Ng (Arabic letter) explained

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

Usage

In Uyghur, it represented the velar pronounced as /link/. An example is the word Uighur; Uyghur: دېڭىز (pronounced as /deŋiz/, 'sea'). The letter is used or has been used to write pronounced as /link/ in:

• Kazakh
• Kyrgyz
• Azerbaijani (obsolete in Iran)
• Chagatai
• Ottoman Turkish

e.g. (Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928);: دݣز, 'sea'), deniz in Modern Turkish.

• The Xiao'erjing script variant is used to spell pronounced as /link/ 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 pronounced as /link/ in:

• Moroccan Arabic
• It used to appear in older Persian manuscripts for pronounced as /link/ instead of the common variant .^[1]

Other characters used to represent pronounced as //ŋ//

Southeast Asian nga

This letter, derived from, is used to represent pronounced as /link/ in:

• the Jawi script,^[2] for
  • Acehnese
  • Banjarese
  • Kerinci
  • Maguindanaon
  • Malay
  • Minangkabau
  • Tausūg
  • Ternate
• the Pegon script, for
  • Javanese
  • Sundanese
• Arabic Afrikaans, for Afrikaans historically, called ngīn (pronounced as /ŋiːn/)

Wolof ngōn

This letter is also derived from . Called (pronounced as /ŋɔːn/), it is used in the Wolofal alphabet to represent pronounced as /link/ in the Wolof language.^{[3] [4]} Two variants of kāf were also used: as in Turkic, and below.

Sindhi ngāf

Derived from the Perso-Arabic (Persian: [[گ]]) and called in Sindhi pronounced as /ŋäːf/, is used in Sindhi for pronounced as /link/ when written in the Arabic script.

Tamil nga

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

See also

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

Notes and 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. Web site: Lorna A . Priest . Martin . Hosken . SIL International . SIL International . Proposal to add Arabic script characters for African and Asian languages . 12 August 2010 . 13–18, 34–37.
4. Currah, Galien (26 August 2015) ORTHOGRAPHE WOLOFAL. Link (Archive)