Ge, ghe, or he (Г г; italics:
Г г) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. Most commonly, it represents the voiced velar plosive pronounced as /link/, like (g) in "gift", or the voiced glottal fricative pronounced as /link/, like (h) in "heft". It is generally romanized using the Latin letter g or h, depending on the source language.The Cyrillic letter ge was derived directly from the Greek letter Gamma (Γ) in uncial script.
In the Early Cyrillic alphabet, its name was глаголь (glagol' ), meaning "speak".
In the Cyrillic numeral system, it had a numerical value of 3.
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 pronounced as /link/ and its soft counterpart pronounced as //ɣʲ//.
In Ukrainian and Rusyn, it represents a voiced glottal fricative pronounced as /link/, a breathy voiced counterpart of the English pronounced as /link/.
In Ukrainian and Rusyn, a voiced velar plosive pronounced as /link/ is written with the Cyrillic letter ghe with upturn (Ґ ґ). In Belarusian, the official orthography uses г for both pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ (which is rare), although in Taraškievica ghe with upturn is optionally used for pronounced as /link/. Ґ is transliterated with G.
In all three languages' historical ancestor Ruthenian, the sound pronounced as /link/ was also represented by the digraph кг.
In standard Russian, ghe represents the voiced velar plosive pronounced as /link/ but is devoiced to pronounced as /link/ word-finally or before a voiceless consonant. It represents pronounced as //ɡʲ// before a palatalizing vowel. In the Southern Russian dialect, the sound becomes the velar fricative pronounced as /link/. Sometimes, the sound is the glottal fricative pronounced as /link/ in the regions bordering Belarus and Ukraine.
It is acceptable, for some people, to pronounce certain Russian words with pronounced as /link/ (sometimes referred to as Ukrainian Ge): Russian: 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. Russian: Бог (Bog, "God") is always pronounced pronounced as /[box]/ in the nominative case.[1]
In the Russian nominal genitive ending Russian: -ого, -его, ghe represents pronounced as /link/, including in the word Russian: сегодня ("today", from Russian: сего дня).
It represents a voiceless pronounced as /link/ (not pronounced as /link/) in front of ka in two Russian words, namely, Russian: мягкий and Russian: 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 → Russian: '''г'''ерой, hamburger → Russian: '''г'''амбургер, Haydn → Russian: '''Г'''айдн. 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.
In standard Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Bulgarian and Macedonian the letter ghe represents a voiced velar plosive pronounced as /link/. But in Bulgarian and Macedonian it is devoiced to pronounced as /link/ word-finally or before a voiceless consonant.
In many non-Slavic languages it can represent both pronounced as //ɡ// and pronounced as //ʁ~ɣ// (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 pronounced as //ɡ//. However, the digraph ⟨гъ⟩ represents the voiced uvular fricative pronounced as //ʁ//.
Ukrainian hryvnia (Currency sign)
In Russian Empire 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,...
[All around there is desert, game 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, 1836[2]