The letter Ƣ (minuscule: ƣ), called gha, was used in the Latin orthographies of various, mostly Turkic languages, as part of the early Soviet Jaꞑalif orthographies. It was also later included in the Chinese pinyin-based alphabets for Kazakh and Uyghur until 1983. It usually represents a voiced velar fricative but is sometimes used for a voiced uvular fricative . Except for the Uyghur New Script, which still sees limited use, all orthographies that used the letter have been phased out.
Historically, it is derived from a handwritten form of the small Latin letter around 1900. The majuscule is then based on the minuscule. Its use for stems from the linguistic tradition of representing such sounds (and similar ones) by q in Turkic languages and in transcriptions of Arabic or Persian (compare kaf and qaf).
In alphabetical order, it comes between G and H.
Modern replacements Language Letter Abaza ГЪ, гъ Abkhaz Ҕ, ҕ/Ӷ, ӷ Avar ГЪ, гъ Azerbaijani Ğ, ğ Bashkir Ғ, ғ Crimean Tatar Ğ, ğ (Latin), ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic) Dargin (literary) ГЪ, гъ Dungan Р, р Kabardian ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic), Ğ, ğ (Latin) Karachay-Balkar ГЪ, гъ Karaim ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic), G, g (Latin) Karakalpak Ǵ, ǵ (Latin), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic) Kazakh Ğ, ğ (Latin), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic), ع (Arabic) Khakas Ғ, ғ Kumyk ГЪ, гъ Kurdish غ (Arabic), x/ẍ (Latin) Kyrgyz Г, г (Cyrillic), ع (Arabic) Lak ГЪ, гъ Laz ღ (Georgian), Ğ, ğ (Latin) Lezgi ГЪ, гъ Nogai Г, г Tajik Ғ, ғ Talysh Ğ, ğ (Latin), غ (Persian), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic) Tat Ğ, ğ (Latin), ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic) Tatar Г, г (Cyrillic), Ğ, ğ (Latin) Tsakhur ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic), Ğ, ğ (Latin) Turkmen G, g Tuvan Г, г Udin Ğ, ğ (Latin), ГЪ, гъ (Cyrillic) Urum Ґ, ґ; Ғ, ғ Uyghur غ (Arabic), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic), Gh, gh (Latin) Uzbek Gʻ, gʻ (Latin), Ғ, ғ (Cyrillic) Yakut Ҕ, ҕ
Unicode
In Unicode, the majuscule Ƣ is encoded in the Latin Extended-B block at U+01A2 and the minuscule ƣ is encoded at U+01A3. The assigned names, "" and "" respectively, are acknowledged by the Unicode Consortium to be mistakes, as gha is unrelated to the letters O and I. The Unicode Consortium therefore has provided the character name aliases "" and "".
In popular culture Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow features an episode purporting to be the story of a Soviet officer, Tchitcherine, dispatched to Kirghizstan to serve on a committee tasked with devising an alphabet for the Kyrgyz language. Tchitcherine's particular contribution is the invention of the letter Ƣ.
References