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| | § 90. G. 7. Pronunciation Challenges. The American Heritage Book of English Usage. 1996 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04) |
 | | The letter G was developed by the ancient Romans from the Roman letter C, which initially represented the sound (k) as well as (g). |
 | | (In Modern French, g before e, i, and y is now pronounced (zh).) Also with the influence of French the symbol g began to replace the symbol &yogh;, which was the Irish form of Roman g that had been used to represent the hard g sound in Old English. |
 | | In Modern English, words beginning with soft g before e, i, and y are generally of French or Latin origin, such as gelid and giblet, and words beginning with hard g before e, i, and y are generally of native English or Germanic origin, such as gear and give. |
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