# /g/ and /dʒ/ relationship



## tFighterPilot

I know that the two share a letter in both English and Arabic, which are unrelated languages. It seem weird to me, as the two consonants sound and pronounced very differently. Is there an explanation for this?


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## francisgranada

Instead of the English, we should rather speak about the Romance languages, because the "g" is pronounced as [dʒ] in Eglish mainly in words of Romance or Latin origin, before "e" and "i" (_general. gender, logical, origin .._.). In the "original" Germanic words the pronountiation is "g" even before "e" and "i" (_give, get, Gilbert...)_

I think, the Romance (or English) [dʒ] is indepentent from the Arabic, though both may be the result of similar phonetic evolution (palatalisation).


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## clevermizo

tFighterPilot said:


> I know that the two share a letter in both English and Arabic, which are unrelated languages. It seem weird to me, as the two consonants sound and pronounced very differently. Is there an explanation for this?



Yes. In Arabic the phoneme g became dʒ through the transitional phoneme gj. One can imagine:


*g > *gj > ****ɟ**,**ʝ*> dʒ/ʒ.

The palatalization of g leads to the palatal stop *ɟ* or perhaps the palatal fricative *ʝ* after progressive fronting of the consonant. Once the fricative has occurred this can lead to subsequent fronting to ʒ or affrication by way of dʒ. Or the palatal stop can lead directly to the affricate by fronting. You can force this to occur in a simple exercise. Pronounce [gəgəgə]. Then _keeping the shape of your tongue the same_ (this can be difficult  ), slowly bring the entire assembly forward in the mouth making contacts with the roof of the mouth and then the alveolar ridge. Once you've reached the alveolar ridge, you will find it is far easier to make an analogous sound with the tip of your tongue rather than the body or dorsum and voi-là you have it  .

Some Arabic dialects are conservative and still have /g/ but others I think also represent the palatalized /gj/ (I believe this occurs in Sudan, and at least the wiki agrees), while the majority have the affricate dʒ or simplified to the fricative ʒ. Compare the shift of k>tʃ found in many languages by the same process of palatalization and progressive fronting. In Modern Standard Arabic the [dʒ] is considered the standard pronunciation of this phoneme.

No dialect natively possesses _both_ [g] and [dʒ/ʒ] as realizations of */g/ (though many possess [g] as a realization of /q/ but that's a separate matter). Some dialects that historically have only had ʒ or dʒ have since regained /g/ by way of borrowings from other dialects or other languages. This can be written different ways depending on regional conventions. For example, in Lower Egypt which natively has [g] as the realization of /g,dʒ/, the letter gīm ج is used throughout. I think they may use something else to represent the sound [dʒ] when loaned from other languages. In the Levant where [ʒ] prevails as the realization of this phoneme, one variably finds borrowed /g/ ([g]) represented as غ ك or ج .


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## Abu Rashid

چ is normally used to write j in Egypt.


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## tFighterPilot

Abu Rashid said:


> چ is normally used to write j in Egypt.



Funny, it's the exact opposite in Israel. (چ is used to transcribe ג)


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## Abu Rashid

As it is in most other Arabic countries too.


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## إسكندراني

Abu Rashid said:


> As it is in most other Arabic countries too.


Actually most Arab countries seem to ignore j , just writing it as dj ج , and each area uses a different letter for hard-g.


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## Abu Rashid

Iskandrani said:
			
		

> Actually most Arab countries seem to ignore j , just writing it as dj ج



When I say 'j' I mean ج In English that's the way they are, we don't really distinguish between j and dj, they are treated the same. I think you're confusing with other European languages where j=ي and dj=ج


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## mugibil

The change from [g] to [dʒ] (as well as the one from [k] to [ʧ]) has developed in many languages and is caused by the velar plosive shifting its articulation forward to a palatal version, something like [ɟ] / [gj] and [c] / [kj]. That is, it moves from the soft palate to the hard palate, or it develops a [j]-like sound after it. This may happen only in certain circumstances, for example under the influence of an adjacent front vowel (the most usual case in Romance) - or else it may just happen generally in all words (which is, as far as I understand, the case in Arabic). I think that even in some varieties of English you can hear that the [k] before, say, [ɛ] (as in "kettle") is slightly different from the [k] before [ɑ] (as in "car"). This palatal/palatalized version in turn easily turns into an affricate. The palatal(ized)  [ɟ] / [gj] and [c] / [kj] sound pretty similar to the corresponding palatalized dentals [dj] and [tj], and their mutation into affricates is seen even in modern English - "Got-you > Gocha", "Did-you > Didja".


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## إسكندراني

Abu Rashid said:


> When I say 'j' I mean ج In English that's the way they are, we don't really distinguish between j and dj, they are treated the same. I think you're confusing with other European languages where j=ي and dj=ج


I am speaking about English too. There is a difference; if I pronounce George as Djorj rather than Jorj, people here think I'm speaking in a strange way. So at least it's true for British English that a difference is perceived.


