| G with breve | |
| Letter: | Ğ ğ |
| Variations: | ǧ, ĝ, ḡ, ġ, ǥ, ǵ, g̃, ģ, ɠ |
| Imagealt: | G with breve |
| Imagesize2: | 200px |
| Imagealt2: | Ğ in a Serif typeface |
| Script: | Latin script |
| Type: | Alphabet |
| Typedesc: | ic |
| Language: | Turkish language |
| Phonemes: | [{{IPAlink|∅}}] [{{IPAlink|ː|◌ː}}] [{{IPAlink|ɣ}}] [{{IPAlink|ʁ}}] [{{IPAlink|ɰ}}] [{{IPAlink|j}}] |
| Unicode: | U+011E, U+011F |
| Fam1: | (speculated origin) |
| Fam2: | |
| Fam7: | Γ γ |
| Fam9: | C |
| Fam10: | G |
| Usageperiod: | 1928 to present |
| Children: | Ǧ Ġ |
| Sisters: | G Г Ґ Ғ Ҕ Ӻ Persian: [[Che (Persian letter)|چ{{popdf Arabic: [[ج]] ገ ࠂ Ð |
| Equivalents: | Arabic: [[غ]], Gh (digraph), Ғ |
| Associates: | gh, ǧ, ĝ, ḡ, ġ, ǥ, ǵ, g̃, ģ, ɠ |
| Direction: | Left-to-Right |
Ğ (g with breve; minuscule: ğ) is a Latin letter found in the Turkish and Azerbaijani alphabets as well as the Latin alphabets of Zazaki, Laz, Crimean Tatar, Tatar, and Kazakh. It traditionally represented the voiced velar fricative pronounced as //ɣ// or the voiced uvular fricative pronounced as //ʁ//. However, in Turkish, the phoneme has in most cases been reduced to a silent letter, serving as a vowel-lengthener.
In Turkish, the (ğ) is known as Turkish: yumuşak ge (pronounced as /tr/; 'soft g') and is the ninth letter of the Turkish alphabet. It always follows a vowel, and can be compared to the Danish: blødt g ('soft g') in Danish. In modern Turkish, the letter has no sound of its own and serves as a transition between two vowels, since they do not occur consecutively in native Turkish words. (In loanwords they may sometimes be separated by a glottal stop, e.g. Turkish: cemaat or Turkish: cemaât, which may be pronounced as either pronounced as /[dʒeˈma.atʲ]/ or pronounced as /[dʒeˈmaʔatʲ]/.)
The realization of the phoneme depends on its location in a word and the surrounding vowels:[1]
| ağ | pronounced as /[aː]/ | |
|---|---|---|
| eğ | pronounced as /[ej]/ | |
| iğ | pronounced as /[iː]/ | |
| ığ | pronounced as /[ɯː]/ | |
| oğ | pronounced as /[oː]/ | |
| uğ | pronounced as /[uː]/ | |
| öğ | pronounced as /[œː]/ | |
| üğ | pronounced as /[yː]/ | |
| ağa | pronounced as /[a.a]/ | |
| ığı | pronounced as /[ɯ.ɯ]/ | |
| uğu | pronounced as /[u.u]/ | |
| eğe | pronounced as /[e(j)e]/ | |
| iği | pronounced as /[i.i]/ | |
| üğü | pronounced as /[y(j)y]/ | |
| ağu | pronounced as /[a(w)u]/ | |
| oğa | pronounced as /[o(w)a]/ | |
| oğu | pronounced as /[o(w)u]/ | |
| uğa | pronounced as /[u(w)a]/ | |
| öğe | pronounced as /[œ.e]/ | |
| öğü | pronounced as /[œ.y]/ | |
| üğe | pronounced as /[y.e]/ | |
| ağı | pronounced as /[a.ɯ~aː~a]/ | |
| ığa | pronounced as /[ɯ.a]/ | |
| eği | pronounced as /[eji~iː~e.i~æ]/ | |
| iğe | pronounced as /[i.e~ije]/ | |
Some webpages may use (Ð) (uppercase) and (ð) (lowercase) for (Ğ) because of improper encoding; see Turkish characters for the reasons of this.
The letter, and its counterpart in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet, (Arabic: [[Ghayn|غ]]), were once pronounced as a consonant, pronounced as //ɣ//, the voiced velar fricative, until very recently in the history of Turkish, but it has undergone a sound change by which the consonant was completely lost and compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel occurred, hence its function today. The sound change is not yet complete in some Turkish dialects. The previous consonantal nature of the sound is evinced by earlier English loanwords from Turkish, such as yogurt/yoghurt (modern Turkish Turkish: yoğurt) and agha (modern Turkish Turkish: ağa), and the corresponding velar fricative found in cognate words in the closely related Azerbaijani language and the Turkish-influenced Crimean Tatar language. In Old Turkic (as well as earlier during Proto-Turkic times), this voiced velar fricative originated as an allophone of pronounced as //ɡ//, the voiced velar stop, when it occurred intervocalically. The expected process of lenition (weakening and eventual loss of the intervocalic Proto-Turkic consonant *pronounced as /ɡ/) is thus complete in Turkish and underway in many other Common Turkic languages.
In Azerbaijani and Crimean Tatar, (ğ) represents pronounced as /link/, the voiced velar fricative.
The Tatar language is mainly written in Cyrillic, but a Latin-based alphabet is also in use. In the Latin alphabet, ğ represents pronounced as /link/, the voiced uvular fricative. In Cyrillic, Tatar uses г for both g and ğ without distinction.
The current Kazakh Latin alphabet proposal, last updated in March 2021 and commissioned by Tokayev, uses ğ to replace the Kazakh Cyrillic Ғ to represent the IPA pronounced as //ʁ//. The earlier 2020 proposal listed Ǵ instead, but was replaced after public criticism.
The Faggin–Nazzi alphabet for Friulian language uses the caron, owing to its Slavic influence. However, (Ǧ)/(ǧ) is often substituted with (Ğ)/(ğ) due to the former's lack of availability in fonts and input systems. This is because (Ğ)/(ğ) is in Latin Extended-A alongside (Č)/(č) and (Š)/(š), the other caron bearing letters in the alphabet, whereas (Ǧ)/(ǧ) is in Latin Extended-B, which is available in fewer fonts and input systems.