Ghain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Arabic alphabet | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ﺍ ﺏ ﺕ ﺙ ﺝ ﺡ | |||||
| ﺥ ﺩ ﺫ ﺭ ﺯ س | |||||
| ﺵ ﺹ ﺽ ﻁ ﻅ ﻉ | |||||
| ﻍ ﻑ ﻕ ﻙ ﻝ | |||||
| ﻡ ﻥ ه ﻭ ﻱ | |||||
| History · Transliteration Diacritics · Hamza ء Numerals · Numeration | |||||
Ghain, ghayn, or ġayn (ﻍ) is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being ṯāʼ, ḫāʼ, ḏāl, ḍād, ẓāʼ). It represents the voiced velar fricative (/ɣ/). In name and shape, it is a variant of ʻayn.
A voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/ (usually reconstructed for Proto-Semitic) merged with Ayin in most languages except for Arabic, Ugaritic and older varieties of the Canaanite languages. All Canaanite languages later also merged it with Ayin, and this merger was complete in Tiberian Hebrew. The South Arabian alphabet retained a symbol for ġ, Image:Himjar ghajn.PNG.
The letter ġayn (ﻍ) is sometimes used to represent the voiced velar plosive /g/ in loan words in Arabic, such as the word for "English", Bulgaria (بلغاريا).
Ghain is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:
| Position | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | Initial | Medial | Final | |
| غ | غـ | ـغـ | ـغ | |
| Proto-Semitic | Akkadian | Arabic | Canaanite | Hebrew | Aramaic | South Arabian | Ge'ez | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ġ | - | غ | ġ | Image:Phoenician ayin.png | ġ, ʻ | ע | ʻ | ע | ʻ | Image:Himjar ghajn.PNG | ġ | ዐ | ʻ |
[edit] Origins of Ghain
Ghain is believed to have come from following hieroglyph
<hiero>V28</hiero>
that depicts two twisted fibers.
[edit] See also
- Arabic phonology
- Ghayn, the corresponding letter in the Cyrillic orthographies for several Central Asian languages
[edit] External links
als:Ghain (Arabischer Buchstabe)ar:غ arc:غ ca:Ġayn de:Ghain (Arabischer Buchstabe) fr:Ġayn it:Ġayn ja:غ th:ฆีน
