Ge (Cyrillic)

For the letter also named Ge, but used in Ukrainian and sometimes in Belarusian, seeGhe with upturn.

Not to be confused with the Greek letterGamma (Γ),or the Latin letterR (lowercase).

Cyrillic letter Ge or He
Phonetic usage:	[ɡ], [k], [v], [ɦ], [ɣ]
Name (Early Cyrillic Alpha bet):	глаголи
Numeric value:	3
Derived from:	Greek letter Gamma(Γ γ)
TheCyrillic script
Slavicletters
А А̀ А̂ А̄ Ӓ Б В Г Ґ Д Ђ Ѓ Е Ѐ Е̄ Е̂ Ё Є Ж З З́ Ѕ И І Ї Ꙇ Ѝ И̂ Ӣ Й Ј К Л Љ М Н Њ О О̀ О̂ Ō Ӧ П Р С С́ Т Ћ Ќ У У̀ У̂ Ӯ Ў Ӱ Ф Х Ц Ч Џ Ш Щ Ꙏ Ъ Ъ̀ Ы Ь Ѣ Э Ю Ю̀ Я Я̀
Non-Slavic letters
Ӑ А̊ А̃ Ӓ̄ Ӕ Ә Ә́ Ә̃ Ӛ В̌ Ԝ Г̑ Г̇ Г̣ Г̌ Г̂ Г̆ Г̈ г̊ Ҕ Ғ Ӻ Ғ̌ ғ̊ Ӷ Д́ Д̌ Д̈ Д̣ Д̆ Ӗ Е̃ Ё̄ Є̈ Ԑ Ԑ̈ Җ Ӝ Ӂ Ж̣ Ҙ Ӟ З̌ З̣ З̆ Ӡ И̃ Ӥ Ҋ Қ Ӄ Ҡ Ҟ Ҝ К̣ к̊ қ̊ Ԛ ᴫ Л́ Ӆ Ԯ Ԓ Л̈ Ӎ ᵸ Н́ Ӊ Ң Ԩ Ӈ Ҥ О̆ О̃ Ӧ̄ Ө Ө̄ Ө́ Ө̆ Ӫ Ԥ П̈ Ҏ Р̌ С̌ Ҫ С̣ С̱ Т́ Т̈ Т̌ Т̇ Т̣ Ҭ У̃ Ӳ У̊ Ӱ̄ Ұ Ү Ү́ Х̣ Х̱ Х̮ Х̑ Х̌ Ҳ Ӽ х̊ Ӿ ӿ̊ Һ Һ̈ Ԧ Ц̌ Ц̈ Ҵ Ҷ Ҷ̣ Ӵ Ӌ Ҹ Ч̇ Ч̣ Ҽ Ҿ Ш̣ ꚜ Ы̆ Ы̄ Ӹ ꚝ Ҍ Ҩ Э̆ Э̄ Э̇ Ӭ Ӭ́ Ӭ̄ Ю̆ Ю̈ Ю̄ Я̆ Я̄ Я̈ Ӏ ʼ ˮ
Archaicor unused letters
А̨ Б̀ Б̣ Б̱ В̀ Г̀ Г̧ Г̄ Г̓ Г̆ Ҕ̀ Ҕ̆ Ԁ Д̓ Д̀ Д̨ Ԃ Ꚁ Ꙣ Е̇ Е̨ Ж̀ Ж̑ Ꙃ Ꙅ Џ̆ Ꚅ Ꚅ̆ Ꙁ З̀ З̑ Ԅ Ԇ Ꚉ Ԫ Ꚃ Ꚕ І̂ І̣ І̨ Ј̵ Ј̃ Ꙉ К̓ К̀ К̆ Ӄ̆ К̑ К̇ К̈ К̄ Ԟ К̂ Л̀ Ԡ Ꙥ Ԉ Л̑ Л̇ Ԕ М̀ М̃ Ꙧ Н̀ Н̄ Н̧ Н̃ Ԋ Ԣ Н̡ Ѻ Ꙩ Ꙫ Ꙭ ꙮ Ꚙ Ꚛ П̓ П̀ П́ Ҧ П̧ П̑ Ҁ Ԛ̆ Р́ Р̀ Р̃ Ԗ С̀ С̈ Ԍ Ҫ̓ Т̓ Т̀ Ԏ Т̑ Ꚋ Т̧ Ꚍ Ꚍ̆ Ѹ Ꙋ У̇ У̨ ꙋ́ Ф̑ Ф̓ Х́ Х̀ Х̆ Х̇ Х̧ Х̾ Х̓ һ̱ Ѡ Ꙍ Ѽ Ѿ Ꙡ Ц̀ Ц́ Ц̓ Ꚏ Ꚏ̆ Ꚑ Ч́ Ч̀ Ч̆ Ч̑ Ч̓ Ԭ Ꚓ Ꚇ Ꚇ̆ Ҽ̆ Ш̀ Ш̆ Ш̑ Щ̆ Ꚗ Ꚗ̆ Ъ̄ Ъ̈ Ъ̈̄ Ꙑ Ы̂ Ы̃ Ѣ́ Ѣ̈ Ѣ̆ Ꙓ Э̨ Э̂ Ꙕ Ю̂ Ꙗ Я̈ Я̂ Я̨ Ԙ Ѥ Ѧ Ꙙ Ѫ Ꙛ Ѩ Ꙝ Ѭ Ѯ Ѱ Ѳ Ѵ Ѷ Ꙟ
List of Cyrillic letters List of Cyrillic multigraphs

Ge,fromAlexandre Benois' 1904Alpha bet book

Ge,ghe,orhe(Г г; italics:Гг) is a letter of theCyrillic script.Most commonly, it represents thevoiced velar plosive/ɡ/,like⟨g⟩in "gift ", or thevoiced glottal fricative[ɦ],like⟨h⟩in "heft ". It is generally romanized using the Latin lettergorh,depending on the source language.

