Ng (Arabic letter)

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Ng
ڭ‎ ݣ‎
Usage
Writing system	Arabic script
Type	Abjad
Language of origin	Turkic
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.

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 is used in Uyghur to represent a velar /ŋ/ and is still used for /ŋ/ when writing other Turkic languages, including the obsolete Ottoman Turkish.

In Uyghur, it represented the velar /ŋ/. An example is the word دېڭىز (IPA: [deŋiz], 'sea'). The letter is used or has been used to write /ŋ/ in:

• Kazakh
• Kyrgyz
• Azerbaijani (obsolete in Iran)
• Chagatai
• Ottoman Turkish; e.g. däŋiz (دݣز, 'sea'), deniz in Modern Turkish.

It is also used in Moroccan Arabic for /ɡ/, it also appears in old Persian manuscripts for /ɡ/ instead of the common variant گ‎.^[1]

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.

This letter, derived from ghayn (غ‎), is used to represent /ŋ/ 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 (IPA: [ŋiːn])

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.^[3][4] Two variants of kāf were also used: ڭ‎ as in Turkic, and ݤ‎‎ below.

Derived from the Perso-Arabic gāf (گ) and called ngāf [ŋäːf], is used in Sindhi for /ŋ/ when written in the Arabic script.

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

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