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Information About

Hard And Soft G





ENGLISH

In English, the hard g is the sound of the "g" /g/ in "get", "give" and "gallon", as distinct from the soft "g" in "gentle" and "giant". In words of Romance origin, the soft g occurs before the letters "e", "i" and "y" , while the hard "g" occurs in other positions. In words of Germanic origin, the ''g'' is usually hard.


OTHER LANGUAGES

All modern Romance languages make this distinction, except a few that have undergone spelling reforms such as Ladino or Haitian Creole . The soft ''g'' occurs before "e", "i" and "y" and is is pronounced in Italian and Romanian , in French , Portuguese and Catalan , and in Spanish . The hard ''g'' ocurs in all other positions and is pronounced (or an Allophone of it) in all these languages.

The Phoneme /g/ can occur before "e", "i" and "y" by putting a "u" after it (e.g. French "gentil" , "guerre" ). In Italian and Romanian, an ''h'' is used instead of a ''u'' for the same purpose (e.g. Italian "laghi" , Romanian ghid ). Conversely, the phoneme can occur before "a" or "o" by putting an "e" or "i" after it (e.g. French "mangeons" , Italian ''giorno'' , Romanian geam ).

In Luganda , "g" has a hard form that occurs before "a", "e", "o", "u" and "w", and a soft "g" which occurs before "i" and "y".


HISTORY

The soft ''g'' first appeared in Vulgar Latin by palatalization.


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