Gimel

Gimel is the third (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order) letter of the Semitic abjads, including Arabic ǧīm ج‎, Aramaic gāmal 𐡂, Hebrew gīmel ג‎, Phoenician gīml 𐤂, and Syriac gāmal ܓ. Its sound value in the original Phoenician and in all derived alphabets, except Arabic, is a voiced velar plosive [ɡ]. In Modern Standard Arabic, it represents either a /d͡ʒ/ or /ʒ/ for most Arabic speakers except in Northern Egypt, the southern parts of Yemen and some parts of Oman where it is pronounced as the voiced velar plosive [ɡ] (see below).

In its Proto-Canaanite form, the letter may have been named after a weapon that was either a staff sling or a throwing stick (spear thrower), ultimately deriving from a Proto-Sinaitic glyph based on the hieroglyph below:

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek gamma (Γ), the Latin C, G, Ɣ and Ȝ, and the Cyrillic Г, Ґ, and Ғ.