Gimel

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Gimel (letter)
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.
Ґ

Gimel is the third

Northern Egypt, the southern parts of Yemen and some parts of Oman where it is pronounced as the voiced velar plosive [ɡ] (see below
).

In its

Proto-Sinaitic glyph based on the hieroglyph
below:

T14

The

Ғ
.

Arabic ǧīm

Gīm
ج‎
Usage
Writing system
ح
  • ج‎
Other
Writing directionRight-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.

The Arabic letter ج is named جيم ǧīm ج [d͡ʒiːm, ʒiːm, ɡiːm, ɟiːm]. It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:

Position in word Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form:
(Help) 		ج‎ ـج‎ ـجـ‎ جـ‎

Pronunciation

In all

Northern Africa and the Levant, and [ɡ] is the prestigious and most common pronunciation in Egypt, which is also found in Southern Arabian Peninsula
. Differences in pronunciation occur because readers of Modern Standard Arabic pronounce words following their native dialects.

Egyptians always use the letter to represent [

چ is used to represent /ʒ/, which is also a proposal for Mehri and Soqotri
languages.

The literary standard pronunciations
Non-literary pronunciation
  • [j]: In eastern Arabian Peninsula in the most colloquial speech, though sometimes [d͡ʒ] or [ʒ] in Literary Arabic loan words.

Historical pronunciation

While in most Semitic languages, e.g.

ج⟩ was palatalized to an affricate [d͡ʒ] or a fricative [ʒ] in most dialects from classical times. While there is variation in Modern Arabic varieties, most of them reflect this palatalized pronunciation except in coastal Yemeni and Omani dialects as well as in Egypt, where it is pronounced [g
].

It is not well known when palatalization occurred or the probability of it being connected to the pronunciation of Qāf ⟨

ق⟩ as a [ɡ
] as shown in the table below:

Languages - Dialects Pronunciation of the letters
ج ق
Proto-Semitic [ɡ] [kʼ]
Dialects in parts of Oman and Yemen1 [q]
Modern Standard Arabic2 [d͡ʒ]
Dialects in most of the Arabian Peninsula [ɡ]

Notes:

  1. Western and southern Yemen: Taʽizzi, Adeni and Tihamiyya dialects (coastal Yemen), in addition to southwestern (Salalah region) and eastern Oman, including Muscat, the capital.
  2. In Sanaa; ق is [ɡ] in Sanʽani dialect and also in the literary standard (local MSA), whereas the literary standard pronunciation in Sudan is [ɢ] or [ɡ]. For the pronunciation of ج in Modern Standard Arabic, check Jīm.

Pronunciation across other languages

Language Alphabet name Pronunciation (IPA)
Azeri
 Arabic script /d͡ʒ/
Balochi
Brahui
Hindko
Kashmiri
Kurdish
Sorani
Malay Jawi
Pashto
Persian
Punjabi Shahmukhi
Saraiki
Sindhi Arabic script
Urdu
Uyghur

Hebrew gimel

Variations

Orthographic variants
Various print fonts Cursive
Hebrew 		Rashi
script
Serif Sans-serif
Monospaced
ג ג ג

Hebrew spelling: גִּימֶל

Bertrand Russell posits that the letter's form is a conventionalized image of a camel.[1][2] The letter may be the shape of the walking animal's head, neck, and forelegs. Barry B. Powell, a specialist in the history of writing, states “It is hard to imagine how gimel = ‘camel’ can be derived from the picture of a camel (it may show his hump, or his head and neck!)”.[3]

Gimel is one of the six letters which can receive a

taf. Three of them (bet, kaph, and pe) have their sound value changed in modern Hebrew from the fricative to the plosive by adding a dagesh. The other three represent the same pronunciation in modern Hebrew, but have had alternate pronunciations at other times and places. They are essentially pronounced in the fricative as ג gh غ, dh ذ and th ث. In the Temani pronunciation, gimel represents /ɡ/, /ʒ/, or /d͡ʒ/ when with a dagesh, and /ɣ/ without a dagesh. In modern Hebrew, the combination ג׳‎ (gimel followed by a geresh) is used in loanwords and foreign names to denote [d͡ʒ
].

Significance

In gematria, gimel represents the number three.

It is written like a vav with a yud as a "foot", and is traditionally believed to resemble a person in motion; symbolically, a rich man running after a poor man to give him charity. In the Hebrew alphabet gimel directly precedes dalet, which signifies a poor or lowly man, given its similarity to the Hebrew word dal (b. Shabbat, 104a).[4]

Gimel is also one of the seven letters which receive special crowns (called

Sefer Torah. See shin, ayin, teth, nun, zayin, and tsadi
.

The letter gimel is the electoral symbol for the United Torah Judaism party, and the party is often nicknamed Gimmel.[5][6]

In Modern Hebrew, the frequency of usage of gimel, out of all the letters, is 1.26%.

Syriac gamal/gomal

Gamal/Gomal
Madnḫaya Gamal
Serṭo Gomal
Esṭrangela Gamal

In the

Taw). When Gamal/Gomal has a hard pronunciation (qûššāyâ ) it represents [ɡ], like "goat". When Gamal/Gomal has a soft pronunciation (rûkkāḵâ ) it traditionally represents [ɣ] (ܓ݂ܵܡܵܠ), or Ghamal/Ghomal. The letter, renamed Jamal/Jomal, is written with a tilde/tie either below or within it to represent the borrowed phoneme [d͡ʒ] (ܓ̰ܡܵܠ), which is used in Garshuni and some Neo-Aramaic languages
to write loan and foreign words from Arabic or Persian.

Character encodings

Character information
Preview ג ج گ ܓ ࠂ ℷ
Unicode name HEBREW LETTER GIMEL ARABIC LETTER JEEM ARABIC LETTER GAF SYRIAC LETTER GAMAL SAMARITAN LETTER GAMAN GIMEL SYMBOL
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 1490 U+05D2 1580 U+062C 1711 U+06AF 1811 U+0713 2050 U+0802 8503 U+2137
UTF-8 215 146 D7 92 216 172 D8 AC 218 175 DA AF 220 147 DC 93 224 160 130 E0 A0 82 226 132 183 E2 84 B7
Numeric character reference ג ג ج ج گ گ ܓ ܓ ࠂ ࠂ ℷ ℷ
Named character reference ℷ


Character information
Preview 𐎂 𐡂 𐤂
Unicode name UGARITIC LETTER GAMLA IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER GIMEL PHOENICIAN LETTER GAML
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 66434 U+10382 67650 U+10842 67842 U+10902
UTF-8 240 144 142 130 F0 90 8E 82 240 144 161 130 F0 90 A1 82 240 144 164 130 F0 90 A4 82
UTF-16 55296 57218 D800 DF82 55298 56386 D802 DC42 55298 56578 D802 DD02
Numeric character reference 𐎂 𐎂 𐡂 𐡂 𐤂 𐤂

See also

The serif form of the Hebrew letter gimel is occasionally used for the gimel function in mathematics.

References

  1. ISBN 9780671314002
    .
  2. ^ Stan Tenen - Meru Foundation. "Meru Foundation Research: Letter Portrait: Gimel". meru.org.
  3. ISBN 978-1405162562
    .
  4. ISBN 9780876685181
    .
  5. ^ "Mass Rally for United Torah Judaism - Hamodia.com". Hamodia. 11 March 2015.
  6. ^ "Gedolim at Special Conference Call to Strengthen UTJ to Uphold Torah, Shabbos and Religious Character - Hamodia.com". Hamodia. 1 April 2019.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gimel (letter).
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