Ng (Arabic letter)

"ݣ" redirects here. For the other letter this could refer to, see Gaf § Kaf with three dots.

Ng or Naf (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 was used in Ottoman Turkish to represent a velar /ŋ/ and is still used for /ŋ/ when writing Turkic languages.

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ݣ‎	ـݣ‎	ـݣـ‎	ݣـ‎

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ڭ‎	ـڭ‎	ـڭـ‎	ڭـ‎

Ng
ڭ‎ ݣ‎
Usage
Writing system	Arabic script
Type	Abjad
Language of origin	Ottoman Turkish
Sound values	[ŋ]
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.

Usage

In Ottoman Turkish, it represented the velar /ŋ/. An example is the word däŋiz (دݣز, 'sea'). The letter is used or has been used to write /ŋ/ in:

• Chagatai
• Kazakh
• Kyrgyz
• Azerbaijani
• Uyghur

It is also used in Moroccan Arabic for /ɡ/.

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.

Other characters used to represent /ŋ/

Southeast Asian nga

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ڠ‎	ـڠ‎	ـڠـ‎	ڠـ‎

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

• the Jawi script,^[1] 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

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ݝ‎	ـݝ‎	ـݝـ‎	ݝـ‎

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.^[2][3] Two variants of kāf were also used: ڭ‎ as in Turkic, and ݤ‎‎ below.

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ݤ‎	ـݤ‎	ـݤـ‎	ݤـ‎

Sindhi ngāf

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ڱ‎‎‎	ـڱ‎‎‎	ـڱ‎‎ـ‎	ڱ‎‎ـ‎

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

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ࢳ‎	ـࢳ‎	ـࢳـ‎	ࢳـ‎

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. Daftar Kata Bahasa Melayu Rumi-Sebutan-Jawi, Dewan Bahasa Pustaka, 5th printing, 2006.
2. 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.
3. Currah, Galien (26 August 2015) ORTHOGRAPHE WOLOFAL. Link (Archive)