Eng (letter)

Template:Short description Template:About Template:For multi Template:Infobox graphemeEng, agma, or engma (capital: Ŋ, lowercase: ŋ) is a letter of the Latin alphabet, used to represent a voiced velar nasal (as in English siTemplate:StrongiTemplate:Strong) in the written form of some languages and in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

In Washo, lower-case Template:Angbr represents a typical Template:IPA sound, while upper-case Template:Angbr represents a voiceless Template:IPA sound. This convention comes from Americanist phonetic notation.

History

The First Grammatical Treatise, a 12th-century work on the phonology of the Old Icelandic language, uses a single grapheme for the eng sound, shaped like a g with a stroke Template:Angle brackets. Alexander Gill the Elder uses an uppercase G with a hooked tail and a lowercase n with the hooked tail of a script g Template:Angle brackets for the same sound in Logonomia Anglica in 1619.<ref>David Crystal (2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language</ref> William Holder uses the letter in Elements of Speech: An Essay of Inquiry into the Natural Production of Letters, published in 1669, but it was not printed as intended; he indicates in his errata that “there was intended a character for Ng, viz., n with a tail like that of g, which must be understood where the Printer has imitated it by n or y”.<ref name="Albright1958">Robert W. Albright (1958). The International Phonetic Alphabet: Its Backgrounds and Development, Indiana University. p. 11</ref> It was later used in Benjamin Franklin's phonetic alphabet, with its current phonetic value. It was supposed to be in English but failedTemplate:Citation needed.

Appearance

Lowercase eng is derived from n, with the addition of a hook to the right leg, somewhat like that of j or a g. Nowadays, the uppercase has two main variants: it can be based on the usual uppercase N, with a hook added (or "N-form"); or it can be an enlarged version of the lowercase (or "n-form"). The former is preferred in Sami languages that use it, the latter in African languages,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> such as in Shona from 1931 to 1955, and several in west and central Africa currently. In Isaac Pitman’s Phonotypic Alphabet, the uppercase had a reversed-N form.

Early printers, lacking a specific glyph for eng, sometimes approximated it by rotating a capital G, or by substituting a Greek letter η (eta) before modified to present form Template:Angle brackets for it (encoded in Unicode as the Latin letter n with long leg: Ƞ ƞ).

Pronunciation of words containing eng sound

In most languages eng is absent in the Latin alphabet but its sound can be present in the letter n in words. In English, it is heard in the potential digraphs nc (hard c), ng (hard g), nk, nq and nx, often at the end of words. For the pronunciation of ng with eng, it can be Template:IPA in words such as singer and hanged and when it is in final position or Template:IPA in words such as finger and angle.

In British English, n is pronounced eng in the prefixes en- and in- when they are followed by c, g and q, as in encroachment, engagement, enquiry, incursion, ingredient, inquiry and others. In other English dialects, the n is pronounced Template:IPA instead. In many British dialects, the ng in strength and length is simply pronounced Template:IPA, with g a silent letter, and the ng is otherwise pronounced Template:IPA in those words.

Usage

Technical transcription

• Americanist phonetic notation, where it may also represent a uvular nasal.
• Sometimes for the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages
• International Phonetic Alphabet
• Uralic Phonetic Alphabet including Template:Unichar<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Teuthonista phonetic transcription system uses Template:Unichar<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Rheinische Dokumenta, a phonetic alphabet for many West Central German dialects, Low Rhenish, and few related languages.

Vernacular orthographies

Template:Multiple image

Languages marked † no longer use eng, but formerly did.

