Ge (Cyrillic)

Cyrillic alphabet
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	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	Ҧ	Ҏ
Ԗ	Ҫ	Ԍ	Ҭ	Ԏ	Ӯ	Ӱ
Ӳ	Ү	Ұ	Ҳ	Ӽ	Ӿ	Һ
Ҵ	Ҷ	Ӵ	Ӌ	Ҹ	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

Ge (Г, г; italics: Г, г) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. It is also known as He.

It commonly represents the sound /ɡ/ like the English pronunciation of the Latin letter G in "go".

History

The Cyrillic letter Ge was derived directly from the Greek letter Gamma (Γ, γ), but both capital and small Ge look like the capital letter Gamma.

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

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

Usage

In standard Serbian and Macedonian, Ge always represents a voiced velar plosive /ɡ/.

In standard Russian, it represents a 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. Also, in some masculine genitive and accusative case word endings, it represents /v/ when found between two vowels. In south-western Russia, the sound becomes a fricative [ɣ], and sometimes [ɦ] in regions bordering Belarus and Ukraine. It is acceptable to pronounce certain Russian words with [ɣ] (referred to as Ukrainian Ge): Bog, bogatyj, blago, Gospod’, although not all speakers use or agree with this. This 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.^[]

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

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

In Russian, the Latin letter H at the beginning of a word is transcribed with Ge rather than Kha as one might expect, for historical reasons of phonology/orthography.

In Bulgarian, like in Russian, it 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.

In the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages, Ge 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 is rarely present, and when present it is written with the Cyrillic letter Ge with upturn (Ґ, ґ).

Code positions

Character encoding	Case	Decimal	Hexadecimal	Octal	Binary
Unicode	Capital	1043	0413	002023	0000010000010011
	Small	1075	0433	002063	0000010000110011
ISO 8859-5	Capital	179	b3	263	10110011
	Small	211	d3	323	11010011
KOI 8	Capital	231	e7	347	11100111
	Small	199	c7	307	11000111
Windows 1251	Capital	195	c3	303	11000011
	Small	227	e3	343	11100011

Notes

• 1. "Звуки на месте буквы г" (Sounds in place of the letter г), map 14 in the Scholarly Dialectical Atlas (Russian)

See also

• G, g (Latin)
• Ґ, ґ - Ge with upturn (Cyrillic)
• Ѓ, ѓ - Gje (Cyrillic)
• Γ, γ - Gamma (Greek)