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 , like the in "gift", or the voiced glottal fricative , 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. 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, 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 (like in Southern Russian), the letter corresponds to the velar fricative and its soft counterpart . In Ukrainian and Rusyn, it represents a voiced glottal fricative , a breathy voiced 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 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, ghe represents the voiced velar plosive 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 . Sometimes, the sound is the glottal fricative 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'' → . 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, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Bulgarian and Macedonian the letter ghe represents a voiced velar plosive . 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). In Ossetian, an Indo-Iranian language spoken in the Caucasus, ⟨г⟩ represents the voiced velar stop . However, the digraph ⟨гъ⟩ represents the voiced uvular fricative .

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: :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, 1836Альфонс садится на коня…
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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) * ₴: Ukrainian hryvnia (Currency sign) *Г̇ г̇: Ge with dot above, used by Nikolai Katanov to transliterate the Arabic letter ghayn (غ).

Computing codes

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Cyrillic letters