'gh' in Afghanistan

[A. Maberry]

The "gh" in Afghanistan represents the Arabic/Persian letter "ghayn".
There is no English equivalent.

"[Ghayn] is a gutteral g, accompanied by a grating or rattling sound, as
in gargling, of which we have no example in English. The [gamma] of the
modern Greeks, the Northumbrian r, and the French r grasseye, are
approximations to it." Wright. Grammar of the Arabic language. 3rd ed.
Cambridge, 1933.

"Ghayn, a voiced velar fricative, is almost the voiced correlative to
kh[macron]a, but the correlation is not exact, for in ghayn there is no
velar scrape. This sound, which is similar to the Parisian r, may be
produced by  pronouncing the ch of Scottish loch ( without the velar
scrape) and then by voicing the fricative." Ziadeh and Winder.
Introduction to modern Arabic. Princeton, 1957. (My old college
textbook.--ed.)

allen
maberry at u.washington.edu

On Sun, 30 Sep 2001, Thomas Paikeday wrote:

> If I may offer a conjecture in its purest form, since Persian is allied
> to Sanskrit, the "gh" could be a transliteration of the fourth letter in
> the first row of the Devanagari grid (k, kh, g, gh, ng), hence a velar
> aspirate, i.e., if I recall Grade 5 correctly. Monier-Williams
> illustrates this sound with "loghut," but does that do justice to the
> syllable boundary? Any Persian scholars among us?
>
> Dale Coye wrote:
> >
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