G G g G is the seventh letter in the Roman alphabet. History The letter G was created by the Romans because they felt that C was not an adequate letter to represent both /k/ and /g/. Fascinatingly, the alleged inventor is a known historical figure, Spurius Carvilius Ruga (who flourished around 230 BC). G, which at this time took the place in the alphabet formerly held by Z, came to represent the sound /g/. As the sound /k/ did, /g/ also developed palatal and velar allophones which is why today, G has different sound values in all Romance languages, as well as English (due to French influence). Usage In English, the letter can be pronounced as a "soft G" (SAMPA: [dZ]), as in: giant, ginger, geology, or it can be pronounced as a "hard G" (SAMPA: [g]), as in: goose, gargoyle, game. In some words of French origin, as in French generally, the "soft G" is pronounced as SAMPA [Z], as in rouge, beige, and genre. Generally, G is soft before E, I, and Y , and hard otherwise, but there are many English words of non-Romance origin where G is hard regardless of position. Most non-Romance languages pronounce G as /g/ regardless of position, while in Romance languages the soft value varies, such as /ʒ/ in French, Catalan, and Portuguese, /ʤ/ in Italian, and /x/ in Spanish. Several digraphs are common in English. GH originally represented the letter yogh which English adopted from Old Irish, and took various values including /g/, /ɣ/, /x/, and /j/. It now has a great variety of values, including /f/ in "enough", /g/ in loan words like "spaghetti", and silence in words like "eight" and "night". In Italian, GH is used to force a /g/ value before E and I where G would take a soft value. GN, with value /n/, is also common. In Spanish, -ge- and -gi- are pronounced as -je- and -ji-. The Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez proposed to simplify the Spanish spelling by using just the versions with j. Thus, while the rest of Spanish speakers didn't follow him, his works and the translations of Rabindranath Tagore made by Jiménez's wife Zenobia Camprubí are published in his spelling. Alternate representations Golf represents the letter G in the NATO phonetic alphabet. In international Morse code the letter G is DahDahDit: - - · In Braille the letter G is represented as ⠛ (in Unicode), the dot pattern, XX XX .. Computing In Unicode the capital G is codepoint U+0047 and the lowercase g is U+0067. The ASCII code for capital G is 71 and for lowercase g is 103; or in binary 01000111 and 01100111, correspondingly. The EBCDIC code for capital G is 199 and for lowercase g is 135. The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "G" and "g" for upper and lower case respectively. Meanings for G In biochemistry, G is the symbol for glycine and guanosine. G is a type of protein. In the RGB color model, G stands for the color green. In computer games, G is a character in Sega's House of the Dead series of arcade games, G is the name of a currency in some computer role-playing games, 'G' is the class of gnomes and 'g' is a gremlin in the Roguelike game Nethack. In computing, G is a binary prefix for giga, meaning 230 = 1,073,741,824 (cf. G as an SI prefix in the Metric system, given below) In electrical engineering, G is often used as the name of the variable for conductance. In English slang, g is short for "gangsta" or gangster. In film, G is a rating given given by the Motion Picture Association of America, meaning the film is suitable for all ("general" audiences). G is also the name of a British film from 1974; see G (film). In financial securities, G is the stock symbol for The Gillette Company In international licence plate codes, G stands for Gabon. In the Metric system, capital G is the SI prefix for giga, meaning 109 = 1,000,000,000. capital G is also the symbol for the unit of magnetic induction, the gauss. lowercase g is the symbol for the unit of mass, the gram. In music, G is a note. In physics, G is the gravitational constant. g (always in lowercase) is the unit of acceleration due to gravity on Earth. G (the gauss) is the cgs unit of magnetic induction In radiocommunication, G is one of the ITU prefixes allocated to the United Kingdom. In psychometrics, g (always in lowercase) is the symbol for general intelligence. In sexology, the G spot is a part of the vagina that allegedly causes an orgasm when stimulated. See also "Ĝ" and "ĝ" "Ğ" and "ğ" Two-letter combinations starting with G: ga gb gc gd ge gf gg gh gi gj gk gl gm gn go gp gq gr gs gt gu gv gw gx gy gz Letter-digit combinations starting with G: G0 G1 G2 G3 G4 G5 G6 G7 G8 G9 simple:G FAVORITE ARTICLES: History of the World    History of the United States    History of Europe    Ancient History    History    Military History    World War I    Bombing of Dresden    California    US Constitution    Frank Sinatra    Boston    Marbury v. Madison This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html You may copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license. You must provide a link to http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html To view or edit this article at Wikipedia go to http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/G