Ghain

Ghain, written in Arabic as غ, is one of the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet. It is named ghayn and is used to represent a voiced guttural fricative sound. The letter also appears in languages that use the Arabic script, such as Persian, Urdu, Kurdish, and several other languages.

In Modern Standard Arabic, ghayn is typically realized as a voiced velar fricative [ɣ]. In many dialects, the sound can be realized as [ɣ], [ɢ], or occasionally closer to a hard [g]. The letter is distinct from the related letter ayn (ع), which represents a different phoneme.

Orthographically, غ is a single Arabic letter that participates in the script’s cursive joining system. It has four contextual forms depending on position in a word: isolated, initial, medial, and final. In standard typography, the letter retains a characteristic shape even as it connects to neighboring letters.

Ghain occurs in numerous Arabic words. Examples include غروب (ghurub), meaning sunset; غناء (ghina’), meaning singing; and غريب (gharib), meaning strange or foreign. These words illustrate its common use for the “gh” sound at the beginning of syllables and within roots.

Across languages that adopt the Arabic script, the letter ghayn typically represents a similar voiched velar fricative sound, though exact pronunciation can vary by language and dialect. In transliteration, it is often written as gh or ghayn to distinguish it from other gutturals.