Ge

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Cyrillic letter Ghe
Cyrillic numerals: 3
Unicode (hex)
majuscule: U+0413
minuscule: U+0433
Cyrillic script Slavic letters
А	Б	В	Г	Ґ	Д	Ђ
Ѓ	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	Ҕ
Ӻ	Ӷ	Ԁ	Ԃ	Ꚉ	Ӗ	Ӂ
Җ	Ӝ	Ԅ	Ҙ	Ӟ	Ԑ	Ӡ
Ԇ	Ӣ	Ҋ	Ӥ	Қ	Ӄ	Ҡ
Ҟ	Ҝ	Ԟ	Ԛ	Ӆ	Ԓ	Ԡ
Ԉ	Ԕ	Ӎ	Ӊ	Ң	Ӈ	Ҥ
Ԣ	Ԋ	Ӧ	Ө	Ӫ	Ҩ	Ԥ
Ҧ	Ҏ	Ԗ	Ҫ	Ԍ	Ҭ	Ԏ
Ӯ	Ӱ	Ӳ	Ү	Ұ	Ҳ	Ӽ
Ӿ	Һ	Ԧ	Ҵ	Ҷ	Ӵ	Ӌ
Ҹ	Ꚇ	Ҽ	Ҿ	Ӹ	Ҍ	Ӭ
Ԙ	Ԝ	Ӏ
Archaic letters
Ҁ	Ѻ	Ѹ	Ѡ	Ѿ	Ѣ	Ꙓ
Ꙗ	Ѥ	Ѧ	Ѫ	Ѩ	Ѭ	Ѯ
Ѱ	Ѳ	Ѵ	Ѷ	Ꙟ
List of Cyrillic letters
Cyrillic digraphs

Ghe or Ge (Г г; italics: Г г) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It is also known in some languages as He. It commonly represents the voiced velar plosive /ɡ/, like the pronunciation of ⟨g⟩ in "go".

Ghe is generally romanized using the Latin letter G; but when romanizing Belarusian, Ukrainian and Rusyn, the Latin letter H is used.

History

The Cyrillic letter Ghe was derived directly from the Greek letter Gamma (Γ γ), but the lowercase Ghe is a small version of the capital letter.

In the Early Cyrillic alphabet its name was глаголи (ɡlaɡoli), meaning "speak".

In the Cyrillic numeral system, Ge had a numerical value of 3.

Usage

Macedonian and Serbian

In standard Serbian, Ghe always represents the voiced velar plosive [ɡ]. In Macedonian the letter represents the sound /g/. However, if the letter is at the end of the word it is pronounced as /k/, like in рог /rɔk/ ('horn').

Russian

In standard Russian, Ghe represents the voiced velar plosive [ɡ], except when it is devoiced to [k] word-finally or before a voiceless consonant, and it represents [ɡʲ] before a palatalizing vowel. In south-western Russia, the sound becomes the velar fricative [ɣ], and sometimes the glottal fricative [ɦ] in regions bordering Belarus and Ukraine.

It is acceptable to pronounce certain Russian words with [ɣ] (referred to as Ukrainian Ge): Бог, богатый, благо, Господь (Bog, bogatyj, blago, Gospod’), although not all speakers use or agree with this. The sound is normally considered non-standard or dialectal in Russian and is avoided by educated Russian speakers. Бог (Bog, "God") is always pronounced [box] in the nominative case.^[1]

In the Russian adjective/pronoun ending -ого, -его, Ghe represents [v], including in the word сегодня ("today", from сего дня).

The letter Ghe represents a voiceless [x] (not [k]) in front of the letter Ka in two Russian words, namely, мягкий and лёгкий.

The Latin letter H at the beginning of a word of English origin is transliterated into Russian with Ghe rather than Kha as one might expect, for historical reasons of phonology/orthography, e.g. hero → герой.^{[citation needed]}

Bulgarian

In Bulgarian, the letter Ghe represents a voiced velar plosive [ɡ], except when it is devoiced to [k] word-finally or before a voiceless consonant, and represents [ɡʲ] before a palatalizing vowel.

Belarusian and Ukrainian

In Belarusian and Ukrainian, Ghe is called He, and represents a voiced glottal fricative [ɦ]—a breathy voiced counterpart of the English [h], (listen).

In Ukrainian, a voiced velar plosive [ɡ] is rarely present, and when present it is written with the Cyrillic letter Ghe with upturn (Ґ ґ).

Related letters and other similar characters

• Γ γ : Greek letter Gamma
• G g : Latin letter G
• Ґ ґ : Cyrillic letter Ghe with upturn, now just named ghe (or ge) in Ukrainian
• Ѓ ѓ : Cyrillic letter Gje
• Ғ ғ : Cyrillic letter Ghayn
• ₴: Ukrainian hryvnia (Currency sign)

Computing codes

References

External links

• The Wiktionary entry for Г
• The Wiktionary entry for г