G, the Sütterlin letter g

History

The letter G is the 7th letter of the German alphabet. Phonetically, it represents a voiced velar plosive /ɡ/, which devoices to /k/ word-finally, and is pronounced as a voiceless palatal fricative /ç/ in northern German '-ig' adjectival endings.

Sütterlin lowercase g features a neat, circular bowl in the middle zone and a balanced, upright descender loop below the baseline. Capital G is constructed from an upper loop and a straight descending loop, stripped of excessive eighteenth-century flourishes for school instruction.

The letter g is central to genealogical transcription because it initiates key past-participle prefixes in vital entries: 'geboren' (born), 'getauft' (baptized), 'gestorben' (deceased), and 'getraut' (married). Identifying g accurately unlocks the narrative structure of church book entries.

One capital form of G was a C with a tail attached.^[1] Among small letters, most forms of g differ in how the descender is built: it can start on the left or the right of the body, and it can stay open or be closed.^[2] In the cursives of the fifteenth century a form was usual in which the open tail joins straight onto the top stroke of the body.^[3]