Numeric value: 3 | ||
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Ghe or Ge (Г г; italics: Г г) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It is also known in some languages as He. It commonly represents the voiced velar plosive /ɡ/, like ⟨g⟩ in "go".
Contents
- History
- South Slavic
- Russian
- Belarusian and Ukrainian
- Usage in non Slavic languages
- Related letters and other similar characters
- References
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 γ), but the lowercase form is a small version of the capital letter.
In the Early Cyrillic alphabet, its name was глаголи (glagoli), meaning "speak".
In the Cyrillic numeral system, it had a numerical value of 3.
South Slavic
In standard Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian the letter Ghe represents a voiced velar plosive /ɡ/ but is devoiced to [k] word-finally or before a voiceless consonant.
Russian
In standard Russian, Ghe represents the voiced velar plosive /ɡ/ but is devoiced to [k] word-finally or before a voiceless consonant. It represents /ɡʲ/ before a palatalizing vowel. In the Southern Russian dialect, the sound becomes the velar fricative /ɣ/. Sometimes, the sound is the glottal fricative /ɦ/ in the regions bordering Belarus and Ukraine.
It is acceptable, for some people, to pronounce certain Russian words with [ɣ] (sometimes referred to as Ukrainian Ge): Бог, богатый, благо, Господь (Bog, bogatyj, blago, Gospod’). The sound is normally considered nonstandard or dialectal in Russian and is avoided by educated Russian speakers. Бог (Bog, "God") is always pronounced [box] in the nominative case.
In the Russian nominal genitive ending -ого, -его, Ghe represents [v], including in the word сегодня ("today", from сего дня).
It represents a voiceless [x] (not [k]) in front of Ka in two Russian words, namely, мягкий and лёгкий, 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 → герой, hamburger → гамбургер, Haydn → Гайдн. That can occasionally cause ambiguity, as for example English Harry and Gary/Garry would be spelled the same in Russian:/Гарри Поттер). The reasons for using Ghe to write h are fairly complex/but 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 and Ukrainian
In Ukrainian represents a voiced glottal fricative [ɦ], a breathy voiced counterpart of the English [h].
In Belarusian (like in Southern Russian), the letter corresponds to velar fricative /ɣ/ and it soft counterpart /ɣʲ/.
In Ukrainian and Belarusian, a voiced velar plosive /ɡ/ is present only in loanwords and is written with the Cyrillic letter Ghe with upturn (Ґ ґ) in Ukrainian and with the digraph кг in Belarusian. In both languages, the letter is called He and transliterated with H rather than with G.
Usage in non-Slavic languages
In many non-Slavic languages it can represent both /g/ and /ʁ~ɣ/ (the latter mostly in Turkic and some Finno-Ugric languages).