Misplaced Pages

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Ng" Arabic letter – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Ng, Naf, Ngaf, or Gāf
ڭ‎ ݣ‎
Usage
Writing system	Arabic script
Type	Abjad
Language of origin	Turkic, Moroccan Arabic or Persian
Sound values	[ŋ], [g]
In Unicode	U+0763, U+06AD
History
Development	ک ك‎ ڭ‎ ݣ‎
Sisters	ګ ڬ ڮ گ ݢ ࢴ
Other
Writing direction	Right-to-left
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.

Ng, Naf, Ngaf, or Gāf (ݣ‎ or ڭ‎) is an additional letter of the Arabic script, derived from kāf (ك ک‎) with the addition of three dots above the letter. The letter is used in Uyghur to represent a velar /ŋ/ and is still used for /ŋ/ when writing other Turkic languages, including the obsolete Ottoman Turkish. It's used in Moroccan Arabic to represent the velar /ɡ/.

Usage

In Uyghur, it represented the velar /ŋ/. An example is the word دېڭىز (IPA: [deŋiz], 'sea'). The letter is used or has been used to write /ŋ/ in:

• Kazakh
• Kyrgyz
• Azerbaijani (obsolete in Iran)
• Chagatai
• Ottoman Turkish; e.g. däŋiz (دݣز, 'sea'), deniz in Modern Turkish.
• The Xiao'erjing script variant ݣ‎ is used to spell /ŋ/ in Sinitic languages such as Mandarin (especially the Lanyin, Zhongyuan and Northeastern dialects) and the Dungan language.

The letter is used or has been used to write /g/ in:

• Moroccan Arabic
• It used to appear in older Persian manuscripts for /ɡ/ instead of the common variant گ‎.

Other characters used to represent /ŋ/

Southeast Asian nga

This letter, derived from ghayn (غ‎), is used to represent /ŋ/ in:

• the Jawi script, for
  • Acehnese
  • Banjarese
  • Kerinci
  • Maguindanaon
  • Malay
  • Minangkabau
  • Tausūg
  • Ternate
• the Pegon script, for
  • Javanese
  • Sundanese
• Arabic Afrikaans, for Afrikaans historically, called ngīn (IPA: [ŋiːn])

Wolof ngōn

This letter is also derived from ghayn. Called ngōn (IPA: [ŋɔːn]), it is used in the Wolofal alphabet to represent /ŋ/ in the Wolof language. Two variants of kāf were also used: ڭ‎ as in Turkic, and ݤ‎‎ below.

Sindhi ngāf

Derived from the Perso-Arabic gāf (گ) and called ngāf [ŋäːf], is used in Sindhi for /ŋ/ when written in the Arabic script.

Tamil nga

This letter is also derived from ghayn, with three dots inside the descender, to represent /ŋ/ in the Arwi script used for Tamil.

See also

• Kāf
• Ghayn
• Gaf
• Ayin
• Gueh, used in Sindhi and Saraiki

References

1. Orsatti, Paola (2019). "Persian Language in Arabic Script: The Formation of the Orthographic Standard and the Different Graphic Traditions of Iran in the First Centuries of the Islamic Era". Creating Standards (Book).
2. Daftar Kata Bahasa Melayu Rumi-Sebutan-Jawi, Dewan Bahasa Pustaka, 5th printing, 2006.
3. Priest, Lorna A; Hosken, Martin; SIL International (12 August 2010). "Proposal to add Arabic script characters for African and Asian languages" (PDF). pp. 13–18, 34–37.
4. Currah, Galien (26 August 2015) ORTHOGRAPHE WOLOFAL. Link (Archive)

• Arabic script