developed in Medieval Bulgaria in the Preslav Literary School during the late 9th century. It is used to write the Chur ...

, its name was глаголь (''glagol' ''), meaning "speak". In the

Cyrillic numeral system Cyrillic numerals are a numeral system derived from the Cyrillic script, developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the late 10th century. It was used in the First Bulgarian Empire and by South and East Slavic peoples. The system was used in R ...

, it had a numerical value of 3.

Usage

Slavic languages

Belarusian, Rusyn, and Ukrainian

From these three languages, the letter is romanized with ''h''. Its name is ''he'' in Belarusian and Ukrainian, and ''hy'' in Rusyn. In

Belarusian Belarusian may refer to: * Something of, or related to Belarus * Belarusians, people from Belarus, or of Belarusian descent * A citizen of Belarus, see Demographics of Belarus * Belarusian language * Belarusian culture * Belarusian cuisine * Byelor ...

(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 Alp ...

and its soft counterpart . In Ukrainian and Rusyn, it represents a

, 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 s ...

d counterpart of the English . In Ukrainian and Rusyn, a voiced velar plosive is written with the Cyrillic letter ghe with upturn (Ґ ґ). In Belarusian, the official orthography uses г for both and (which is rare), although in

Taraškievica Taraškievica (, ) or Belarusian Classical Orthography () is a variant of orthography of the Belarusian language, based on the literary norm of the modern Belarusian language, the first normalization of which was made by Branislaŭ Taraškiev ...

ghe with upturn is optionally used for . Ґ is transliterated with G. In all three languages' historical ancestor Ruthenian, the sound was also represented by the digraph кг.

Russian

In standard

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

, ghe represents the

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

. 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 ...

. 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 Franz Joseph Haydn ( ; ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions ...

'' → . That can occasionally cause ambiguity, as for example English ''Harry'' and ''Gary''/''Garry'' would be spelled the same in Russian, e.g. 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.

South Slavic

In standard

Serbian Serbian may refer to: * Pertaining to Serbia in Southeast Europe; in particular **Serbs, a South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans ** Serbian language ** Serbian culture **Demographics of Serbia, includes other ethnic groups within the co ...

, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Bulgarian and

Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Macedonia * Mac ...

the letter ghe represents a

. In Bulgarian and Macedonian, it is also devoiced to word-finally or before a voiceless consonant.

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 () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in the 19th centur ...

). In Ossetian, an

Indo-Iranian language The Indo-Iranian languages (also known as Indo-Iranic languages or collectively the Aryan languages) constitute the largest branch of the Indo-European language family. They include over 300 languages, spoken by around 1.7 billion speakers ...

spoken in the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

, ⟨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 Speech communication, spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , an inverted small uppercase letter , or in broad t ...

Cultural references

In the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, the name of the letter ''glagol' ''was an informal reference to the Γ-shaped

gallows A gallows (or less precisely scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sa ...

: :Кругом пустыня, дичь и голь, :А в стороне торчит глаголь, :И на глаголе том два тела :Висят. Закаркав, отлетела :Ватага чёрная ворон,... : ll around there is desert, wilderness and bareness... And a ''glagol' '' sticks out on the side, And on that ''glagol' '' two bodies hang. The gang of black crows croaked and flew off..::

Alexander Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is consid ...

, 1836Альфонс садится на коня…
/ref>

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, the letter ''g,'' named ge in Ukrainian *Ѓ ѓ: Cyrillic letter Gje *Ғ ғ: Cyrillic letter Ghayn *R r: Latin letter R (lowercase) *

₴ The hryvnia sign (₴) is a currency symbol, used for the Ukrainian hryvnia currency since 2004. In 2004, when the National Bank of Ukraine approved the ₴ currency symbol for the hryvnia, it was also stated that the symbol could be written eit ...

Ukrainian hryvnia The ( ; , ''hrn''; sign: ₴; code: UAH) has been the national currency of Ukraine since 2 September 1996. The hryvnia is divided into 100 kopiykas (). It is named after a measure of weight used in Kievan Rus'. Etymology The currency of Kie ...

(Currency sign) *Г̇ г̇: Ge with dot above, used by

Nikolai Katanov Nikolai Fedorovich Katanov (; 6 8May 1862, Izyum (Uzyum) near the village of Askiz9 March 1922, Kazan) was a Russian Turkologist, professor at the Imperial Kazan University and the Kazan Theological Academy, doctor of comparative linguistics, ...

to transliterate the Arabic letter

ghayn The Arabic letter (, or ) is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being , , , , ). It represents the sound or . In name and shape, it is a variant of ʻayn ...