Devanagari letter ghha

It represents Perso-Arabic ghayn, not the aspirated consonant घ.

ग is the plain voiced stop, while घ is its voiced aspirated partner in the Devanagari consonant series. ग़ represents the Perso-Arabic letter غ, called ghayn, and its sound is conventionally written /ɣ/. The nukta changes the consonant's sound; it is not emphasis.

Some Hindi speakers pronounce ग़ like ग, merging the borrowed sound in speech. The dotted spelling can still preserve the word's connection to Perso-Arabic; Urdu written in Devanagari may also retain the distinction in its spelling.

Why is there a dot under ग in ग़?

The nukta adapts Devanagari to a borrowed consonant.

A nukta is a small mark placed below a letter to extend its sound. Here it follows ग to represent غ. Other Devanagari spellings such as क़, ख़, ज़, and फ़ use the same broad approach for other borrowed consonants.

This spelling developed as an adaptation, not a one-person invention. A report places the wider use of nukta in the 17th century, but that is not a firm first-use date for ग़. In the early 20th century, the mark became entangled with Hindi-Urdu language politics. Some Hindi newspapers and textbooks later dropped it, while Urdu-in-Devanagari writing retained dotted spellings as an orthographic cue.

How do I type ग़ without losing the dot?

Type ग followed by the nukta mark ़.

For Hindi text, orthography guidance recommends the decomposed spelling ग़. Put the nukta immediately after ग and before any vowel sign or virama, the mark that suppresses the vowel. ग़ and ग़ are canonically equivalent, but text normalization can expose the base letter and mark separately.

With a Hindi phonetic input method, type the word in Latin letters and select the candidate that keeps the nukta. If it offers only plain ग, add ़ after it; the available suggestions vary by input method.