Gaf



Gaf (gāf), is the name of different Perso-Arabic letters, all representing. They are all derived from the letter kāf, with additional diacritics, such as dots and lines. There are four forms, each used in different alphabets:


 * in the Persian alphabet, Tausug written in Arabic Script
 * in the Jawi script
 * in the Pegon script
 * in Pashto

Use in Arabic
The standard practice in Egypt (for Literary and Egyptian Arabic), as in coastal Yemen and southwestern and eastern Oman, is to use ǧīm for, while in Arabic dialects like Algerian Arabic, Hejazi Arabic and Najdi Arabic it is qāf , so the name gāf can be used for the letter when trying to explain a pronunciation or a spelling of a word, whether the word is foreign or dialectal.

If not gāf, kāf has been traditionally used in the Levant and Iraq for. In Iraq, gāf is more used. In Morocco, gāf or kāf  is used. In Tunisia and Algeria, or qāf  is used.

Ġayn is preferred in the Levant (nowadays) and by Al Jazeera TV channel to represent, e.g., هونغ كونغ (Hong Kong), البرتغال (Portugal) and غاندالف (Gandalf). Foreign publications and TV channels in Arabic, e.g. Deutsche Welle and Alhurra, follow this practice.

Kaf with line
The most common form of gāf is based on kāf with an additional line. It is rarely used in Standard Arabic itself but is used to represent the sound when writing other languages.

It is frequently used in Persian, Pashto, Uyghur, Urdu and Kurdish, and is one of four Perso-Arabic letters not found in Arabic. It is also commonly used in Mesopotamian Arabic.

Kaf with ring
In Pashto, this letter is used for.

Kaf with single dot above
This gāf is derived from a variant form of kāf, with the addition of a dot. It is not used in the Arabic language itself, but is used in the Jawi script to represent.

Unicode includes two forms on this letter: one based on the standard Arabic kāf, and one based on the variant form. The latter is the preferred form.

Kaf with three dots below
This letter is derived from a form of kāf, with the addition of three dots below. It is not used in the Arabic language itself, but is used in the Pegon script for Indonesian languages to represent.

Gaf with inverted stroke
In Chechen, Kabardian, and Adyghe, the Arabic character is used to spell  or. In Chechen, ⟨⟩ is alternatively used as well.

Kaf with a dot below
This letter is derived from a form of kāf, with the addition of three a dot below. It is not used in the Arabic language itself, but is used in the Arwi alphabet for the Tamil language to represent.

Kaf with three dots


The letter / was used in Ottoman Turkish for. Both forms are based on variant forms of kāf (/), with the addition of three dots.

It is used in Berber and Moroccan Arabic to represent. Examples of its use include city names (e.g., Agadir: ) and family names (e.g., El Guerrouj: ). The preferred form is.