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Arabic alphabet
	ا ب ت ث ج ح
	خ د ذ ر ز س
	ش ص ض ط ظ ع
	غ ف ق ك ل
	م ن ه‍ و ي
	History · Transliteration; Diacritics · Hamza ء; Numerals · Numeration v • d • e

The Arabic letter ﻍ (called ﻏﻴﻦ ghain, ghayn, or ġayn) is one of the six letters in the Arabic alphabet not in the twenty-two akin to the Phoenician alphabet (the others being ṯāʾ, ḫāʾ, ḏāl, ḍād, ẓāʾ). It is the twenty second alphabet in new Persian alphabet. It represents the voiced velar fricative (/ɣ/) or, in case of Classical Arabic, a uvular fricative /ʁ/. In name and shape, it is a variant of ʻayn. Its numerical value is 1000 (see Abjad numerals).

A voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/ (usually reconstructed for Proto-Semitic) merged with Ayin in most languages except for Arabic, Ugaritic and older varieties of the Canaanite languages. Canaanite languages and Hebrew later also merged it with Ayin, and this merger was complete in Tiberian Hebrew. The South Arabian alphabet retained a symbol for ġ, .

The letter ġayn (ﻍ) is sometimes used to represent the voiced velar plosive /g/ in loan words in Arabic and is then often pronounced /ɡ/, not /ɣ/, such as the word for Bulgaria (بلغاريا), where in some cases in alteration with kāf ك is used as in "English". In many cases ﻍ is pronounced in loanwords as expected—[ɣ], not [ɡ]—although, the original language had [ɡ]. This is the mode of arabisation in dialects in which the letter ǧīm ج is pronounced as voiced postalveolar affricate [dʒ], and in dialects where it is pronounced [ʒ], but not in those that sound it as a voiced velar plosive [ɡ] in which ǧīm is used instead (e.g. Egyptian, Yemeni).

In English, the letter ﻍ in Arabic names is usually transliterated as "gh" or simply "g", e.g. بغداد Baġdād "Baghdad"; or غزة Ġazza "Gaza", which doesn't render the sound [ɣ] accurately. The closest allophone known to most English speakers is the Parisian French "r" [ʁ].

Ghain is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

Position in word:	Isolated	Initial	Medial	Final
Form of letter:	غ	غـ	ـغـ	ـغ

Proto-Semitic	Akkadian	Arabic		Canaanite		Hebrew		Aramaic		South Arabian		Ge'ez
ġ	-	غ	ġ		ġ, ʻ	ע	ʻ	ע	ʻ		ġ	ዐ	ʻ

[edit] Origins of Ghain

Ghain is believed to have come from the following hieroglyph

that depicts two twisted fibers. This coincidentally superficially resembles the IPA symbol [ɣ] upside down. [ɣ] is conventionally used for the sound of ghain.

[edit] See also

Arabic phonology
Ghayn, the corresponding letter in the Cyrillic orthographies for several Central Asian languages

[edit] External links

Ancient Hebrew Alphabet - Chart

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