# Ghayn

The Arabic letter غ‎ (Arabic: غَيْنْ, ghayn or ġayn /ɣajn/) is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being thāʼ, khāʼ, dhāl, ḍād, ẓāʼ). It represents the sound /ɣ/ or /ʁ/. In name and shape, it is a variant of ʻayn (ع‎). Its numerical value is 1000 (see Abjad numerals). It is related to the Ancient North Arabian 𐪖‎‎‎, and South Arabian 𐩶.
Ghayn is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:
| Position in word | Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial |
| Glyph form: (Help) | غ‎ | ـغ‎ | ـغـ‎ | غـ‎ |

## History

Proto-Semitic ġ (usually reconstructed as voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ or voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/) merged with ʻayn in most Semitic languages except for Arabic, Ugaritic, and older varieties of the Canaanite languages. The South Arabian alphabet retained a symbol for ġ, 𐩶. Biblical Hebrew, as of the 3rd century BCE, apparently still distinguished the phonemes ġ and ḫ /χ/, based on transcriptions in the Septuagint, such as that of the name "Gomorrah" as Gomorrha (Γόμορρᾰ) for the Hebrew ‘Ămōrā (עֲמֹרָה). Canaanite languages, including Hebrew, later also merged ġ with ʻayin, and the merger was complete in Tiberian Hebrew.
| Proto-Semitic | Akkadian | Arabic | Arabic | Canaanite | Canaanite | Hebrew | Hebrew | Aramaic | Aramaic | South Arabian | South Arabian | Geʻez | Geʻez |
| ġ | - | غ | gh | | ġ, ʻ | ע | ʻ | ע | ʻ | | ġ | ዐ | ʻ |

## Usage

The letter ghayn (غ) is preferred in the Levant (nowadays), and by Aljazeera TV channel, to represent /ɡ/, e.g., هونغ كونغ (Hong Kong), البرتغال (Portugal), أغسطس (August), and غاندالف (Gandalf). Foreign publications and TV channels in Arabic, e.g. Deutsche Welle, and Alhurra, follow this practice. It is then often pronounced /ɡ/, not /ɣ/, though in many cases, غ is pronounced in loanwords as expected (/ɣ/, not /ɡ/).
Other letters can be used to transcribe /ɡ/ in loanwords and names, depending on whether the local variety of Arabic in the country has the phoneme /ɡ/, and if it does, which letter represents it, and whether it is customary in the country to use that letter to transcribe /ɡ/. For instance, in Egypt, where ج is pronounced as [ɡ] in all situations, even in speaking Modern Standard Arabic (except in certain contexts, such as reciting the Qur'an), ج is used to transcribe foreign [ɡ] in all contexts. The same applies to coastal Yemen, as well as southwestern and eastern Oman. In Algerian Arabic, Hejazi Arabic and Najdi Arabic it is qāf (ق‎). In Iraq, gaf (گ‎) is more used. In Morocco, gāf (ݣ‎) or kāf (ك‎) is used. In Tunisia and Algeria, ڨ‎ or qāf ق‎ is used. In Lebanon, the letter چ‎‎‎ is often used to create the phoneme /ɡ/ in foreign loanwords, such as in چوچل (Google) or چورچيا (Georgia).
When representing the sound in transliteration of Arabic into Hebrew, it is written as ע׳ or ר׳‎. In English, the letter غ in Arabic names is usually transliterated as gh, ġ, or simply g: بغداد Baghdād 'Baghdad', قرغيزستان Qirghizstan 'Kyrgyzstan', سنغافورة Singhafura 'Singapore', or غزة Ghazzah 'Gaza', the latter of which does not render the sound [ɣ]~[ʁ] accurately. The closest equivalent sound to be known to most English-speakers is the Parisian French "r" [ʁ]. In the Maltese alphabet which is written in the Latin alphabet, the only Semitic language to do so in its standard form, writes the ghayn as ⟨g⟩. It is usually represented as voiced velar plosive.
Turkish ğ, which in modern speech has no sound of its own (similar to soft G in Danish and the hard and soft signs in Russian), used to be spelled as غ in the Ottoman script. Other Turkic languages also use this Latin equivalent of ghayn (ğ), such as Tatar (Cyrillic: г), which pronounces it as [ʁ]. In Arabic words and names where there is an ayin, Tatar adds the ghayn instead (عبد الله, ʻAbd Allāh, ’Abdullah; Tatar: Ğabdulla, Габдулла; Yaña imlâ: غابدوللا /ʁabdulla/).

## Related characters

For the related characters, see ng (Arabic letter) and ayin.

## Character encodings

Character information :
| Preview | غ | غ | ﻍ | ﻍ | ﻎ | ﻎ | ﻏ | ﻏ | ﻐ | ﻐ |
| Unicode name | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN ISOLATED FORM | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN ISOLATED FORM | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN FINAL FORM | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN FINAL FORM | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN INITIAL FORM | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN INITIAL FORM | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN MEDIAL FORM | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN MEDIAL FORM |
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 1594 | U+063A | 65229 | U+FECD | 65230 | U+FECE | 65231 | U+FECF | 65232 | U+FED0 |
| UTF-8 | 216 186 | D8 BA | 239 187 141 | EF BB 8D | 239 187 142 | EF BB 8E | 239 187 143 | EF BB 8F | 239 187 144 | EF BB 90 |
| Numeric character reference | &#1594; | &#x63A; | &#65229; | &#xFECD; | &#65230; | &#xFECE; | &#65231; | &#xFECF; | &#65232; | &#xFED0; |
Character information :
| Preview | ڠ | ڠ | ݝ | ݝ | ࢳ | ࢳ |
| Unicode name | ARABIC LETTER AIN WITH THREE DOTS ABOVE | ARABIC LETTER AIN WITH THREE DOTS ABOVE | ARABIC LETTER AIN WITH TWO DOTS ABOVE | ARABIC LETTER AIN WITH TWO DOTS ABOVE | ARABIC LETTER AIN WITH THREE DOTS BELOW | ARABIC LETTER AIN WITH THREE DOTS BELOW |
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 1696 | U+06A0 | 1885 | U+075D | 2227 | U+08B3 |
| UTF-8 | 218 160 | DA A0 | 221 157 | DD 9D | 224 162 179 | E0 A2 B3 |
| Numeric character reference | &#1696; | &#x6A0; | &#1885; | &#x75D; | &#2227; | &#x8B3; |