• African languages
  • Bari
  • Bemba
  • Dagbani
  • Dinka
  • Efik
  • Ewe
  • Frafra
  • Fula
  • Ganda
  • Manding languages
  • Nuer
  • Shona language†
  • Songhay languages
  • Wolof
  • Zarma
• American languages
  • Inupiat
  • Lakota
  • O'odham
• Austroasiatic languages
  • Tonga
• Australian Aboriginal languages
  • Bandjalang
  • Yolŋu
• Languages of China
  • Zhuang† (replaced by the digraph ng in 1986)
  • Hanyu Pinyin † used ŋ as a short hand form of ng.
• Polynesian languages (all three using either ⟨g⟩ or ⟨ng⟩ when ⟨ŋ⟩ is not available on the keyboard)
  • Anutan language
  • Eɱae language
  • Rapa Nui language
• Sami languages
  • Inari Sami
  • Lule Sami
  • Northern Sami
  • Ume Sami
  • Skolt Sami
  • Kildin Sami (during Latinisation in the 1930s)
• Turkic languages during Latinisation in the 1930s used Ꞑ ꞑ, sometimes considered a variant of eng.
  • Kazakh language† (2019 revision of the Latin alphabet; replaced with Ñ in the April 2021 proposal)
• Mapuche language (Wirizüŋun script)
• Kalam languages
  • Kalam language<ref name="Majnep">Template:Cite book</ref>

Computer encoding

Template:Uncited section Eng is encoded in Unicode as U+014A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER ENG and U+014B LATIN SMALL LETTER ENG, part of the Latin Extended-A range. In ISO 8859-4 (Latin-4) it's located at BD (uppercase) and BF (lowercase).

In African languages such as Bemba, ng' (with an apostrophe) is widely used as a substitute in media where eng is hard to reproduce.

Gallery

• An 1856 text in Gamilaraay, using a rotated capital G as a substitute for ŋ.
  An 1856 text in Gamilaraay, using a rotated capital G as a substitute for ŋ.
• Uppercase eng with the reversed-N-form (almost resembles Cyrillic "и") on the Kingston Buildings in Bath, UK.
  Uppercase eng with the reversed-N-form (almost resembles Cyrillic "и") on the Kingston Buildings in Bath, UK.
• Lowercase and uppercase eng with the reversed-N-form of the uppercase used in a 1875 Gamilaraay text.
  Lowercase and uppercase eng with the reversed-N-form of the uppercase used in a 1875 Gamilaraay text.
• Eng used in a 1875 Gamilaraay text.
  Eng used in a 1875 Gamilaraay text.

• Italic ŋ based on double-storey g as used in Horatio Hale's Ethnography and Philology (1846).
  Italic ŋ based on double-storey g as used in Horatio Hale's Ethnography and Philology (1846).
• ᶇ  ɲ ɳ: four "n"-based IPA symbols for nasal sounds.
  ᶇ  ɲ ɳ: four "n"-based IPA symbols for nasal sounds.

Forms

Note that all forms still have ŋ as a lowercase.

• First variant of capital form, appears in some sans-serif fonts
  First variant of capital form, appears in some sans-serif fonts
• Second variant, appears in most fonts
  Second variant, appears in most fonts
• Third variant resembling greek letter eta (η)
  Third variant resembling greek letter eta (η)
• Fourth variant
  Fourth variant
• Fifth variant, almost resembles Cyrillic "и" and used in Unifon
  Fifth variant, almost resembles Cyrillic "и" and used in Unifon
• Sixth variant, completely resembles Cyrillic "и"
  Sixth variant, completely resembles Cyrillic "и"

See also

• Ng (digraph)
• Nh (digraph)
• g

Similar Latin letters:

• Ƞ ƞ
• Ɲ ɲ
• N n
• M m
• Ꞑ ꞑ
• Ɱ ɱ
• Ꜧ ꜧ
• ꬼ

Similar Cyrillic letters:

• Ӈ ӈ
• Ң ң
• Ҥ ҥ

Similar Greek letters:

• Η η

References

<references/>

External links

• Practical Orthography of African Languages
• FileFormat.info – Fonts that support LATIN CAPITAL LETTER ENG (U+014A) and LATIN SMALL LETTER ENG (U+014B)