Gaf (Persian: {{nq|گاف;), is the name of different Perso-Arabic letters, all representing pronounced as /link/. They are all derived from the letter kāf, with additional diacritics, such as dots and lines. There are four forms, each used in different alphabets:
The standard practice in Egypt (for Literary and Egyptian Arabic),[1] as in coastal Yemen and southwestern and eastern Oman, is to use for pronounced as /link/, while in Arabic dialects like Algerian Arabic, Hejazi Arabic and Najdi Arabic it is, so the name gāf can be used for the letter when trying to explain a pronunciation or a spelling of a word, whether the word is foreign or dialectal.
If not gāf, has been traditionally used in the Levant and Iraq for pronounced as /link/. In Iraq, gāf is more used. In Morocco, gāf or kāf is used. In Tunisia and Algeria, or is used.
is preferred in the Levant (nowadays) and by Al Jazeera TV channel to represent pronounced as /link/, e.g., هونغ كونغ (Hong Kong), البرتغال (Portugal) and غاندالف (Gandalf). Foreign publications and TV channels in Arabic, e.g. Deutsche Welle[2] and Alhurra,[3] follow this practice.
The most common form of gāf is based on kāf with an additional line. It is rarely used in Standard Arabic itself but is used to represent the sound pronounced as /link/ when writing other languages.It is frequently used in Persian, Pashto, Uyghur, Urdu and Kurdish, and is one of four Perso-Arabic letters not found in Arabic. It is also commonly used in Mesopotamian Arabic.[4]
In Pashto, this letter is used for pronounced as /link/.
This gāf is derived from a variant form of kāf, with the addition of a dot. It is not used in the Arabic language itself, but is used in the Jawi script to represent pronounced as /link/.
Unicode includes two forms on this letter: one based on the standard Arabic kāf, and one based on the variant form . The latter is the preferred form.[5]
This letter is derived from a form of kāf, with the addition of three dots below. It is not used in the Arabic language itself, but is used in the Pegon script for Indonesian languages to represent pronounced as /link/.
In Chechen, Kabardian, and Adyghe, the Arabic character is used to spell pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/. In Chechen, ⟨⟩ is alternatively used as well.
This letter is derived from a form of kāf, with the addition of three a dot below. It is not used in the Arabic language itself, but is used in the Arwi alphabet for the Tamil language to represent pronounced as /link/.[6]
See also: Ng (Arabic letter).
The letter / was used in Ottoman Turkish for pronounced as /link/. Both forms are based on variant forms of kāf (/), with the addition of three dots.
It is used in Berber and Moroccan Arabic to represent pronounced as /link/.[7] Examples of its use include city names (e.g., Agadir:) and family names (e.g., El Guerrouj:). The preferred form is .