History

The Cyrillic letter ge was derived directly from the Greek letterGamma(Γ) inuncial script.

In theEarly Cyrillic Alpha bet,its name wasглаголь(glagol'), meaning "speak".

In theCyrillic numeral system,it had a numerical value of 3.

Usage in Slavic languages

Г in:
Russian/Serbian normal font;
Bulgarian Cyrillic;
Russian/Bulgarian italic;
Serbian italic

Belarusian, Rusyn, and Ukrainian

From these three languages, the letter is romanized withh.Its name ishein Belarusian and Ukrainian, andhyin Rusyn.

InBelarusian(like in Southern Russian), the letter corresponds to thevelar fricative/ɣ/and its soft counterpart/ɣʲ/.

InUkrainianandRusyn,it represents avoiced glottal fricative[ɦ],abreathy voicedcounterpart of the English[h].

InUkrainianandRusyn,a voiced velar plosive/ɡ/is written with theCyrillic letter ghe with upturn(Ґ ґ). In Belarusian, the official orthography uses г for both/ɣ/and/ɡ/(which is rare), although inTaraškievicaghe with upturn is optionally used for/ɡ/.Ґ is transliterated withG.

In all three languages' historical ancestorRuthenian,the sound/ɡ/was also represented by the digraph кг.

Russian

In standardRussian,ghe represents thevoiced velar plosive/ɡ/but is devoiced to[k]word-finally or before a voiceless consonant. It represents/ɡʲ/before apalatalizingvowel. In theSouthern Russiandialect, the sound becomes thevelar fricative/ɣ/.Sometimes, the sound is theglottal fricative/ɦ/in the regions bordering Belarus and Ukraine.

It is acceptable, for some people, to pronounce certain Russian words with[ɣ](sometimes referred to asUkrainian Ge):Бог, богатый, благо, Господь(Bog, bogatyj, blago, Gospod’). The sound is normally considered nonstandard or dialectal in Russian and is avoided by educated Russian speakers.Бог(Bog,"God" ) is always pronounced[box]in thenominative case.

In the Russian nominal genitive ending-ого, -его,ghe represents[v],including in the wordсегодня( "today", fromсего дня).

It represents a voiceless[x](not[k]) in front ofkain two Russian words, namely,мягкийandлёгкий,and their derivatives.

The Latin letterhof words of Latin, Greek, English or German origin is usually transliterated into Russian with ghe rather thankha:hero→герой,hamburger→гамбургер,Haydn→Гайдн.That can occasionally cause ambiguity, as for example EnglishHarryandGary/Garrywould be spelled the same in Russian, e.g.Гарри Поттер). The reasons for using ghe to writehinclude the fact that ghe is used forhin Ukrainian, Belarusian and some Russian dialects, along with the perception that kha sounds too harsh. Nevertheless, in newer loanwords (especially from English), kha is often used.

South Slavic

In standardSerbian,Bosnian,Montenegrin,BulgarianandMacedonianthe letter ghe represents avoiced velar plosive/ɡ/.But in Bulgarian and Macedonian it is devoiced to[k]word-finally or before a voiceless consonant.

Usage in non-Slavic languages

In many non-Slavic languages it can represent both/ɡ/and/ʁ~ɣ/(the latter mostly inTurkicand someFinno-Ugric languages).

InOssetian,anIndo-Iranian languagespoken in theCaucasus,⟨г⟩ represents the voiced velar stop/ɡ/.However, the digraph ⟨гъ⟩ represents thevoiced uvular fricative/ʁ/.

Related letters and other similar characters

• Γ γ:Greek letter Gamma
• G g:Latin letter G
• H h:Latin letter H,romanized as in Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Rusyn
• Z z:Latin letter Z,alternative form of italicized Cyrillic Г (ge)
• Ґ ґ:Cyrillic letter ghe with upturn,the letterg,named ge in Ukrainian
• Ѓ ѓ:Cyrillic letter Gje
• Ғ ғ:Cyrillic letter Ghayn
• R r:Latin letter R (lowercase)
• ₴:Ukrainian hryvnia(Currency sign)

Computing codes

Character information

Preview	Г		г
Unicode name	CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER GHE		CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER GHE
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	1043	U+0413	1075	U+0433
UTF-8	208 147	D0 93	208 179	D0 B3
Numeric character reference	Г	Г	г	г
Named character reference	Г		г
KOI8-RandKOI8-U	231	E7	199	C7
CP 855	173	AD	172	AC
Windows-1251	195	C3	227	E3
ISO-8859-5	179	B3	211	D3
Mac Cyrillic	131	83	227	E3

Cultural references

InRussian Empirethe name of the letter,glagol'was an informal reference to the Γ-shapedgallows:

Кругом пустыня, дичь и голь,

А в стороне торчит глаголь,

И на глаголе том два тела

Висят. Закаркав, отлетела

Ватага чёрная ворон,...

[All around there is desert, game and bareness... And aglagol'sticks out on the side, And on thatglagol'two bodies hang. The gang of black crows croaked and flew off..]

Alexander Pushkin,1836

See also

• Gamma,the Greek letter Γ

External links

• The dictionary definition ofГat Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition ofгat Wiktionary