Ng or Ngaf ( or ) is an additional letter of the Arabic script, derived from kāf () with the addition of three dots above the letter. The letter was used in Ottoman Turkish to represent a velar and is still used for when writing Turkic languages.

Usage

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

• Chagatai

• Kazakh

• Kyrgyz

• Azerbaijani

• Uyghur

It is also used in Moroccan Arabic for .

The Xiao'erjing script variant is used to spell 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

This letter, derived from (), is used to represent in:

the Jawi script, for

• Acehnese

• Banjarese

• Kerinci

• Maguindanaon

• Malay

• Minangkabau

• Tausūg

• Ternate

the Pegon script, for

• Javanese

• Sundanese

• Arabic Afrikaans, for Afrikaans historically, called ()

Wolof ngōn

This letter is also derived from . Called (), it is used in the Wolofal alphabet to represent in the Wolof language. Two variants of kāf were also used: as in Turkic, and below.

Sindhi ngāf

Derived from the Perso-Arabic () and called , is used in Sindhi for when written in the Arabic script.

Tamil nga

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

See also

• Kāf

• Ghayn

• Gaf

• Ayin

• Gueh, used in Sindhi and Saraiki

References