Fyzabad (better Faizabad), a city of Oudh, on the Gogra, 78 miles E. of Lucknow by rail. Built on part of the site of Ajodhya (q.v.), it was the capital of Oudh from 1760 to 1780, but is now greatly fallen from its old-time splendour, most of its Mohammedan buildings being in decay. It maintains, however, a trade in opium, wheat, and rice. Pop. (1891) including cantonments, 78,921.—The area of Fyzabad district is 1728 sq. m., with 1,216,959 inhabitants; of Fyzabad division, 12,177 sq. m., with a pop. of 6,794,272. For the capital of Badakhshan, see FAIZABAD.

G

is the seventh letter in the Roman alphabet, and in the modern alphabets derived from it. For the history of the character, and its differentiation out of C, see ALPHABET and letter C. The earliest inscription in which G is found is the epitaph on Scipio Barbatus, which Ritschl considers was inscribed not later than 234 B.C. The substitution of G in the Roman alphabet for the disused letter Z, which occupied the seventh place in the old Italic alphabet, is believed to have been effected in the school of Spurius Carvilius, a grammarian who lived at the close of the 3d century B.C. In our minuscule g, which is derived from the Caroline script, the two loops do not belong to the majuscule form G, of which the little crook at the top of g is the sole survival. In Latin the sound of g, as in gaudeo, genus, age, was always hard, as in the English got; our soft sound, which is heard before e and i in gist, generous, and gentle, did not come into use in Latin before the 6th century A.D. In English this soft sound is confined to words of foreign origin, such as gem and gender, and is due to French influence. An initial g in words of English origin is always hard, even before e, i, and y, as in gave, get, give, and go.

The Normans could not sound our w, and substituted for it gu. Hence we have such doublets as guardian and warden, guarantee and warranty. Conversely a French g sometimes becomes w in English. Thus the old French gauffre has given us our word wafer. G is often softened to y, e, i, or a. Thus Old English genoh is now enough, gelic is alike, git is yet, geong is young, handgeweore is handiwork, sælig is silly. A final or medial g often becomes w or ow; thus the Old English fugol is now fowl, maga is maw, sorg is sorrow, laſu is law, elnboga is elbow. Sometimes g disappears altogether, as in the Old English gif, which is now if; is-gieel, which is icicle; or magister, which is master and mister. Before n we occasionally have an intrusive g, as in the words foreign, feign, sovereign, and impregnable. An Old English h sometimes becomes gh, and then lapses to f, as in enough and draught. In the case of many words, such as gate, get, and again, we owe to Caxton, under Mercian influences, the restoration of the Old English g, which for three hundred years had in Wessex been gradually lapsing into y.