G or turned g is a letter of the Latin alphabet, formed by rotating g 180°. It is used to transliterate the Georgian letter . ჹ itself is the Georgian letter "g" rotated.

Turned g
G
Usage
Writing systemLatin script
Typealphabetic
Language of originTabasaran language, Karaim language, Kwakʼwala, multiple phonetic trascriptions
Sound values[ɣ]
In UnicodeU+1D77
History
Development
Pictogram of a Camel (speculated origin)
Time period1844, 1880, 1892-1921, 1900, 1929, 1959, 1965
Other
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Usage

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G in Beniowski's alphabet.

In 1844, Bartłomiej Beniowski [pl] created his Anti-absurd or Phenotypic alphabet, featuring turned g for the diphthong [aʊ].

In 1880, John Wesley Powell created a phonetic transcription for transcribing Native American languages in publications of the Smithsonian Institution. In the transcriptions, turned letters were used as supplementary characters.[1]

 
Turned g as a proposed symbol of the International Phonetic Alphabet.

In 1900, turned g was a proposed phonetic symbol in the International Phonetic Association’s Exposé des principes to represent a voiceless laminal closed postalveolar sibilant, as found in Adyghe, and other Northwest Caucasian languages.[2]

Franz Boas used turned g to represent the voiced velar fricative [ɣ] in his transcription of the Kwakʼwala language, published in American Anthropologist in 1900.[3]

In 1921, Ivar Adolf Lyttkens [sv] and Fredrik Amadeus Wulff [sv] used turned g in their phonetic transcription, notably in Metodiska ljudöfningar published in 1892[4] or the dictionary Svensk ordlista published in 1921.[5]

In 1929, Tadeusz Jan Kowalski used the turned g and turned k in Karaim language texts to represent an alveolar plosive pronounced as a velar plosive before the vowel [i]. Omeljan Pritsak reused this in a 1959 Karaim work.[6]

Turned g represents a [ɢ] in the transcription of the Tabasaran language by Alexander Amarovich Magometov [ru] in his book Табасаранский язык: Исследование и тексты published in 1965.[7]

 
A 19th century Gamilaraay text, using a rotated capital G for ŋ.

A rotated capital G (⅁) has sometimes been used as a substitute for the similar-looking eng [ŋ]. It is encoded in Unicode at U+2141. It looks similar to the Hebrew letter Pe ⟨פ⟩. But you can make the turned g actually rendered like this. ⟨G

Computing codes

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ᵷ was added to Unicode 4.1 in 2005, as U+1D77. Fonts that can display the character include Code2000, Doulos SIL and Charis SIL. Lowercase "B with hook", an IPA letter that resembles a turned one-story g, is more widely available as a substitute, at U+0253. However the vertical alignment does not match.

Character information
Preview
Unicode name TURNED SANS-SERIF CAPITAL G LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED G
Encodings decimal hex dec hex
Unicode 8513 U+2141 7543 U+01D77
UTF-8 226 133 129 E2 85 81 225 181 183 E1 B5 B7
Numeric character reference ⅁ ⅁ ᵷ ᵷ

References

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  1. ^ Powell 1880, p. 15.
  2. ^ Association phonétique internationale 1900, p. 7‒8.
  3. ^ Boas et al. 1900.
  4. ^ Lyttkens & Wulff 1892, p. 34.
  5. ^ Lyttkens & Wulff 1921, p. 16.
  6. ^ Németh 2011, p. 81–82.
  7. ^ Магометов (ალ. მაჰომეტოი), Александр Амарович (1965). Табасаранский язык : исследование и тексты (ტაბასარანუმი ენა : გამოკვლევა და ტექსტები) (in Russian). Тбилиси: Мецниереба.