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## berndf

إسكندراني said:


> I am speaking about English too. There is a difference; if I pronounce George as Djorj rather than Jorj, people here think I'm speaking in a strange way. So at least it's true for British English that a difference is perceived.


I am not quite sure what you mean. "George" is pronounced [d͜ʒɔːd͜ʒ] or [d͜ʒoːd͜ʒ] in BE. English doesn't have [ʒ], it is always [d͜ʒ].


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## clevermizo

berndf said:


> I am not quite sure what you mean. "George" is pronounced [dʒɔːdʒ] or [dʒoːdʒ] in BE. English doesn't have [ʒ], it is always [dʒ].



English does have ʒ, mostly in more recent French borrowings. In BE I suppose it's often [zj] but in AE it's definitely [ʒ]. 

What is إسكندراني was saying is that if he says ʒo:ʒ instead of dʒo:dʒ it sounds "strange" and so in that sense it's differentiated. Also, if I say trεdʒər (treasure) instead of trεʒər, it's quite noticeable. The pronunciation trεzjər does not occur.

However, and this was إسكندراني`s point I think, is that although some dialects may go so far as to write [dʒ] and [g] differently in colloquial writing (where one or the other has re-entered the dialect by borrowing), I don't think anyone goes so far as to differentiate [ʒ] and [dʒ] in writing. For example, in Levantine dialects the native sound is always [ʒ] which is written ج. Nevertheless, if someone is English and named George his name would more commonly be written جورج [ʒo:rʒ] rather than دجوردج [dʒo:rdʒ] because a distinction is not made.


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## berndf

clevermizo said:


> What is إسكندراني was saying is that if he says ʒo:ʒ instead of dʒo:dʒ it sounds "strange" and so in that sense it's differentiated.


He wrote [d͜ʒɔːʒ], one "g" affricate and one fricative which I find so unusual I wasn't sure that this was really what he meant.





clevermizo said:


> Also, if I say trεdʒər (treasure) instead of trεʒər, it's quite noticeable. The pronunciation trεzjər does not occur.


True, I didn't think of [ʒ] as a variant of intervocalic [z]. This definitely exists though in a completely different phonetic context.


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## Meyer Wolfsheim

berndf said:


> He wrote [d͜ʒɔːʒ], one "g" affricate and one fricative which I find so unusual I wasn't sure that this was really what he meant.True, I didn't think of [ʒ] os a variant of intervocalic [z]. This definitely exist though in a completely different context.



Regarding the "palatizing" of "z" to the postalveolar voiced fricative, I think it may have to do with the fact that underlyingly words like "treasure" and "usual" (where we get a /z/ followed by a /u/) exist as:

<trea>zu<r>

A rule in English might say 

CU --> CjU

Then a palatization rule:

coronal --> postalveolar / [_j

We find this with many consonants in English (h --> ç, t/d --> postalveolar, etc.)

Then English stress rules apply to "treasure," reducing the "u" to a schwa like vowel since the primary stress falls on "ea."  

One might question the validity of the inseration of "j" before "u" since we have words like:

<sue> /su/

However (ignoring the possibility of using negative features in rules), we can simply say that a rule applies (in a proper ordering) which causes /j/ to be deleted.


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## berndf

Meyer Wolfsheim said:


> Regarding the "palatizing" of "z" to the postalveolar voiced fricative, ...


I agree with you that the [ʒ] in "treasure" should be the result of a process [zj]>[ʒ]. But this shouldn't be discussed here any further. It should suffice to note it is very different from [g]>[d͜ʒ](>[ʒ]) which is the topic of this thread.


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## إسكندراني

Our topic isn't English so I won't take that further. The point is no conscious distinction is made in Arabic; each dialect uses one or the other subconsciously (j or dj), and you guys picked that up.

As for j-z, several dialects have a j-z relationship. Tunisian swaps them frequently. 
Also Persian does have a j differentiated from dj , and represents the former with z (+ 2 extra dots),
But you're right we should new-thread that relationship.


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## clevermizo

إسكندراني said:


> Our topic isn't English so I won't take that further. The point is no conscious distinction is made in Arabic; each dialect uses one or the other subconsciously (j or dj), and you guys picked that up.
> 
> As for j-z, several dialects have a j-z relationship. Tunisian swaps them frequently.
> Also Persian does have a j differentiated from dj , and represents the former with z (+ 2 extra dots),
> But you're right we should new-thread that relationship.



Actually this thread is about both English and Arabic so discussion of both is ok  . The original question was why both Arabic and English use the same letter to represent the sounds g/dʒ - i.e. - what is the relationship between these sounds.

And ultimately the answer is already given - because these sounds are phonologically related to one another by common sound change processes that have happened in many systems. In Arabic the pronunciation is dialect-dependent where all the realizations evolved out of a hypothetical *g sound. In English "g" only represent dʒ in words that came in from Romance, so the change from g>dʒ didn't happen in native English words, but when the words were imported they were already spelled with "g".


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