Ge with upturn

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cyrillic letter Ge with upturn
Image:Cyrillic letter Ghe with upturn.png
Unicode (hex)
majuscule: U+0490
minuscule: U+0491
Cyrillic alphabet
А Б В Г Ґ Д Ѓ
Ђ Е Ѐ Ё Є Ж З
Ѕ И Ѝ І Ї Й Ј
К Л Љ М Н Њ О
П Р С Т Ћ Ќ У
Ў Ф Х Ц Ч Џ Ш
Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я
Non-Slavic letters
Ӑ Ӓ Ә Ӛ Ӕ Ғ Ӷ
Ҕ Ӗ Ҽ Ҿ Ӂ Җ Ӝ
Ҙ Ӟ Ӡ Ӥ Ӣ Ӏ Ҋ
Қ Ҟ Ҡ Ӄ Ҝ Ӆ Ӎ
Ҥ Ң Ӊ Ӈ Ӧ Ө Ӫ
Ҩ Ҧ Ҏ Ҫ Ҭ Ӳ Ӱ
Ӯ Ү Ұ Ҳ Һ Ҵ Ӵ
Ҷ Ӌ Ҹ Ӹ Ҍ Ӭ  
Archaic letters
Ҁ Ѹ Ѡ Ѿ Ѻ Ѣ ІА
Ѥ Ѧ Ѫ Ѩ Ѭ Ѯ Ѱ
Ѳ Ѵ Ѷ Ꙟ      
List of Cyrillic letters

Ge (Ґ ґ; also called ghe or ge with upturn, in Unicode: CYRILLIC CAPITAL/SMALL LETTER GHE WITH UPTURN) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet representing /ɡ/, like g in the English word go.

In early Belarusian and Ukrainian orthographies, Latin g or the digraph кг (kh) were sometimes used to denote the sound of Latin g in assimilated words. Later the practice of distinguishing this sound and using the digraph disappeared from Belarusian orthography. In the nineteenth century, the letter ґ, serving an identical purpose, was introduced into the orthographies of Ukrainian and Rusyn language.

The letter ґ was eliminated from the Ukrainian alphabet in the Soviet orthographic reforms of 1933, its function subsumed into that of the letter г, pronounced /ɦ/ in Ukrainian. However, ґ continued to be used by Ukrainians in Galicia and in the diaspora, and was reintroduced in a 1990 Glasnost reform.

During the twentieth century, some Belarusian linguists, notably Yan Stankyevich, promoted both the reintroduction of the practice of pronouncing Latin g in, at least, newly assimilated words, and the adoption of letter ґ to represent it. However, consensus on this has never been reached, and this letter has never been part of standard Belarusian alphabet, seeing only sporadic periods of use. E.g., code of alternative Belarusian orthography rules, based on the proposal of V. Vyachorka and published in 2005, has the letter ґ included in the alphabet.

[edit] Code positions

Character encoding Case Decimal Hexadecimal Octal Binary
Unicode Capital 1168 0490 002220 0000010010010000
Small 1169 0491 002221 0000010010010001
Windows-1251 Capital 165 a5 245 0010100101
Small 180 b4 264 0010110100
KOI8-U Capital 189 bd 275 0010111101
Small 173 ad 255 0010101101

Its HTML entities are: Ґ or Ґ for capital and ґ or ґ for small letter.

[edit] References

Look up ґ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  • George Y. Shevelov (1977). “On the Chronology of H and the New G in Ukrainian”, in Harvard Ukrainian Studies, vol 1, no 2 (June 1977), pp 137–52. Cambridge: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.
  • Да рэформы беларускай азбукі. // Пасяджэньні Беларускае Акадэмічнае Конфэрэнцыі па рэформе правапісу і азбукі. - Мн.: [б. м.], [1927?].
  • Ян Станкевіч. Гук «ґ» у беларускай мове // Ян Станкевіч. Збор твораў у двух тамах. Т. 2. - Мн.: Энцыклапедыкс, 2002. ISBN 985-6599-46-6